What this guide covers
How to create departments, nest them into a hierarchy, give each one a manager, and - the part people most often look for - how an employee ends up in a department. Departments are the backbone of the org chart and of who-manages-whom, so getting this right is what makes the manager screens (Manage hours / schedules / leave) scope correctly.
This is the deep-dive on the Departments part of HR Settings - organisation setup.
Who can do this: creating and editing departments needs HR write; viewing a department page needs HR read.
How it fits together
Organization > Department (has a manager) > Employee. A job position is a title with a management level and access rights; it does not belong to a department. Each employee is placed in a department directly on their record.
Create a department
Go to People > Human Resources > HR Settings and open the Departments tab.
Click "New Department". The "Department Details" dialog opens.
Fill in the form:
Department Name (required) - the department's display name (e.g. "Logistics").
Code - a short, unique code used on the org chart (e.g. OPS).
Parent Department - the department this one sits under. Leave it on "No Parent (Top Level)" for a top-level division; pick a parent to nest it (that's how you build the tree).
Type - where it sits in the hierarchy: Division (top level, e.g. Operations), Department (mid level, e.g. Logistics), or Team (lowest level, e.g. Fleet Management).
Manager - the person who runs it (see Assign a manager below). "Clear Manager" removes the current one.
Description - optional text about its responsibilities.
Active? - untick to retire a department without deleting it.
Click "Save".
The Departments tab lists every department (Department Name, Parent, Manager, Type, Status) with a tree view of the hierarchy below the table. It protects against loops (a department can't become its own ancestor). Each name links to that department's own page.
Build the hierarchy
Departments form a tree through the Parent Department field: a Division contains Departments, which contain Teams. That tree is exactly what the org chart renders, and it's what scopes the manager screens - a manager of a parent department sees everyone in the departments beneath it.
To restructure visually, use Edit mode on the org chart - see The full org chart (HR view).
Assign a manager
Set a department's Manager to make that person the line manager for everyone in the department and its sub-departments. This is the single most important field for access: it's what lets the manager see their team on Manage hours, Manage schedules and Manage your team's leave.
If a manager says they can't see their team, check the department's Manager here first.
A stand-in is filled in automatically for the day when the manager is on approved leave, then cleared. The department page shows this as "Acting today".
A person can also count as a manager through their job position's management level (a supervisor/team-lead position), in addition to being a department manager.
Put a person in a department
An employee's department is set directly on their record. There is one field and no fallback:
Open the employee (Employee Directory > their card) and go to the Job History tab.
In the "Department" box, pick the department from the "Select department…" list and click "Save Department". The help text reads "Drives approvals, team pages and org scoping. Independent of the job title."
The field is required for active employees. An active person with no department will be flagged.
New joiners get their department at step 3 of the onboarding wizard (see Add & manage employees), in the same way.
The job position (title) plays no part in this. Changing someone's position never moves them between departments, and appointing them to a position never fills in a department. If someone changes teams, change the Department field.
Older guides described a "Current Operational Team" override that fell back to the position's department. That model is gone. The Department field is the only place the department lives.
The department page's Members list and the org chart both read this one field, so a person always shows under exactly one department.
The department page
Click a department's name to open its page. It shows the department's details (Code, Type, Parent, Active, Manager, Acting today, Description) with an inline edit for HR write, plus two lists:
Members - the people whose Department is this one, with their Position and a role chip (management level, or "Dept manager").
Sub-departments - the departments nested under it, with Code and Type.
Good to know
Set up departments and positions before onboarding so the Add-Employee wizard's Department and Position choices are ready.
Changing a manager or parent takes effect immediately on the org chart and the manager-scoped screens.
Don't delete or deactivate a department that still has people or sub-departments under it - re-home them first.
A department can carry a default work schedule that people in it inherit for attendance - see Schedule Management (HR).
Related guides
HR Settings - organisation setup - the overview of the HR Settings structure tabs.
Add & manage employees - onboarding, where the department is first assigned.
Employee page: Job history & employment status - where you change a person's department and position.
The full org chart (HR view) - the visual view of the structure you build here.