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The term "charts" refers to maps that navigate through patterns of some kind, whether it is used for fishermen that need nautical charts, or in this case, managers who need to chart his or her employees. Charts help organize the workplace, while outlining the direction of management control of subordinates. Organizational charts are increasing in popularity, especially when companies reorganize, embark on an M&A (mergers and acquisitions), or need to visually manage a large number of employees. It can be assumed that Egyptians were some of the first people to use charts to illustrate the division of labor they employed for their large projects like the Pyramids1. In American history, Daniel C. McCallum is the most well-known creator. During 1855, McCallum was a superintendent on the Erie Railroad in New York. He found the Erie Railroad Company facing financial strain and productivity slumps due to a lack of sufficient management on the railroad. He decided to split management responsibility between the superintendents by having each manage a certain number of employees within his department. These superintendents would write weekly reports for upper management, who would in turn, review the reports and give further direction to the superintendents to pass on2. McCallum's charts included lines connecting the superintendents to the subordinates, while keeping them structured within each separate division. His chart sketches were thought to be the first recorded business organizational charts in America. They resembled family trees much like the current org charts seen today. He created organizational charts covering over 500 miles of railroad and their corresponding employees3. The Erie Railroad Company was one of the most successful railroads. Other railroads followed McCallum's careful company planning ideas and copied his organizational charting technique. Years later, another man named Alfred Chandler continued to understand and publish the importance of management hierarchy in the workplace. Born in 1918, Chandler was a Harvard graduate turned professor. In his book titled, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, he described how implementing a hierarchal structure in an organization would increase productivity and ultimately lower costs. The structure would allow a logical chain of command and would increase power, authority and company growth under the top management and their subordinates. He is known for his ideas about the proper distribution of responsibilities within an organization4. Since then, organizational charts have been used in the majority of work fields, including, but not limited to; education, government, healthcare, food and beverage, communications, retail, nonprofit, technology, local, state, energy and gas, and transportation corporations. Org charts can be used in a company of less than 50 employees to companies managing over 7,500 employees including international personnel. Over the years, there have been many tools for creating organizational charts, including Microsoft Visio and PowerPoint. Today, specific software is available to create organizational charts for all company sizes. No matter the software, what was once was considered an evolutionary tool for workplace management has now turned into a necessity for any organization.
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