In Catalyst, a respondent’s assigned Organization dictates who they can see on the platform. So, is it better to have one big organization with everyone represented? Or is it better to have the learners divided up into smaller sub-organizations?
It’s a good question! The answer may vary, so let’s examine the pros and cons of each approach.
People can’t see others’ full results
One of the misconceptions around Catalyst is that people can see each other’s profiles–the full set of results. That would be a pretty significant invasion of privacy! Obviously, that’s not the case. You can’t even find contact information. What a learner on Catalyst can see is useful information about coworkers to help improve their interactions with them.
Reminder:
The Organization assigned to a record determines which respondents that person can see. This is true regardless of the folder or subfolder the record is in. Not clear? Check out Catalyst Organizations vs. Folders
Of course, each person can see their own detailed results, and that is part of understanding oneself. The information shown about others isn’t as detailed and it’s limited to what’s useful for someone else to know in order to get to know them better, work with them more effectively, or manage tension should it arise.
Does that mean it’s better for everyone to be together?
Generally, yes. Suppose I am a manager at a relatively large company. If everyone in the company (or at least those that have completed a Catalyst assessment) are on the platform, then I can locate my direct reports, my peers and my manager–all of whom I might interact with on a regular basis.
There’s no harm in having people that I don’t know visible to me on the platform. And who knows? Someday I might need to work with Jay in Accounting on a one-off project. In that case, it would be good to have the ability to learn how to work more effectively with them.
One Exception
There is one situation where it makes sense to put a group in their own organization. That is when creating a cohort of learners for a training session. To learn why that might make sense and how to do it, see our article on Catalyst, Organizations and Training.
When does it not make sense for everyone to be together?
When an organization is split into geographically separate areas, sometimes it makes sense to keep them separate. If XYZ Company is a very large company with offices in New York and California and those offices operate independently, then it may not make sense to combine them into one organization on Catalyst.
This is because with a very large company, the number of people on Catalyst could be difficult to wade through. That said, the colleague lookup on Catalyst works quite well, so it’s usually easy to find who you are looking for.
Notice that “may not” is in boldface earlier. This is because if anyone at the Eastern location works with anyone else at the Western location of XYZ Company, then it still might be better to have them in a single organization.