In this episode of Punk Rock HR, I’m joined by Ian White. He’s the founder, CEO and CTO at ChartHop, a people analytics platform that helps business leaders plan and build better organizations. I love what ChartHop is doing because their company makes it really clear why having an organizational chart matters — and solves the basic problem plaguing most organizations: Who reports to who and where is everybody located?
The org chart is one of the most complex pieces of your talent strategy. Years ago, my cousin Katie and I had a few too many drinks on a Friday night, and (because we’re nerds) we decided to build an org chart for our family. We pulled out Microsoft PowerPoint (circa 2004) and started listing relationships — but it wasn’t long before there were more than we could fit on the screen.
It turns out the tools we used simply weren’t sufficient for visualizing the complex relationships within my family. And if we tried to do that exercise now, when my family has grown and evolved, it would be many times more complicated than it was back then. But that’s true for most organizations, too, isn’t it? Most org charts just get unwieldy, and we don’t have the tools to allow them to grow in a way that makes sense for the business.
So if you — like me — have ever worked in HR and want to wrap your arms around who’s in the company and what exactly they do for the business, this episode’s the one for you. Sit back and enjoy this fun conversation with Ian White.
Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
What You Can Visualize, You Can Understand (and Influence)
Your workforce is composed of millions of data points. But storing and interpreting that data? That’s always been a bit more challenging. “Being able to visualize your people starts with having the data,” Ian says. “Anyone who’s worked in HR knows your data can be a total and absolute mess.”
It’s still standard for HR to store workforce data in databases or spreadsheets to generate org charts. But spreadsheets don’t translate that data in ways we can understand.
We can’t really see what we’re working with until we visualize that data in a way that makes sense to our human brains. “Pulling it together and helping you visualize it, helping you see it in one place is really powerful,” Ian says, “because visuals bring understanding.”
ChartHop’s HRIS integration solves that problem. The tool allows you to visualize your workforce structure and even take a nuanced look at your entire workforce in terms of tenure, compensation, engagement or diversity, among other metrics.
Once you understand the makeup of your workforce and how trends are expressed in your org chart, you’re empowered to take action. “We really built it to be as collaborative as possible,” Ian says.
Seeing where specific demographics sit in the organization, for example, or which groups have the highest engagement, provides a starting point for implementing change.
Why Transparency Matters
The most significant benefit of a clear org chart is greater clarity into the makeup of your organization. But that clarity doesn’t need to stay within the HR department. Sharing that information with the workforce helps each employee see how other teams and departments are structured and how they fit into the bigger picture. “When you can give everybody that context, it’s actually very powerful for everybody,” Ian says. “You start to understand how the work that you do connects and relates to the rest of the org.”
Of course, shining a light on the darkest corners of your business can be a bit scary, but Ian says that’s a normal reaction. There’s always some worry that business leaders might react negatively to something that transparency reveals or drive some other disruption to daily work. But those fears are typically unfounded, and the benefits of transparency outweigh any potential risks.
Without transparency, employees fill in the gaps on their own — and that can lead to some expensive miscommunications. “If the finance team thinks that three open headcounts are approved, and your recruiting team thinks that eight are approved, surfacing that on the org chart can actually help have a conversation between those two departments and clear that up,” Ian says.
Clarifying What’s Most Important
A recent rebrand amid massive expansion called for Ian and the ChartHop team to hone in on what matters most. “What we did was a really productive exercise of going back to what’s foundational or fundamental about our brand,” Ian says. “What do we exist to do?”
And what did Ian settle on as his ultimate goals? “Helping people manage and support their people is really important,” Ian says. “Both manage and support — they go together.” The ChartHop brand is all about providing transparent people data to help knit together your organization. That transparency empowers employees to understand how their work impacts the rest of the business and provides a line of sight to growth opportunities.
“We really want to help every single organization in the world know itself better, and not just become more profitable — although we certainly hope we can do that — but help give employees a better sense of belonging,” Ian says. Seeing their place in the business can give employees a sense of ownership and pride in their work, helping them feel more connected and at home in your company.
[bctt tweet=”‘Pulling (HR data) together and helping you visualize it, helping you see it in one place is really powerful because visuals bring understanding.’ ~ Ian White. Tune in to the latest episode of #PunkRockHR!” via=”no”]
People in This Episode
- Ian White: Personal LinkedIn, ChartHop LinkedIn, ChartHop Instagram, Personal Twitter, ChartHop Twitter
Full Transcript
Laurie Ruettimann:
This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Hey everybody. I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. My guest today is Ian White. He’s the founder and CEO of ChartHop. If you’re into org charts, well, I don’t know who you are because nobody’s into org charts, but you’re going to want to stick around for this conversation with Ian because he has revolutionized a new way to look at organizations by creating a system that generates transparent people information. That’s right. He’s got the world’s first org management platform that’s really a new system of record for people leaders. I love what ChartHop is all about because it solves this problem in most organizations, which is who reports to whom and where is everybody located? So if you’re like me and you worked in HR, and you want to just wrap your arms around who’s in the company and what they do for a living, well, sit back and enjoy this fun conversation with Ian White.
