Why We Added Hobbies to Our Org Chart (And What Happened Next)

Building a hobbies feature was never on the roadmap.

When we started HumanMap, the vision was simple: make org charts that work. Import your employee data, get a clean visual chart, keep it updated without pain. Simple, useful, done.

Then a customer asked for something we hadn’t considered.

A Feature Request We Almost Rejected

An HR manager at one of our early adopters, a 90-person marketing agency, had been using HumanMap for a few months. Her feedback was positive: the chart was accurate, easy to share, and people actually used it. But she had a request we hadn’t heard before.

“My new hires keep telling me they feel like they don’t know anyone outside their team. They’re stuck in the classic employees can’t find each other problem. They can see the org chart, they know names and titles, but they don’t have a reason to talk to anyone in another department. Is there a way to add personal interests to profiles? So people can see who else likes hiking, or plays guitar, or is into board games?”

We were skeptical. Org charts are about structure, reporting lines, clarity. Adding “hobbies” felt like feature creep.

But her framing stuck: “They don’t have a reason to talk.” That reframed the problem for us. The org chart showed people the organization, but it gave them no reason to explore it.

Gallup Changed Our Minds

We looked at the research. Gallup’s workplace data shows that engaged employees (the ones with real connections to colleagues) miss 41% fewer workdays than disengaged ones. That single stat reframed the feature from “nice to have” to “worth building.” If you want the deeper picture of how hobbies drive real teamwork, the research is remarkably consistent.

Building It (and What We Got Wrong at First)

We shipped a first version in a few weeks. Simple: a freeform “Interests” section on every employee profile. People could add whatever they wanted. Hobbies, passions, side projects, sports.

The first version had a problem. We made it too structured. We created predefined categories: “Sports,” “Arts,” “Music,” “Outdoor Activities,” “Technology.” Employees had to pick from the list and then fill in specifics.

Participation stayed below 40%. The categories felt corporate and constraining. Nobody knew whether “bouldering” was “Sports” or “Outdoor Activities.” “Fermenting hot sauce” didn’t fit anywhere. People either picked the closest-sounding category and moved on, or skipped it entirely.

So we stripped it back. One open field: “What are you into? Add anything you’d want a colleague to know about.” No structure, no categories, no limits.

Within a few weeks, participation jumped past 70% at the companies that tried it. The difference was not marketing or reminders. It was removing the friction of choosing a category.

People added things we never would have predicted:

• “Amateur radio operator since I was 14”
• “Competitive Scrabble (yes, this is a thing)”
• “Fostering rescue dogs”
• “Building a cabin with my dad, year 3 of a 2-year project”
• “Making pasta from scratch, badly”

Those entries weren’t just informative. They were human. They made people smile when they browsed profiles. They turned the org chart from something you checked when you needed a reporting line into something you browsed because it was interesting.

What We Saw

We started hearing stories from early customers, some encouraging, some surprising.

HR teams began using interest data for buddy matching during onboarding. Instead of pairing new hires with someone from the same team, they matched by shared hobbies. The feedback was consistent: new hires who connected over personal interests felt like they belonged faster than those matched by role alone.

We also noticed something we hadn’t designed for. Profiles with interests listed get browsed far more often than profiles without. People weren’t just checking the chart for reporting lines. They were exploring it to learn about colleagues. The org chart stopped being a tool you opened when you had to and became one you opened because you wanted to.

The Feature Nobody Asks For in an RFP

No procurement officer has ever put “does your tool support employee interest profiles?” in a requirements doc. Hobbies do not show up in comparison tables next to SSO support and API integrations.

But the features that get people to voluntarily open a tool are rarely the ones on the procurement checklist. Profiles with interests turned the org chart from something people checked when they had to into something they browsed when they were curious about a new colleague or bored between meetings. That browsing habit is what keeps the data fresh, because people who open the tool regularly are the same people who notice when their own profile is outdated and fix it.

Skills mapping might deliver a bigger measurable productivity impact over time. But interests are the entry point. They get people in the door.

What We Believe Now

Org charts have been boring for too long.

The traditional org chart is a hierarchy diagram. Boxes, lines, titles. It answers one question: “who reports to whom?” That’s important, but it’s the least interesting thing about an organization. The interesting things are: who are these people? What do they care about? What unexpected expertise is hiding three departments away?

Making people visible, genuinely visible, not just name-and-title visible, changes how they experience their company. It takes thirty seconds to fill in. The payoff is that a 200-person organization stops feeling like a collection of Slack handles and starts feeling like a group of people you could actually talk to.

When an optional field gets higher participation than your mandatory onboarding survey, the product is telling you something. People want to be known as more than their job title.