Commonly understood term or phrase to distinguish an entire hierarchy of employees in an organisation from the direct team

Question

I have a system where manager can toggle between viewing their direct reports and all the employees who ultimately report to them. High level HR users have a third option of being able to view everyone regardless of reporting lines.

I want the labels on these options to be both succinct but also readily understood, and so far have options like:

• "Everyone", "My Team" and "My Hierarchy"
• "All", "All Reports" and "Direct Reports"
• "Subordinates", "Immediate Subordinates" and "Everyone"

All of these terms seem a little confusing to me. "Reports" seems likely to be confused with our reporting functionality. "Subordinates" seems clearer, but also vaguely pejorative these days. The first option is my favourite, but while words like "hierarchy" seem obvious to me I think they may be too obscure for most.

Is there a nice commonly understood word or term that I could use here? I'm not looking for a single word that's synonymous with team or hierarchy, I'm looking for the words or phrase that most clearly makes the distinction between the immediate team and the hierarchy.

For instance, I want a director to be able to tell at a glance whether they're looking at their middle managers or their entire division. I want those middle managers to see whether they're looking at their line managers or their department, and so on.

Answer 1

I think My Team and My Hierarchy work perfectly well and will be understood, especially if you couple the terms with a simple icon (one showing parent-children nodes, the other parent-children-grandchildren).

You could also post on ux.stackexchange.com for more ideas to clearly convey the concepts in your user interface.

Answer 2

The terms that I sometimes hear "for an entire hierarchy of employees in an organisation" include "organization tree", "organization chart" (sometimes shortened to "org chart"), "corporate hierarchy", and similar terms. I don't think these terms actually apply well to this context.

For your case, I think the second option might be the best, though I might change it to:

• All employees
• Direct & Indirect Reports
• Direct Reports

I'd avoid using "Team" with "Hierarchy" as the two could be confused, although you could make it more clear by qualifying them, such as "Full Team" and "Immediate Hierarchy", though I still think "Full Hierarchy" and "Immediate Hierarchy" is better because it uses consistent terms ("Hierarchy").

Answer 3

The term "pecking order" may be considered too informal, but it would be readily understood.

You may also want to use the term "Direct Reports" and "Indirect Reports" if you are considered about confusion with the reporting functionality.

Answer 4

Marketing lingo: Peer, Downline, Upline, Team, All.

Subordinate is to be deprecated for all time.

Answer 5

How about everyone in my reporting line.