People & Organization Module

The People module is the heart of Sparko, managing employee data, organizational structure, and company hierarchy.

Overview

The People module provides:

  • Complete employee directory
  • Interactive organization chart
  • Team management for managers
  • Employee profiles with career tracking
  • Company announcements and handbooks
  • People analytics and insights

Employee Directory

Accessing the Directory

Navigate to People > Employee Directory to view all employees in your organization.

Directory View

Employee Directory

156 employees across 8 departments

+ Add Employee
Employee Title Department Location Status
SJ Sarah Johnson sarah.johnson@company.com Senior Engineer Engineering San Francisco Active
MC Michael Chen michael.chen@company.com Product Manager Product New York Active
EP Emily Parker emily.parker@company.com HR Manager Human Resources Remote Active

Directory Features

Search & Filter

  • Search by name, email, or employee ID
  • Filter by department, location, status
  • Sort by any column

Bulk Actions

  • Select multiple employees
  • Bulk update department, title, or status

Quick Actions

  • Click employee name to view profile

Bulk Import (CSV/Excel)

  • Click Import in the directory header to upload a roster file
  • Columns are auto-detected and confirmable: name, email, department, job title, manager email, start date, employment type, location, phone
  • Imported employees are staged — they appear in the directory immediately, but no login email goes out until you send invitations
  • After an import you can send invitations right away from the result bar, or later from Admin Settings → People → Invitations

Employee Profile

Profile Overview

Click any employee to view their complete profile with six tabs of information.

SJ

Sarah Johnson

Senior Software Engineer

Engineering Department | San Francisco

Employee ID: EMP-2847 | Joined: March 15, 2022 | Active Overview Career Performance Compensation Documents Timeline

Personal Information

Email sarah.johnson@company.com Phone +1 (555) 123-4567 Location San Francisco, CA Work Type Hybrid 
  <!-- Employment Details -->
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        <span style="color: #6b7280;">Manager</span>
        <span style="color: #4f46e5; cursor: pointer;">James Wilson</span>
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      <div style="display: flex; justify-content: space-between;">
        <span style="color: #6b7280;">Department</span>
        <span style="color: #1a1a2e;">Engineering</span>
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      <div style="display: flex; justify-content: space-between;">
        <span style="color: #6b7280;">Employment Type</span>
        <span style="color: #1a1a2e;">Full-time</span>
      </div>
      <div style="display: flex; justify-content: space-between;">
        <span style="color: #6b7280;">Tenure</span>
        <span style="color: #1a1a2e;">2 years, 8 months</span>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

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    <div style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; color: #166534;">4</div>
    <div style="font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280;">Active OKRs</div>
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    <div style="font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280;">Skills</div>
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    <div style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; color: #92400e;">3</div>
    <div style="font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280;">Reviews</div>
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  <div style="background: #fce7f3; padding: 15px; border-radius: 8px; text-align: center;">
    <div style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; color: #9d174d;">8</div>
    <div style="font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280;">Goals</div>
  </div>
</div>

Profile Tabs

Tab Content
Overview Basic info, contact details, employment info
Career Career path, skill gaps, development goals
Performance Reviews, feedback, OKRs
Compensation Salary history, bonuses, equity
Documents Contracts, certifications, forms
Timeline Employment history and changes

Editing Profiles

Who can edit:

  • Employee: Own profile (limited fields)
  • Manager: Team members (limited fields)
  • HR: All employees (all fields)
  • Admin: Full access

Editable by employee:

  • Personal email
  • Phone number
  • Emergency contact
  • Address

Changes that need HR approval: legal first/last name, phone number, and date of birth. When you submit one of these from your profile, it's sent to HR as a pending request — you'll see a "pending" badge until it's reviewed. HR reviews these in My Hub > Approvals, where each request shows the current value and the requested change with Approve/Reject actions (a rejection includes a note explaining why).

Custom Fields

Beyond the built-in profile fields, your admin can define custom fields to capture data specific to your company (a T-shirt size, a cost center, a work-visa type, a parking spot). Manage them under Admin > People Settings > Custom Fields.

  • Field types. Text, number, date, yes/no, or a single-select dropdown with your own options. You set a label, an optional help hint, whether it is required, and (for text) an optional format check.
  • How many you get depends on your plan. A count meter at the top of the page shows your usage, and reaching the cap prompts you to deactivate a field before adding another.
  • Sensitive fields. Mark a text or select field sensitive for data like a personal ID or a medical note. A sensitive field is encrypted at rest and hidden from anyone who lacks the "view sensitive custom fields" permission, who sees it masked. The one person who always sees their own sensitive field is the employee it is about. Because it is their data, it shows in full on their own profile and in their GDPR data export. There is no setting that hides a field from the person it describes.
  • Once created, a field's type, key, and sensitive flag are locked. You can still rename its label, change help text, toggle required, and reorder. Custom-field values are set on the employee record by anyone with edit access, and every change is written to the employee audit log.

