Hierarchies
Hierarchies are ways of organizing the organizational structure to reflect the different roll-ups an EX program can have. There are two common hierarchies:
Employee hierarchy
Employee hierarchy include multiple types of roll-ups such as supervisory structure (“who reports to who”), cost structure (“who pays for who”), geography/location, brand/company, department, job category, etc.
- Brand roll-up
- Job roll-up
- Location roll-up
- Supervisory organization roll-up
Consider the following example that shows an employee hierarchy with different roll-ups:
Judy Smith is a Director of Software engineering for Orion and is based in New York. She is a Level 5 manager, and has four direct reports. Judy reports to Stephen Johnson, the head of Software engineering.
Judy’s feedback is tied to the employee unit Judy Smith. The unit Judy Smith rolls up the following Unit groups:Job-roll up
| Job title | Job family |
|---|---|
| Director, Software engineering | Engineering |
Location roll-up
| Office | City | Country |
|---|---|---|
| New York | New York | United States |
Supervisory organization roll-up
| Top-down | Bottom-up |
|---|---|
| Org level 1 — Operating team (Kimberley S.) |
Sup. manager — Software engineering (Stephen J.) |
| Org level 2 — CTO org (Mike P.) | Sup. org level 1 — Engineering (Rick T.) |
|
Org level 3 — Engineering (Rick T.) | Sup. org level 2 — CTO Org (Mike P.) |
| Org level 4 — Software engineering (Stephen J.) | |
| Org level 5 - 10 — Not applicable, since Judy is a Level 5 manager. Note: Employee units should not roll-up to their own position in the supervisory org roll-up (that is, the unit Judy Smith should not roll-up to the Unit group Engineering Operations (Judy S.)). Judy’s feedback should only roll-up to groups above her in the hierarchy. |
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Top-down — Mandatory. It shows the entire reporting structure of the organization from the top down, starting from the Operating team to the team the employee belongs to. Use the top-down view for:
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Filters — Works well when used as hierarchical filters and allows users to navigate the entire hierarchy through a single filter.
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Ranking — Allows for ranking at different levels (for example, rank all Level 6 managers).
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Data access — Used to generate a "hidden" Unit group (Data Access (Hidden UG)) for data access permission. This Unit group is not exposed to end-users (hence "hidden"). It consolidates all levels of the hierarchy under a single parent Unit, allowing users to access data for all employees that directly or indirectly roll up to them.
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Bottom-up — Shows the employee's supervisory manager (Sup. Manager), their manager's manager (Sup. Org 1, Sup. Org 2), and so on. Use the bottom-up view for:
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Alerts — If alerts are used in a non-confidential EX program, alerts may be routed to managers in the bottom up hierarchy (for example, alert notification sent to Sup. Manager and Sup+1 Manager).
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Data access extension — Some clients may want managers to compare their team's feedback to the scores and Text analytics Topics/Themes from their supervisory manager's org (that is, all direct and indirect reports of the user's manager). To achieve this, a separate data view (My Manager's Org) can be set up and data access can be provided by referencing the the Sup. Manager Unit group from the bottom-up view.
Note: Typically, three levels of the Bottom-up hierarchy is sufficient for the above purposes.
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- Top-down
- Bottom-up
Organization file
The following image shows an example of an Organization file for Employee hierarchy:
Team hierarchy
Team hierarchy include multiple types of roll-ups such supervisory structure ("who reports to who"), cost structure ("who pays for who"), geography/location, brand/company, department, job category, etc.
Team hierarchy starts one level above compared to an employee hierarchy. In the employee hierarchy, the employee providing feedback is the unit. In the team hierarchy, the team that the employee belongs to (that is, the direct manager’s team) is the unit.
- Brand roll-up
- Job roll-up
- Location roll-up
- Supervisory organization roll-up
Consider the following example that shows a team hierarchy with different roll-ups:
Judy Smith is a Director of Software engineering for Orion and is based in New York. She is a Level 5 manager, and has four direct reports. Judy reports to Stephen Johnson, the head of Software engineering.
Judy’s feedback is tied to the team unit Software Engineering (Stephen J.). Judy’s direct reports’ feedback is tied to the team unit Engineering Operations (Judy S.). The unit Engineering Operations (Judy S.) rolls up to the following Unit groups:
Job roll-up
Job family — Engineering. Judy’s direct reports have different job titles, but share the same job family.
Location roll-up
Country — United States. Judy’s direct reports are in different cities/offices in the US.