Hey Ian, welcome to the podcast.
Ian White:
Hey, great to be here.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I’m super pumped you’re here. You’ve got some good stuff happening. But before we get started talking about all of that, why don’t you briefly tell us who you are and what you’re all about?
Ian White:
Sure. So my name’s Ian White. I am the founder and CEO of ChartHop. We are a people analytics platform that helps companies manage and support their employees by bringing all of your people data together and helping better plan and build better organizations. So I’ve been building ChartHop for a few years. We launched out of beta a little over two years ago, and we’ve been growing through the pandemic as a fully remote team, 200 people now. And it’s been a great journey.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Ian, I love the idea of a people analytics tool to understand who’s in your organization, what they do, how they contribute, all that kind of stuff. Years ago, my cousin Katie and I got super drunk, and it was a Friday night, and we’re nerds, right? So we’re sitting around my apartment, and we decided to use Microsoft PowerPoint in like 2004 to make an org chart of our family. And it turns out the screen was not wide enough for all that janky relationships, but that’s so true for most organizations. If you were to try to do an org chart, it gets unwieldy. So how do you solve that problem at the very basic level?
Ian White:
That’s exactly right. And what’s even more so is understanding how the organization is changing over time.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh yeah. Yeah. Especially my family, that organization, how that changed over time. Right.
Ian White:
The family definitely changes over time. I have a couple little kids, so it changes very quickly, but starting with being able to visualize your people starts with having the data. I think anyone who’s worked in HR knows your data can be a total and absolute mess, but pulling it together and helping you visualize it, helping you see it in one place, is really powerful because visuals bring understanding. That’s how we understand things. We don’t understand things in spreadsheets. We don’t understand them in databases. What we understand is when we can bring people data together.
If you use ChartHop, you turn on a sync integration with your HRIS, or payroll systems or applicant tracking systems, and immediately you just get this visual of your organization that you can jump around in. You can share with everybody in the company, and you can actually superimpose any kind of data, from people’s compensation to their tenure, performance, or engagement. Being able to look at the team by diversity or understand and surface something like gender in a way that can be really impactful. You really get this sort of magical view of your organization.
And then it’s not good enough, I think, to be able to view data, but then to be able to take action on it is what’s really important. And so, we really built it to be as collaborative as possible.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I love the idea of ChartHop, and I love what it does in the marketplace. And I know you’ve got some cool things on the horizon, but before we get to all of that, one of my earliest memories was working in human resources and working with an org chart that was fundamentally wrong because our data was wrong. Right? So how often is that just the first problem you have to solve?
Ian White:
I think it’s often foundational to get the data right. I’ve seen organizations before where people don’t even know who they’re reporting to.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Or multiple people, and how does that get represented? Yeah.
Ian White:
Sure.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah.
Ian White:
That’s exactly right. And so I think when you can create a certain amount of transparency, a healthy organizational transparency, so people can really see where are the open positions in the organization? How does this other department that I don’t always interact with fit together? When you can give everybody that context, it’s actually very powerful for everybody because you start to understand how the work that you do connects and relates to the rest of the org.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I tend to be a cynic, and sometimes I think there’s a lot of opacity around an organization because it gives people power in really stupid and microscopic ways, but they’ll take it, right? And so, do you see that when you’re onboarding a new client or consulting with new prospects? Are there people who are just like, “No, no, no, we don’t want transparency. We like things the way they are.”
Ian White:
It’s not unheard of. I do think that sometimes transparency can be a little scary for some because it’s, “Hey, if people know about something going on here or this part of the organization, how are they going to react?”
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah, are they going to take it away?
Ian White:
Right. But the reality is I think people, when they’re not sharing information, fill in the gaps with their own imaginings. And so if you can actually start by just getting everybody on the same page, if the finance team thinks that three open headcounts are approved, and your recruiting team thinks that eight are approved, surfacing that on the org track can actually help have a conversation between those two departments and clear that up.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Agree. You could address that in a healthy way thanks to ChartHop, or you can be like me and just ignore all that and do whatever you want to do. That’s how most HR professionals tend to go. Well, listen, I am really curious because most people do what they love, especially when they’re entrepreneurs like you and they have an origin story. So why ChartHop?