Organization Chart

Interactive Org Chart

Navigate to People > Organization Chart for a visual representation of your company hierarchy.

Organization Chart

156 employees | 8 departments

My View Full View EB Ella Brown Chief Executive Officer 6 direct reports 
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    <div style="width: 40px; height: 40px; background: #10b981; border-radius: 50%; margin: 0 auto 8px; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; color: white; font-size: 14px;">JW</div>
    <div style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 13px; color: #1a1a2e;">James Wilson</div>
    <div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280;">VP Engineering</div>
    <div style="font-size: 10px; color: #9ca3af;">42 reports</div>
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    <div style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 13px; color: #1a1a2e;">Lisa Martinez</div>
    <div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280;">VP Product</div>
    <div style="font-size: 10px; color: #9ca3af;">28 reports</div>
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    <div style="width: 40px; height: 40px; background: #6366f1; border-radius: 50%; margin: 0 auto 8px; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; color: white; font-size: 14px;">RK</div>
    <div style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 13px; color: #1a1a2e;">Robert Kim</div>
    <div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280;">VP Sales</div>
    <div style="font-size: 10px; color: #9ca3af;">35 reports</div>
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    <div style="width: 40px; height: 40px; background: #ec4899; border-radius: 50%; margin: 0 auto 8px; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; color: white; font-size: 14px;">AP</div>
    <div style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 13px; color: #1a1a2e;">Amanda Price</div>
    <div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280;">VP People</div>
    <div style="font-size: 10px; color: #9ca3af;">12 reports</div>
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Org Chart Views

My View

  • Shows you and your reporting chain
  • Highlights your position in the organization
  • Easy to see your manager and skip-level

Full View

  • Complete company hierarchy
  • Expandable/collapsible branches
  • Filter by department or location

Org Chart Controls

  • Zoom: Mouse wheel or +/- buttons
  • Pan: Click and drag
  • Expand: Click node to see direct reports
  • Focus: Double-click to center on person
  • Search: Find anyone in the org

Departments & Teams

Where the org chart shows reporting lines, Admin > People Settings > Departments manages the org's structural units. A department is the top-level unit every employee belongs to. A team is a working group nested under a department that a person can belong to alongside others.

Allocation across teams. Because someone can sit on more than one team, each team membership carries an allocation percentage, meaning how much of that person's time the team gets. Sparko rolls this up two ways:

  • Per team. The members list with each person's allocation, and the team's total allocated FTE (the sum of allocations divided by 100).
  • Per person. Their active team memberships and a running allocation total, flagged balanced (100%), under (below 100%), or over (above 100%) so you can spot someone double-booked or with unassigned time.

The org-structure view also counts departments, teams, members, and how many people are on more than one team.

Rename, merge, and delete are safe operations. Renaming a department rewrites the name everywhere it is used for scoping (PTO eligibility, timesheet config, recruiting approval routing, hiring-plan tags, saved audiences) so nothing silently breaks. Historical records signed with the old name, like past offers, keep it. Merging moves all employees and teams into the target department and then removes the source. Because every employee must belong to a department, deleting one requires you to pick a department to reassign its people and teams to first. A preview shows exactly what each action will touch before you confirm.

Managing departments and teams needs people.departments.manage. Viewing the structure needs people.departments.view.

My Team (For Managers)

Managers see a dedicated team dashboard at People > My Team.

My Team

8 Direct Reports 2 On PTO This Week 3 Pending Approvals 73% Avg OKR Progress

Team Members

SJ Sarah Johnson Senior Engineer In Office OKR: 85% MC Mike Chen Engineer II On PTO OKR: 62%

Team Management Features

Team Overview

  • See all direct reports
  • Track team OKR progress
  • View who's out of office

Quick Actions

  • Approve PTO requests
  • Schedule 1-on-1s
  • Write feedback
  • Start review

Team Health tab — a live snapshot of how your team is doing:

  • Team Engagement — the company's latest eNPS survey score
  • Avg OKR Progress — average goal progress across your reports
  • 1:1 Completion — how many of your 1:1s have been held this cycle
  • Recognition — praise your team received in the last 30 days
  • Per-report health — a row for each report showing OKR progress, last 1:1, PTO used, and retention-risk level

Team Analytics

  • Performance trends
  • Skill distribution
  • Tenure analysis

Announcements & Handbooks

Company Announcements

Access at People > Announcements to view or create company-wide communications.

Announcement Types:

  • General
  • Policy Update
  • Event
  • Urgent

Features:

  • Rich text formatting
  • Attachments
  • Schedule for future

Known limitation: announcements always broadcast company-wide — there's no department or audience targeting yet, so a dept-specific policy update currently has to go to everyone.

Employee Handbooks

Access at People > Handbooks for company policies and procedures.

