Departments & Designations

Departments and designations form the organizational structure within Udyamo HRMS. Every employee must be assigned to a department and a designation. These assignments drive reporting hierarchies, enable filtered views across the platform, and support targeted policy application. This chapter covers how to create, edit, and manage departments and designations.

What You Will Learn

• How to create, edit, and delete departments
• How to create, edit, and delete designations
• How to assign employees to departments and designations
• Best practices for naming conventions
• How departments and designations affect reporting and filtering

Prerequisites

Required: You must be logged in with an Administrator role to create or modify departments and designations.

Required: Complete Chapter 5: Organization Profile & Branding before proceeding. Your organization profile should be configured first.

Understanding Departments and Designations

Before creating them, it helps to understand how departments and designations differ and relate to each other.

• A department groups people by function (what the team does).
• A designation describes the individual role (what the person does).
• Departments and designations are independent — any designation can exist in any department.
• One employee has exactly one department and one designation at any given time.

Managing Departments

Navigating to Departments

1. Log in to Udyamo HRMS.
2. Click Settings in the navigation sidebar.
3. Click Departments.

The Departments page displays a list of all departments in your organization.

Creating a New Department

1. Navigate to Settings > Departments.
2. Click the Add Department button.
3. Fill in the department form:

4. Click Save or Create.

The new department appears in the department list and is immediately available for assignment to employees.

Tip: Keep department names concise and consistent. Use title case (e.g., "Human Resources" instead of "human resources" or "HUMAN RESOURCES").

Editing a Department

1. Navigate to Settings > Departments.
2. Find the department you want to edit in the list.
3. Click the Edit button (pencil icon) next to the department name.
4. Update the Department Name field.
5. Click Save or Update.

Warning: Renaming a department updates the name everywhere in the system, including on existing employee records and historical reports. All employees currently assigned to this department will reflect the new name.

Deleting a Department

1. Navigate to Settings > Departments.
2. Find the department you want to delete.
3. Click the Delete button (trash icon) next to the department.
4. Confirm the deletion when prompted.

Warning: You cannot delete a department that has employees assigned to it. You must first reassign all employees to a different department, then delete the empty department.

Warning: Deleting a department is permanent and cannot be undone. If you are unsure, consider renaming the department instead.

Department List Columns

Managing Designations

Navigating to Designations

1. Log in to Udyamo HRMS.
2. Click Settings in the navigation sidebar.
3. Click Designations.

The Designations page displays a list of all designations (job titles) in your organization.

Creating a New Designation

1. Navigate to Settings > Designations.
2. Click the Add Designation button.
3. Fill in the designation form:

4. Click Save or Create.

The new designation appears in the designation list and is immediately available for assignment to employees.

Editing a Designation

1. Navigate to Settings > Designations.
2. Find the designation you want to edit in the list.
3. Click the Edit button (pencil icon) next to the designation name.
4. Update the Designation Name field.
5. Click Save or Update.

Warning: Renaming a designation updates the name on all employee records that reference it. Review the impact before renaming a designation used by many employees.

Deleting a Designation

1. Navigate to Settings > Designations.
2. Find the designation you want to delete.
3. Click the Delete button (trash icon) next to the designation.
4. Confirm the deletion when prompted.

Warning: You cannot delete a designation that has employees assigned to it. Reassign all employees to a different designation first.

Designation List Columns

Assigning Employees to Departments and Designations

Departments and designations are assigned to employees during employee creation or by editing an existing employee profile.

During Employee Creation

1. Navigate to Employees > Add Employee.
2. In the employee form, locate the Department and Designation dropdown fields.
3. Select the appropriate department from the Department dropdown.
4. Select the appropriate designation from the Designation dropdown.
5. Complete the rest of the employee form and click Save.

Updating an Existing Employee

1. Navigate to Employees and find the employee.
2. Click on the employee's name to open their profile.
3. Click Edit on the employment details section.
4. Change the Department and/or Designation dropdown selections.
5. Click Save or Update.

Note: When you change an employee's department or designation, the change takes effect immediately. Historical records (such as past payslips) retain the department and designation that were active at the time they were generated.

Bulk Updates

If you need to move multiple employees to a new department or designation (e.g., during a reorganization), consider using the bulk import/update feature described in Chapter 12: Bulk Import.

Impact on Reporting and Filtering

Departments and designations are used extensively throughout Udyamo HRMS for filtering, grouping, and reporting.

Where Departments and Designations Are Used

Department-Level Reports

When generating reports in Udyamo HRMS, you can typically filter by department. This allows you to produce reports such as:

• Total salary expenditure for the Engineering department
• Attendance percentage for the Sales team
• Leave balance summary for the Finance department
• Headcount trends by department over time

Tip: Consistent and well-structured department names make reports more readable and useful. If you later need to change department names, all historical report data will reflect the updated names when viewed online.

Planning Your Department Structure

Before creating departments, plan your structure based on your organization's actual operating model.

Example: Small Organization (10-50 employees)

Example: Medium Organization (50-200 employees)

Example: Large Organization (200+ employees)

Consider a hierarchical approach with parent and sub-departments if your organization grows beyond the simple flat list. While Udyamo HRMS uses a flat department structure, you can simulate hierarchy through naming conventions:

Planning Your Designation Structure

Designations should reflect your organization's actual job titles and career ladder.

Example Designation Hierarchy

Tip: Standardize designation names across departments. For example, use "Manager" consistently instead of mixing "Manager," "Head," and "Lead" for equivalent levels.

Naming Conventions

Consistent naming helps keep data clean and reports readable.

Recommended Practices

Avoid These Common Mistakes

Tips & Best Practices

Tip: Create all departments and designations before adding employees. This ensures the dropdowns are populated when you fill in employee forms, saving time and reducing errors.

Tip: Periodically review your department and designation lists to remove unused entries and consolidate duplicates. This keeps your data clean and reports accurate.

Warning: If you rename a department or designation, communicate the change to your team. Employees may be confused if their department name changes without notice.

Tip: Use a spreadsheet to plan your department and designation structure before entering them into the system. This helps you spot gaps and inconsistencies before they become part of your HRMS data.

Tip: When your organization restructures, update departments and designations in Udyamo HRMS at the same time. Delaying the update causes reports to show outdated organizational structure.

Warning: Avoid creating temporary or "test" departments/designations in your production organization. Use a test organization instead if you need to experiment with configuration.

Quick Reference