Understanding the org hierarchy

The org hierarchy is CultureMonkey's map of who reports to whom. It takes the manager-employee relationships you've already loaded into your employee data and turns them into a navigable tree - from your top leaders at the root all the way down to individual contributors at the leaves. Once that tree exists, survey results can roll up and down your reporting lines: every manager sees not just their own team, but everything that sits beneath them in the org chart.

This guide explains what the org hierarchy is and why it matters, how the tree gets built from manager relationships, the difference between direct and indirect reports, how to enable and set it up, the sub-admin variant for scoped admins, and how to keep it accurate so the numbers your leaders see are the right ones.

What the org hierarchy is

Most of your other structures in CultureMonkey - teams, locations, business units - are flat groupings. An employee belongs to the "Engineering" team or the "London" office, and that's a single, one-level label. The org hierarchy is different: it's a multi-level tree that mirrors your actual reporting chain.

That tree is assembled from one piece of data you already maintain: each employee's manager. Every employee record can point to another employee as their manager. Chain those pointers together and you get the full org chart - a leader with no manager sits at the top (the root), their direct reports hang beneath them, those reports' reports hang beneath them, and so on down to the front line.

The hierarchy view lives at app.culturemonkey.io/org_hierarchy. On the left you get the tree itself, which you can expand and drill into manager by manager. On the right you get a results table that shows, for each manager you select, how their reporting line is participating in a survey and how it's scoring.

Why it matters

A flat report answers "how is the Engineering team doing?" The org hierarchy answers a more powerful question: "how is everything under this leader doing?" That distinction matters for a few reasons.

• Results roll up reporting lines. A director doesn't just want their handful of direct reports - they want a rolled-up picture of the hundreds of people in their part of the business. The hierarchy makes that roll-up automatic.
• Accountability follows the org chart. Engagement is a management responsibility. When results are organized by who reports to whom, every manager can see their slice and own it, and senior leaders can see how their sub-orgs compare.
• It scales. For a 5,000-person company, browsing team-by-team is hopeless. Drilling down a tree - start at the top, expand the branch that needs attention - is how large organizations actually navigate their results.
• It separates the team from the org. Because the hierarchy tracks the full chain, it can show a manager their direct team and their total downstream org side by side, so they can tell whether a problem is on their own desk or deeper in the branch.

How manager-employee relationships build the tree

Every employee record carries a manager - a link to another employee who is their reporting manager. That one link is the raw material for the entire hierarchy.

Here's how the pieces fit together:

• An employee whose manager is empty is treated as a top-level node - a root of the tree. This is usually your CEO or the top of a division.
• An employee with a manager becomes a child of that manager in the tree.
• Any employee who has at least one person reporting to them is recognized as a manager and can be drilled into. Everyone else is a leaf.

CultureMonkey walks this chain recursively. Starting from the top-level people, it follows the reporting links downward, level by level, assembling a tree where each manager node holds the list of people beneath them. Each node also records its level - how many steps down from the top it sits - so the depth of the org chart is preserved.

Because the tree is computed from live relationships, it always reflects the reporting structure as it stands. When you look at results for a specific survey, the hierarchy is captured as a snapshot tied to that survey, so historical reports stay stable even as your live org chart keeps changing.

A worked example

Suppose your data looks like this:

• Dana - no manager (top of the tree)
• Sam - manager is Dana
• Priya - manager is Sam
• Lee - manager is Sam
• Alex - manager is Priya

CultureMonkey builds:

`` Dana └── Sam ├── Priya │ └── Alex └── Lee ``

Now Dana's rolled-up org is Sam, Priya, Lee, and Alex - four people. Sam's rolled-up org is Priya, Lee, and Alex - three people. Priya's is just Alex. Each of them, when they open the hierarchy, sees the branch they own.

Direct vs indirect reports

This is the most important distinction in the whole feature, so it's worth being precise. For any manager, CultureMonkey splits their reporting line into two groups, and shows both.

In the manager breakdown table, each manager appears as two rows: one for their direct reports and one for their indirect (full downstream) org. Every column - total participants, respondents, participation rate, and each driver score - is shown for both. That lets a manager answer two different questions at once:

• How is my own team doing? → read the direct row.
• How is my entire organization doing? → read the indirect row.

Enabling the org hierarchy

The org hierarchy is gated behind an account-level setting, so it won't appear until it's switched on for your organization.

1. 1Confirm your manager data is loaded - the hierarchy needs the manager field populated on your employees before it can build a meaningful tree. Get this right first.
2. 2Turn on the org hierarchy - enable the org hierarchy setting for your account. If you don't see the option, ask your CultureMonkey contact about enabling it.
3. 3Enable it for sub-admins (optional) - if you want scoped admins to use it too, turn on the separate sub-admin variant (covered below).
4. 4Open the hierarchy - navigate to app.culturemonkey.io/org_hierarchy and confirm the tree renders with your leaders at the top.

