When you’re employing 29,000 employees in 76 countries, org charting becomes serious business. That’s why the team at Novo Nordisk, the healthcare company, went to market to find a more manageable org charting solution.
Keeping org charts up to date is hard
Managing charts for 3 continents of offices was a very big issue for the Novo Nordisk team. By the time an org chart had been created, it was already out-of-date and inaccurate.
Because of this fact, most employees didn’t have access to any form of useful org chart, despite the efforts of the HR team who were spending the equivalent of one full-time employee purely on preparing and updating org charts.
Not only is this inconvenient for staff, it’s a hindrance for decision makers when it comes to organisational design. How can you create the perfect workplace dynamic when you can’t get a snapshot of the organisation today?
Automatic updates straight from the source
The best solution for Novo Nordisk was to find a way to visualise their HR data source of truth, which is SAP. Modelling the data pulled from SAP as required would give the most up-to-date information possible.
Navigo org charts provided the perfect solution, as it allowed Novo Nordisk’s HR team to create useful, visually appealing charts with ease, and then set up an automatic refresh to reflect any changes from SAP straight from the source. The strong integration between the two systems made the process 100% automated after the initial setup.
The Result? Instant org charts with zero effort
Now, staff can instantly access org charts for their team, country, or the whole organisation instantly. If the HR team want to lock down sensitive information or structures, they can do so based on the employees access rights.
The only time HR need to prepare a new report is when they need to perform org restructures or prepare a new kind of visual report. Once the new charts are made, they continue to update themselves automatically.
“Creating and updating our charts saves us time equivalent to one full-time employee — time that we can now spend on more value-adding activities,” says Morton Rossing, People Systems Manager at Novo Nordisk.
“We can also easily prepare an up-to-date chart and save it as a PowerPoint or PDF, to send externally to customers or suppliers.”
Unexpected Bonus: Better HR Data Accuracy
“With greater visibility of the information across the organisation worldwide, people are more likely to let us know if there are any incorrect details, says Morton.
“This has significantly improved our data quality and, consequently, has enhanced the value of dependent systems.”
The key learning from Novo Nordisk is that data alone is useless. What organisations really need are:
- Easy-to-understand, visual reports
- Up-to-date information
- As much visibility as possible
- Automated processes to provide data, not slow, manual effort
At Novo Nordisk, Navigo org charts provided all of these benefits and more. The library of charts and reports the HR team can create and provide instantly is constantly growing, giving decision makers better insights and freeing up more time for HR to focus on high-value activities.
To learn how we can help streamline a long list of HR processes for your organisation, book a chat with our workforce specialist today.