Supervisory organization roll-up
| Top-down | Bottom-up |
|---|---|
| Org level 1 — Operating team (Kimberley S.) |
Sup. manager — Software engineering (Stephen J.) |
| Org level 2 — CTO org (Mike P.) | Sup. org level 1 — Engineering (Rick T.) |
|
Org level 3 — Engineering (Rick T.) | Sup. org level 2 — CTO Org (Mike P.) |
| Org level 4 — Software engineering (Stephen J.) | |
| Org level 5 — Engineering operations (Judy S.) | |
| Org level 6 - 10 — Not applicable. Note: Team units should should roll-up to their own position in the supervisory org roll-up (that is, the unit Engineering Operations (Judy S.)) should roll-up to the Unit group Engineering Operations (Judy S.). |
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Top-down — Mandatory. It shows the entire reporting structure of the organization from the top down, starting from the Operating team to the team the employee belongs to. Use the top-down view for:
-
Filters — Works well when used as hierarchical filters and allows users to navigate the entire hierarchy through a single filter.
-
Ranking — Allows for ranking at different levels (for example, rank all Level 6 managers).
-
Data access — Used to generate a "hidden" Unit group (Data Access (Hidden UG)) for data access permission. This Unit group is not exposed to end-users (hence "hidden"). It consolidates all levels of the hierarchy under a single parent Unit, allowing users to access data for all employees that directly or indirectly roll up to them.
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-
Bottom-up — Shows the employee's supervisory manager (Sup. Manager), their manager's manager (Sup. Org 1, Sup. Org 2), and so on. Use the bottom-up view for:
-
Alerts — If alerts are used in a non-confidential EX program, alerts may be routed to managers in the bottom up hierarchy (for example, alert notification sent to Sup. Manager and Sup+1 Manager).
-
Data access extension — Some clients may want managers to compare their team's feedback to the scores and Text analytics Topics/Themes from their supervisory manager's org (that is, all direct and indirect reports of the user's manager). To achieve this, a separate data view (My Manager's Org) can be set up and data access can be provided by referencing the the Sup. Manager Unit group from the bottom-up view.
Note: Typically, three levels of the Bottom-up hierarchy is sufficient for the above purposes.
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- Top-down
- Bottom-up
Organization file
The following image shows an example of an Organization file for Team hierarchy:
Employee hierarchy versus Team hierarchy
This table shows when to use an Employee hierarchy (where the Employees are the Units) or a Team hierarchy (where the Teams are the Units).
| Employee hierarchy | Team hierarchy |
|---|---|
| A single hierarchy can support multiple EX and CX programs where feedback is tied to the employee related to the transaction. For very large programs (>400k employees), scale could be a concern; contact the Solutions Architecture team for your particular program. | Better supports very large programs (>400,000 employees) by reducing the number of Units and Unit groups. |
| All segmentation information about an employee mey be stored in the Organizational hierarchy and used for filtering and benchmarking in reports. | The Organizational hierarchy may only include segments that apply to all members of the team. Only segments in the hierarchy may be used for benchmarking. Other segments at the employee-level (such as gender, race, tenure, etc.) should be added to the Feedback invitation file and stored as Event fields. |
Position-based versus manager-based roll ups
Unit group identifiers for the org roll-up may be defined using either the Position ID or the Manager's Employee ID.
Position-based roll up — Unit group identifiers are defined using the Position ID. Position IDs are unique identifiers for each position of a group of employees in the organizational hierarchy. It is different from the manager's Employee ID. Position IDs do not change when the manager of the group changes. As a result, feedback is associated with the position at each level of the organization. For example, Judy's feedback is associated with Software Engineering, Engineering, CTO Org, and the Operating Team.
This is the recommended approach as it allows for employee feedback to be viewed by position, without being impacted by changes to the manager.
Manager-based roll up — Unit group identifiers are defined using the employee ID of the team manager (Manager's Employee ID). As a result, feedback is associated with individual managers at each level of the org. For example, Judy's feedback is associated with Stephen, Rick, Mike, and Kimberley.
Use this only if Position IDs are not available.
- Position-based roll up
- Manager-based roll up
This image shows an example of Judy's org roll-up (top-down) using Position IDs:
This example shows Judy's top-down hierarchy using Manager IDs:
When using a persistent setting, Position or Manager-based roll ups have the following impact in both reporting data access and benchmarking:
| Position ID | Manager ID |
|---|---|
Managers are assigned reporting data access to the position they currently hold. As a result:
| Managers are assigned reporting data access using their Employee ID (Manager ID). As a result:
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| HRBPs and division leads can be assigned reporting data access to the position(s) they support using the Position ID. | HRBPs and division leads may need to be assigned reporting data access using other Manager IDs of managers they are supporting or Unit groups (for example, department, division, business unit). |
| If Position IDs change (such as during re-organizations), a historical data update may be required | |
Managers can benchmark their score against different positions in the organization:
| Managers can benchmark their score against different managers in the organization:
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