Access is permission-checked on every visit. The org hierarchy is enabled per account, and separately for scoped sub-admins. Anyone without the matching permission is redirected away with an "unauthorized access" message rather than seeing the page.

The sub-admin variant

CultureMonkey distinguishes between two admin scopes, and the org hierarchy respects that distinction with two separate settings:

A sub-admin is an administrator whose access is limited to specific teams, locations, business units, or business groups - for example, a regional HR partner who should only see their region. When the sub-admin variant is enabled, those admins can open the hierarchy, but everything they see is automatically filtered to their permitted scope. They can't drill into branches of the org that fall outside the teams and locations they're assigned to.

This means you can safely give a divisional or regional leader the hierarchy view without exposing the rest of the company. The two settings are independent: you can enable the hierarchy for company-wide admins only, for sub-admins only, or for both.

How to set it up and keep it accurate

Because the hierarchy is derived from your manager field, "setting it up" is really "keeping your reporting data clean." A few practices keep the tree trustworthy.

1. 1Populate every manager - anyone missing a manager becomes a root node. If people who should report to someone show up at the top of the tree, their manager field is blank or wrong.
2. 2Point managers at real employees - a manager link must resolve to an actual employee record. Broken or mistyped references leave people orphaned.
3. 3Watch for cycles - a healthy org chart flows in one direction. If A reports to B and B reports to A, the chain has no top; keep reporting lines pointing upward.
4. 4Update on reorgs - when someone changes managers, update their record. CultureMonkey refreshes the hierarchy when an employee's manager, team, location, or business unit changes, so accurate inputs mean an accurate tree.
5. 5Sync from your HRIS where possible - if you feed employee data from an HR system, let it own the manager field so reorganizations flow through automatically rather than being patched by hand.

When you're viewing results for a survey, remember that the hierarchy is snapshotted against that survey. That's intentional - it keeps past reports stable - but it also means the tree you see inside an older survey reflects the org as it was when that survey was captured, not necessarily today's structure. For the current picture, use the live org view.

How it powers manager dashboards and filtering

Once the tree is in place, the org hierarchy becomes the engine behind manager-level reporting.

• Drill-down navigation. Start at the top of the tree and expand branch by branch. Selecting a manager loads their participation and score breakdown on the right - without you having to build a filter by hand.
• Rolled-up participation. For each manager you get total participants, how many have responded, and the participation rate - split into that manager's direct team and their full indirect org. It's the fastest way to see which branches are answering and which are quiet.
• Rolled-up driver scores. The same direct/indirect split applies to your engagement driver scores, so a leader can compare their immediate team's scores against the whole organization beneath them and spot where a branch is dragging.
• Scoped filtering. Layer on team, location, business unit, or business group filters to focus the whole view - and for sub-admins, those filters are automatically combined with their permitted scope so they only ever see their own part of the org.
• Export. You can export the manager breakdown for offline analysis or sharing, with the same anonymity protections applied.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to draw the org chart manually?

No. There's no chart to draw. The hierarchy is built entirely from the manager field on your employees. Get that field right and the tree builds itself.

Why is someone showing up at the top of the tree?

Because their manager field is empty. Anyone without a manager is treated as a top-level (root) node. If they should report to someone, fill in their manager and the hierarchy will place them correctly.

What's the difference between direct and indirect reports?

Direct reports are the people whose manager is this manager - the immediate team. Indirect reports are everyone in the manager's full downstream tree, at every level below them. The indirect group includes the direct group plus their reports, and their reports' reports, and so on.

Can a team lead or regional admin use the hierarchy without seeing the whole company?

Yes - that's what the sub-admin variant is for. When it's enabled, a scoped admin sees only the portion of the tree within their assigned teams, locations, and business units, never the full org.

The hierarchy looks out of date after a reorg. Why?

When you view a specific survey, the tree is a snapshot captured for that survey, so it reflects the org as it was then. For the current structure, use the live view - and make sure the affected employees' manager fields have actually been updated.

Does rolling results up a manager's line break anonymity?

No. Anonymity thresholds are enforced on every direct and indirect roll-up. If a group is too small, its row is hidden rather than shown, so no individual's response can be inferred.

Where to go next

• Get the manager field right: Set up manager-employee relationships
• Understand admin scopes: Understanding roles
• Organize the flat groupings too: Add and manage teams
• A hidden branch? Why can't I see results yet?