How to Become an Office Manager

In maintaining office services and organizing office operations and procedures, you will have the following responsibilities:

• Preparing the payroll
• Controlling correspondence
• Designing filing systems to provide historical reference
• Defining procedures for protection/retention, transfer/retrieval, and disposal of office records
• Reviewing and approving supply requisitions
• Assigning and monitoring clerical functions and following up on work results
• Overseeing administrative staff members
• Receiving and directing visitors
• Handling and delegating basic office tasks
• Coordinate communication between departments

As an office manager, you will oversee a huge variety of tasks such as scheduling meetings, managing workflows, handling invoicing, etc. To manage these tasks effectively, and efficiently, you will need various office management tools. Besides the computer, telephone, and other presentation and communication tools, you will require various software to perform your duties efficiently. Here are some office management tools that you will require:

• Social media management tool – This helps you stay organized when managing your company’s social media accounts.
• File sharing – This makes it easy for you to send, share, and store files, reducing the need to send large attachments via emails that take too long to download. 
• Office productivity software – Office managers use office productivity software to produce information such as documents, spreadsheets, and presentations along with databases, graphs, and more. 
• Online meetings and conferences – Office managers use web conferencing software to communicate with various stakeholders via audio or video using the internet. 
• Project management tool – As an office manager, you will be managing multiple projects that have many tasks in each one. 
• Invoicing software – This helps you to keep track of all invoices, their due dates, and whether they have been paid or are still outstanding. 
• Visitor management tool – This software helps track people who enter the office building.

As an office manager, most of your time will be spent in the office. You will usually have 40-hour work weeks but might also have to spend extra time attending meetings or working on projects. The job involves working under pressure from top management to ensure that you make the administrative support operations in their departments run smoothly. You will also be under pressure from employees who require your time and assistance. The job requires you to have good interpersonal skills so that you can get along well with all the people in the organization. 

An office manager works with all the teams in an organization. Those that you will collaborate with the most include office assistants, administrative assistants, and receptionists in addition to human resource officers. You will report to department heads, directors, or business owners. Office assistants and administrative assistants normally work alongside office managers in performing the general clerical work around the office for their respective departments and their immediate supervisors. The receptionists have to coordinate with office managers at all times when dealing with incoming visitors. Human resource officers work together with office managers to handle the staffing requirements of the organization.

Office managers are crucial to the day-to-day operations of any organization. The job requires you to work full-time in the office on a 40-hour week schedule. Sometimes you might be required to extend the time to complete projects or attend meetings, and you might be required to travel to attend conferences. Planning and developing work schedules take up much of the time of an office manager. Your daily tasks will involve doing things like: 

• Preparing letters
• Dealing with correspondence
• Handling complaints and queries
• Supervising and monitoring staff
• Preparing presentations and reports 
• Processing invoices
• Managing budgets

The job of an office manager is highly rewarding as it will not only fulfill your expectations but exceed them. You will be the key contributor to the smooth running of operations and the success of an organization and its employees. 

Working as an office manager can see you rise in ranks within the organization to become an administrative assistant, project manager, or executive assistant in addition to a sales associate. 

Office managers are literally in the front and center of any organizational activities; thus, it can be a stressful role sometimes. You will deal with clients and interact with almost all the employees throughout the day, so you need to be up to the task.

Applying for a job as an office manager is easy with Spherion. You can search for office manager jobs on Spherion.com by job title and location. If you don’t see the perfect role, you can submit an open application. Once you submit your resume through Spherion’s open application, a recruiter from the office closest to you will reach out with details about potential case manager roles that fit your skill set and professional goals.