The modern guide to office management

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12 tips to become a great office manager

Office managers are essential for employee happiness, safety, retention, and more.
This article explores the qualities, skills, and tools you need when choosing this career path.

How to become a great office manager

Also referred to as office administrators, office coordinators, or office operations managers, office managers are often the first point of contact for anyone in or out of the company. They’re part of the administrative staff and their responsibilities vary from building a great work environment and helping onboard a new hire to acting as executive assistants. 
That's why their workload piles up fast—office managers do anything from human resource management to administrative support.  Along with keeping the office space functional and dynamic, they also need to manage staff movements, travel, and expectations, to name a few. By becoming an office manager, you can hold yourself accountable for and become a key contributor to the success of a business and its employees. To do that, you must hone the essential skills in this article.

Essential skills for good office managers

1. Be the most organized person in the company

Organizational, business administration, and time management skills are at the top of the list, and for good reason. It's no longer just about creating a new filing system. 
An effective office manager needs to know everyone’s schedule, as well as their own. The role requires juggling co-workers, third-party suppliers, long-term business plans, and day-to-day decision-making. If organizational skills aren’t there, work will pile up fast, deadlines will be missed, and chaos will soon reign over the office.

2. Be a great communicator

You need effective communication skills to thrive in an office management role. It helps to avoid mistakes, resolve conflicts, and give clear directions. 
An office manager is one of the few roles within a company that communicates with everyone, from new employees to C-level executives. Make sure you’re an excellent communicator, and it will make the role a whole lot easier.

3. Be innovative when solving problems

The company knowledge that an office manager accumulates over the years is unrivaled. They help a business through its most challenging times due to their excellent problem-solving qualities. The longer you’re in the position, the more you’ll find people from all seniority levels turn to you for advice on challenging situations.
Problem-solving doesn’t stop there though. An office manager will often be tasked with the responsibility of making something happen with little or no budget. The role requires you to be innovative with the resources you have and make things happen regardless of the problems you may face.

4. Be a travel management guru

Phoning up a corporate travel agent is now a little old school and can be an expensive way of doing travel. Also, having employees book travel via Skyscanner, Kayak, or another non-integrated booking platform doesn’t give businesses the overview they need for cost-effective business travel. 
Train yourself up on travel management software and impress senior management with your budget control and time efficiency. Some travel software lets you digitize and integrate your travel policy to automate your company’s rules on booking travel.
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5. Be empathetic

Every office manager needs to be able to understand and empathize with all team members. As a core part of the team with a good overview of everyone’s working situations, an office manager is often the voice for a large majority of employees. You’ll need to be able to lead with empathy to make sure everyone is heard and understood.An office manager will often find themselves on wellness or positive initiative committees. They’ll need to be able to take the reins on empathetic projects, apply a business mind with a kind heart, and manage expectations along the way.
Empathy will also play a key role in peace-keeping. A diverse business comes with diverse personalities, and it’s not uncommon for people to clash heads from time to time. 
These confrontations often fall on human resources and the office manager to resolve, requiring empathy to understand different perspectives and find a peaceful solution that fits everyone.

6. Have strong negotiation skills

It’s up to the office manager to make the most of a budget and maximize what the business can get for the money it has. As an office manager, you may be in charge of keeping day-to-day office expenses, company events, conferences, and offsites within budget. That’s why the office management position requires strong negotiation skills—to get the best deals from suppliers and stakeholders and manage budgets effectively.

7. Always work on your business knowledge

Whether it is budgeting skills, financial planning, recruitment strategies, or management theory, these skills will put you in a position to advance quickly. The modern office manager can have a lot of contact with senior management. Having some financial or business know-how in your back pocket will help you speak the same language as the C-level executives which can help you get your ideas implemented and improve your general efficiency.

8. Constantly update your legal knowledge

Office managers are often responsible for dealing with external suppliers or office contracts on their own. It’s handy to be able to deal with these contracts with some legal knowledge. You’ll be better equipped to understand the small print, when or how the contract can end, and how the business can maximize results.

9. Be an emotional intelligence master

Having great interpersonal skills is critical in being able to manage and be managed within a team. Research shows that employees are four times less likely to quit when their managers demonstrate emotional intelligence.
By embarking on an emotional intelligence course, you’re better equipped to connect with employees and harness emotions for strength.

10. Be an Excel wizard

To some extent, office managers can be responsible for data entry and storage, administrative tasks,  managerial support, record-keeping, budgeting, data analysis, research, reporting, and forecasting. The list is extensive and doesn’t end there.
Excel will become an office manager’s best friend, but you need to be able to use it to its fullest potential to be efficient and productive. Spreadsheet tools like Excel can help you organize your daily operations, keep track of progress, and automate calculations to save time.
Microsoft Excel table and chart analyzing the expenses of a business, including travel spend
Source: Microsoft

11. Learn bookkeeping software

Office managers often have a budget to look after and can be tasked with supporting other departments in looking after their numbers too—especially in small teams. You can also be responsible for setting up company-wide processes to ensure departments are keeping track of their budgets in a clear way.
The good news is: there’s plenty of bookkeeping software available to help you with budgeting. It will be down to you, the office manager, to find and onboard your team with the new software that best fits the company's needs.
Financial reports in QuickBooks, a bookkeeping solution that can be used by office managers
Source: QuickBooks

12. Use project management software

The same can be said for project management software. Whether it’s team-building days, town halls, new software integrations, or office environment improvements, there will always be projects to manage when running a business. These projects often fall into the hands of the office manager.
Master project management software that you can introduce with your role. Keep track of tasks, people, and deadlines and ensure that any project assigned is completed within budget and on time.
An overview of Monday's project management capabilities that can be useful for office managers.
Source: Monday

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