5 Tips to Help You Grow as an Office Manager

A lot of people believe that in order to be an efficient office manager, all you have to do is have enough authority. Nonetheless, managing an office takes more than just authority. You see, it’s more than just having authority, it’s knowing what to do with the authority that makes the difference. What you need to learn is how to delegate tasks onto your team, give them feedback (even if it’s negative), successfully outsource, monitor their performance and help keep them on the peak of their productivity. Here are five tips that address these five topics.

1. Don’t be afraid to share responsibility

You don’t have to do it all on your own and the sooner you realize this, the better. So, you need to start by delegating some responsibilities to your staff. This involves two things. First, finding what your employees are good at so that these responsibilities may come as natural to them and second, believe in their confidence to achieve this. This latter part is completely up to you but, by improving your training process, you can be more confident in their abilities right off the bat.

2. Learn how to give negative feedback to your staff

You would be surprised to learn just how much of a difference can a proper phrasing make. Sure, if a member of your staff is performing poorly, they need to be warned about this, however, it’s how you tell them that will decide the way in which they’ll accept it. You can start by telling them that they’re an invaluable member of your team, even make a mention of something good that they’ve done in the past. Then, you can proceed to insert a comment in a form of suggestion on how they can improve.

3. Outsource specialized tasks instead of wasting time

When it comes to various technical issues of running your office, all that you have to know is who to call and do this in time. No one expects you to fix a hardware issue on your office computer. You are, however, as an office manager, expected to know the whereabouts and contact info of a local service. So, for instance, if your Victoria-based business has trouble with its Macs, you’ll have to know of available Apple Mac repairs Melbourne options. Needless to say, this is just the tip of the iceberg of all contacts and acquaintances that you’ll need, which is why you need to start building and expanding your network of contacts in time.

4. Take a soft-touch approach to employee monitoring

The best way to check which of your employees are actually working and which of them are just idling is to get a reliable employee monitoring software. This helps you out in more than one way. First of all, you can perhaps spot a problem that you’ll be able to rectify before it gets out of hand. Second, you’ll be able to see who doesn’t work hard enough without having to suspect or scold hard workers in your employ. All in all, you need to take a soft-touch approach to employee monitoring if you’re to see some results.

5. Make sure everyone goes on a break

The last thing you need to understand is that some of your employees might be reluctant to take breaks either because they’re behind on schedule or because they feel like they don’t need it. Needless to say, neither of these two reasons are good enough for them to skip a break. By working continuously, they’ll get both physically and mentally exhausted. This increases their overall stress level, as well as makes them more prone to making mistakes.

Conclusion

Just by mastering these five things, you’ll already become a much better office manager. In fact, just by knowing that you need to put more focus on them, you’ll already make a great move forward. As you can see, sometimes you need an adequate digital tool, while there are some instances in which all you need to do is practice your people skills.

Guest article written by: Dan Radak is a marketing professional with eleven years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and regular contributor to Technivorz.