Ian White:
I’ve been building technology for a very long time, and that led me to starting startups because I moved to New York almost 20 years ago, and that was the thing to do. I built lots of different companies, and one of them was a company called Sailthru that scaled up very quickly. And so, I was the founding CTO there. And we went from two people to a couple hundred in a very short period of time. Maybe not quite as short a period of time as ChartHop has, but in that two to three-year time zone. And we were hiring. We were scaling. We were figuring out processes. We were really doing all the things you have to do as you scale an organization.
And for me, I had managed teams before, but this was the first time really having to lead a large and growing organization. And it felt to me that the most important thing we had to do as a company was build a great people strategy, build a great culture. And the tools that existed to do that, to help me just organize and understand and visualize my organization, didn’t exist. There was HR software that lets you usually store information, but it didn’t really help you get the answers you wanted to have. So I’d wind up pulling everything together on a bunch of spreadsheets, like you do.
HR people have a million spreadsheets for absolutely everything, and spreadsheets have lots of problems. They don’t create transparency. They don’t automatically update. They’re very difficult to share information without it being all or nothing. And I’m an engineer. I said, “Maybe I can build something.” And I really built the thing that I wished I had had scaling my last company. And I think one of the things about ChartHop today is I’m probably one of the biggest power users of our software because we’re growing so fast ourselves.
So I’ve always loved building technology that solves people problems. I think tech is only interesting insofar as it actually helps people, or it’s not interesting for its own sake. And so I just love going to all these different people, teams and organizations, and being able to really show something new that they’ve never seen before that can actually solve a whole bunch of problems.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I know you’re passionate about solving people-related problems, and I actually admire that, and you’re doing something cool these days, especially around ChartHop Basic. So tell me about that.
Ian White:
So ChartHop Basic is something that I’ve wanted to do since I started the company, which is to make every company, every company should be able to have a transparent or a chart for everyone in the company. And that should be something that is just a fundamental part of the tools that every single company has.
Laurie Ruettimann:
We’re not breaking ground here, right? You should know who you work with, who works for you, and who you report to. Yeah, I’m with you. Why don’t companies have that for real?
Ian White:
A lot of the times, it comes down to technology. It comes down to not having the time to keep it updated. There are lots of different challenges. And so I said, “Listen, why don’t we just make a version of ChartHop free? Just make it possible for every single company in the world to sign up, to start sharing a transparent version of their org with their organization and just get started?” Just sign up, turn on a sync with your payroll system, and you get this amazing visualization. You can actually share it with up to 150 people throughout your organization, again, for free. And just wanting to launch that is definitely something new in the space. And we launched it last week, actually, as we record this, and it’s been amazing to see how many people have signed up.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, yeah. Tell me about the market reaction to that and the conversations you’re having because a lot of times people hear, “Oh, there’s a new tech out there, and it’s free,” and they’re skeptical, but this is actually, it adds to the conversation around transparency, around diversity, around inclusion. So what are you hearing from people?
Ian White:
I think people have been really, really excited. There have been so many people who have just heard about ChartHop or know someone who’s using it, and just being able to go from hearing about something to trying it out right away is really, really impactful. And even just in the early sign-ups, I’ve seen all kinds of organizations sign up, small, non-profits and all kinds of different organizations. So being able to have that impact is really awesome. And we’re in a fortunate position, we’ve got a lot of different features of our product, and we can sell some of those, but some of those, I just want everybody to have and be able to try out. That’s been really rewarding so far.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, it’s amazing to me because as an entrepreneur, and this is something I admire in so many people, you’re working on solving problems, you’re also trying to be of service, but you’re looking to build your company, and you’re growing, and you’re trying to create value. And you just went through a rebranding, if I’m not mistaken, on top of all of this. So you’re introducing something to the marketplace, but you’re also reintroducing yourself. So what’s that like to go through that exercise?
Ian White:
I think as a founder, it’s an emotional process you bring, right? We looked at everything. We looked at changing the name, which we did not do. But really, what we did was a really productive exercise of going back to what’s foundational or fundamental about our brand. What do we exist to do?
Laurie Ruettimann:
Oh wait, what did you discover about your brand when you were looking back and what’s foundational about it?
Ian White:
Well, I think it’s starting with helping people manage and support their people is really important. Both manage and support. They go together. And I think one thing we looked at was the sense of joy that we want to bring with our product, and the bunny, which has been a sort of like brand element since the beginning, is bunnies have a lot of motion, and they move quickly, and bunnies are approachable. We wanted to capture a lot of the brand attributes of the bunny. And we kept the bunny, but the bunny evolved. The bunny changed colors. The bunny went from blue to purple, and the bunny had a lot of different logos. And it’s a lot of fun doing a rebrand, but it also forces you to sort of confront first principles and think about what you are and what you are not.