Handbook Features:

  • Version control
  • Acknowledgement tracking
  • PDF export
  • Search within documents

Onboarding

Access at People > Onboarding to manage new-hire plans.

Plan features:

  • Phased task lists (preboarding / day 1 / week 1 / month 1 / month 3)
  • AI-generated onboarding plan from role and department context
  • AI-amend a plan — describe a change in plain language (e.g. "add a security training task in week 1") and the assistant proposes the additions/edits for you to approve
  • A reusable, company-owned task library so common onboarding tasks don't need to be re-typed per plan
  • Plan templates — clone any existing plan as a template, then instantiate it for a new hire with a new start date
  • Scheduled check-ins and equipment assignments

Automatic on an employee's first active day:

  • Probation check-ins are scheduled automatically
  • New-hire OKRs are assigned automatically

Per-field PII permission gating: viewing date of birth, SSN, ethnicity, home address, and emergency contact are each gated by their own permission — separate from general employee-view access — so a role can see basic profile info without automatically seeing sensitive PII.

Employee Invitations

Admin Settings → People → Invitations shows the account-invitation lifecycle for the whole company:

  • Staged — imported, no invitation email sent yet
  • Invited — invitation sent, password not yet set
  • Activated — password set; the employee can log in

Click Send invitations to email every staged employee a link to set their password. The action is safe to repeat — employees who already received an invitation are skipped. Imports (from the Setup wizard or the directory's Import button) never email anyone by themselves, so HR decides exactly when the company gets invited.

People Analytics

HR professionals and executives can access workforce analytics at People > Analytics.

Available Metrics

Metric Description
Headcount Summary Current employees by dept, location, type
Headcount Trends Growth over time
Turnover Analysis Attrition rates and reasons
Diversity Metrics Gender and demographic breakdown
Tenure Distribution How long employees stay
Hiring Velocity Time to hire by role

Export Options

  • CSV for spreadsheets
  • PDF for presentations

Want scheduled email delivery, or turnover/diversity breakdowns? Build a custom report in Reporting & Analytics > Report Builder instead — this page only exports the current headcount snapshot.

Employee Insights & Career Development

The Employee Profile includes career insights that help employees understand their growth potential and opportunities.

Accessing Employee Insights

Navigate to People > Employee Directory > Click on any employee to view their profile. The insights are organized across three tabs:

1. Career Tab - Growth Opportunities

Succession Readiness

  • Shows readiness for leadership roles
  • Displays readiness score (0-100) and timeline (Ready Now, Ready 1-2 Years, etc.)
  • Based on performance scores, potential ratings, and calibration data
  • Visible to managers and HR for succession planning

Internal Opportunity Matching and Peer Skill Benchmarks have a backend API but are not yet wired into any page — there's no UI path to reach them today. They're not covered here until the frontend ships.

2. Compensation Tab - Salary Transparency

Salary Band Position

  • Shows where you sit within your salary band (min/max/midpoint)
  • Displays compa-ratio (your salary vs. midpoint)
  • Indicates quartile position (Q1-Q4)
  • Career path and role level context
  • Note: Requires Business tier or higher

3. Performance Tab - Feedback-Driven Growth

Feedback Skill Improvements

  • Links received feedback to specific skill development opportunities
  • Analyzes feedback messages for skill-related keywords
  • Suggests improvement actions based on feedback type (praise vs. constructive)
  • Tracks skill categories mentioned in feedback over time

Manager View: Team Succession Pipeline

For Managers Only: Navigate to People > My Team to see succession readiness for your direct reports.

Employee Current Role Readiness Score Timeline Next Eligible Roles
Sarah Chen Senior Engineer 85 Ready Now Engineering Manager, Tech Lead
Marcus Liu Product Manager 60 Ready 1-2 Years Senior PM, Group PM
Jamie Taylor Designer 45 Ready 3+ Years Senior Designer, Design Lead

Features:

  • Sort by readiness score to identify top succession candidates
  • View eligible next roles based on career paths
  • See performance and potential scores
  • Plan talent development and succession strategies

Privacy & Data Protection

  • Salary Data: Only visible to employee, manager, and HR roles
  • Succession Data: Only visible to managers and leadership
  • Skills Data: Controlled by employee privacy settings

Tier Availability

Feature Professional Business Enterprise
Feedback Skill Linking ✅ ✅ ✅
Succession Readiness ❌ ✅ ✅
Salary Band Position ❌ ✅ ✅
Manager Succession Pipeline ❌ ✅ ✅

Common Questions

How do I update my profile?

Click your avatar > My Profile > Edit. Save when done.

How do I find someone in the org?

Use the global search (Ctrl/Cmd + K) or browse the Employee Directory.

Can I see my reporting chain?

Yes! Go to Org Chart > My View to see your place in the organization.

How do I export my data (GDPR)?

Go to Profile > Data Export to download all your personal data.

Related Features

Still need help? Reach us at support@sparko.app.

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