One of the features that we are really proud of – and which forms the backbone of our permissions, security and compliance provision – is our robust and customisable Organisational Structure. 

Having a full Org Tree on the platform allows us to really customise your setup in ways that take some of the headache out of administration by automating certain allocations and providing information in a simple way for whoever needs access.

Visibility of Information and People

Let’s get a bit technical for a moment – the Org Structure on an Inform People platform is made up from ‘nodes’ for every location in the business and also all the responsibility levels above it. For example, at the top level you may have Head Office, Distribution and Stores. Inside each of those you could have as many management levels as required down to single locations or in certain cases departments at the lowest level. 

These all fall into a really neat Org Tree with simple navigation both down the levels and back up to the one above. 

At each ‘node’ on the Organisational Structure your people’s accounts are allocated – so that the majority of your front line staff are grouped together in their location, their managers on the level above, with Area and Regional managers above that. These locations can have a variety of ‘attributes’ saved to them too which we will dig into in the Permissions, Characteristics and Reporting sections below. This information also gives visibility to the hierarchy and contact details stored in the User Directory if contact needs to be made outside of existing channels. 

Permissions

If you are worried about information security or that having everyone on one system would give too much power to those who haven’t progressed to that level of responsibility yet. Don’t be! The benefits of having a rigorous structure in place allows for accessibility and permissions to be linked to location. 

What does this mean for your people?

• Reporting access based on location: nothing for those at the lowest levels, just their location data for Managers, everyone in their Area for AMs and an even wider reach for any accounts above. 
• Knowledge restrictions – Have you got a Fire Risk Assessment or other document that only needs to be viewed by people linked to a certain location? No problem, lock it down to only those responsible and de-clutter the wider Knowledge Base for other locations. 
• When promotions occur, such as an existing Manager becoming an Area Manager, it’s as simple as changing their job title and location in the system to open up their additional access. This is all automatic based on the system-wide rules we set up to keep your admin as simple as possible and allows your people to focus on what matters to them. 
• Permissions are also restricted so that a manager cannot move anyone outside their own location as they don’t have edit access upwards on the tree, moves such as this need senior access. We are aware that human errors happen when making administration updates so we limit the impact with the Org Structure. For example, a job title change is made by accident and ‘Area Manager’ is selected instead of ‘Assistant Manager’ – whilst their permissions may update, they wouldn’t get access to the Area’s data and accounts unless their account is moved within the Org Structure too (which as mentioned above, could not be an edit made by a peer at the same level). 

Location Characteristics

Each location ‘node’ can also have information stored at each level, viewable on the platform and influencing access behind the scenes. This could be as simple as an image of the storefront, the direct phone number or email address, and attributes that affect access. 

• Some of these might be inheritable – such as whether or not a store is in an Area that is within Scotland and has a separate approach to certain Age Restricted Products, the system would therefore assign all people in all locations tagged with ‘Scotland’ with this attribute and supply the correct training. 
• Other attributes might be very specific to a location such as whether they have an escalator or lift – these are set at the lowest level but still have the option of whether they are ‘location only’ or ‘inheritable to people’ – this would depend on whether there are actions relating to these characteristics such as training or auditing.
• Attributes set against locations also allow for certain Health and Safety checks to be restricted to only those affected – if only some of your locations have a cafe, compactor, or certain types of equipment – then only these locations will be asked to perform the relevant tasks associated with these characteristics.
• Eliminate messy and difficult to update spreadsheets where this information might otherwise be stored. These can be a nightmare to version control or be acknowledged company-wide when a location changes Area. 
• Storing contact information against a location in a digital org structure, accessible by the whole company, makes a big difference in alleviating data silos in head office, makes it clear who managers are, and allows direct contact between departments that otherwise might require a go-between conversation bringing your company closer together.

Reporting

Within the Org Structure viewer on the platform, many of the modules have their reporting embedded so that filtering by location is kept as simple as possible – only showing data within defined permissions and with click through access to the levels below. 

With personal attributes also added into your people’s profiles, there is the chance to also use their location within the Org Structure report on how many people have certain skills or responsibilities within your full company. This can then be filtered by area or specific stores to identify any skills gaps and plan in advancement pathways or emergency cover. We particularly encourage this with regards to Fire Marshals and First Aid Training so that you can have immediate access to your overall numbers of trained people and exactly where they are. 

Get Organised

As you can see, having a detailed org structure is not just an exercise in administration but provides additional security and communication pathways.

If you’re looking to improve your health and safety, compliance, communication and performance management with a platform that has a strong foundation, we are all ears. Get in contact today so we can discuss your pressure points, the first fix and the future.