Laurie Ruettimann:
I bet it also forces you to think about where you want to go in the future because when you create a brand, it’s almost like you have to also really make sure it syncs up with your product roadmap and where you want to go in the marketplace. So when you look forward into 2022 and beyond, you’re really all about transparent people data and knitting together an organization helping an organization know itself, to be more profitable, to drive more revenue. So, where are you headed? Where is ChartHop headed with this new brand?
Ian White:
Well, we really want to help every single organization in the world know itself better and not just become more profitable. However, we certainly hope we can do that, but help give employees a better sense of belonging. Help people teams better support every manager and every employee in the company to help drive diversity, equity and inclusion by giving companies a real lens on how they’re tracking in different areas. We want to really just help lots of different companies. And so I think as we’ve got a lot more planned releases we’ve got coming out this year. They’re all going to be oriented at helping companies better build and scale and become more inclusive versions of themselves.
Laurie Ruettimann:
One of the questions that I get from people who are kind of looking at software out there and that are in the marketplace is they want to know, are these vendors going to be at any shows this year? Are they going anywhere? And should I go anywhere, right? Should I, as chief people officer, go to an HR Tech or go to an HR conference? So are you going anywhere? Are you going to be anywhere that people can actually interact and meet with ChartHop?
Ian White:
Yeah, definitely. It’s been great in this… I don’t want to call it post-pandemic because it’s still going.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Because people still get sick. Yeah, yeah.
Ian White:
There are people still getting sick, sick, but in the era we’re now in of the pandemic where people are going to events, I would say I went to HR Tech last fall, and it was a little less well attended than in some past years, I’d say. But we were just at HR Transform, and we’re going to Unleash in just a couple of weeks. We’re really trying to get out there and see and meet as many customers as we can. There’s nothing better than meeting one of our customers in person. And so I love that, and we’re going to be out at really every event we can go to.
Laurie Ruettimann:
That’s amazing. When you were going through COVID as an organization, you’re out there now, right? You’re like, “We’re back. Everybody’s back.” But what was it like during COVID? Are you fully remote, your organization? Do you have offices? What’s it like?
Ian White:
We embraced remote. We were only eight people when the pandemic hit.
Laurie Ruettimann:
And what are you now?
Ian White:
About 200.
Laurie Ruettimann:
That’s huge growth, dude, during a pandemic.
Ian White:
And so very early on.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Or ever.
Ian White:
Yeah. Very early on, I really had to kind of make a call of what we were going to do. We had all WeWork that I’d signed a six-month commit to January 15th, but that didn’t work out so well.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Yeah. Wait, did Adam Neumann keep your money, though?
Ian White:
Yeah, believe me. But very early on, I really looked at it, and I said, “Listen, we are never,” I said this in May 2020, “We are never going to make anybody go to an office. We may have an office in the future, but we’re never going to require that of anyone who works for ChartHop.” And sort of just making that call really helped us really open things up and be able to recruit a couple hundred people in a fairly short time because we’ve been able to hire from all over the US, and there’s great talent in every single state. And my last company, we had offices in New York and SF and London, but we’ve pretty much had to hire out of those cities. And it’s an amazing thing to be able to build a truly remote culture from across the country and potentially across the world.
Laurie Ruettimann:
It’s really amazing to me because you’re like so many organizations out there in our industry where you’re trying to solve problems that you yourself are tackling in real-time. I just wonder what that does cognitively. It’s like, oh my goodness, you’re helping organizations wrap their arms around people and talent when you yourself are trying to do that. It either makes you really tired or really inspired. Maybe a little bit of both.
Ian White:
Maybe a little of both. Mostly inspired. There’s this sort of meta aspect to the business where just the better we make our product, the more we help ourselves as well as helping all of our customers grow. And it’s definitely the very early days when we were eight people, there was maybe less need for a product like ours, but now at 200, I could not imagine running the business without it.
Laurie Ruettimann:
My goodness.
Ian White:
Yeah. It’s a pretty amazing thing.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, I’m so excited for what the future has in store for you, for ChartHop, and for your organization. If there’s one thing you’d like to leave people with today, an understanding of who you are, who your business is, what would that be?
Ian White:
I would say if you want to give your organization a little bit more transparency, a little bit more of a view and an understanding of itself, just go to charthop.com. We can set you up. You just sign up, and you’ll be able to see and experience your organization in a whole new way.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Well, Ian, I am so excited to see what the future holds for ChartHop. And I might jump on there and try to do my family tree again with ChartHop. It’s even more complex than it was 20 years ago, but I’ll get Katie on this. We’re on it. We’ll get some champagne. It’s going to be great. And I’m so pleased you were on the show today. Thanks again for being a guest on Punk Rock HR.
Ian White:
Thanks so much for having me.
Laurie Ruettimann:
Hey everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.
Punk Rock HR is produced and edited by Rep Cap with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now that’s all for today, and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.