How To Succeed In Your First Office Management Job

For most people, regardless of their position, the first day at a new job can be both exciting and stressful at the same time. As a new office manager, it is important that you are able to use your own strengths and skills to settle into your new role and become an integral part of the workplace as soon as possible.

Within a business environment, an office manager is a crucial aspect of the company’s overall success due to the myriad of responsibilities that they are entrusted with each day and over the long term. The vast majority of operations that are carried out in the office are overseen by the office manager.

This job functions as a leadership role that is able to establish a positive tone amongst employees and implement strategies and methods of work that maintain the consistent optimization of efforts for the business itself. At the end of the day, the office management job is the adhesive that keeps all facets of the office together and running efficiently. 

Due to this diverse array of distinct job characteristics that must be handled, being an office manager can be an overwhelming position that requires you to act efficiently under stress, oversee a variety of departments within the office, be able to think quickly on your feet in the face of sudden developments, and possess a number of other skills for managing the flow of the office.

Here are 7 tips that will help set you up for success in your first (or next) office management job:

1. Be Creative

Each day, there is a high likelihood that you will be met with an entirely new situation or issue that must be focused on so that it can be resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible. These types of instances usually have distinct characteristics that require you to go about solving them using methods that are outside of the box.

Because of this, you need to make sure that you have what it takes to maintain a creative mindset that is able to effectively process all parts of the problem and produce a unique action plan that can be deployed to take care of it and get your team back on track with little margin for error. It is crucial that you embrace your individual creative problem-solving skills and use them to your advantage.

Office managers who approach each project with tired, repetitive techniques are unable to achieve success properly. When you go out of your way to go against the status quo and infuse your decisions with an elevated level of thought and creativity, your team will ultimately be better as a result.

2. Establish Clear Goals

One key aspect of becoming a successful office manager within the corporate environment is to set a positive, growth-based mindset for your team that fuels their development and provides them with a sense of purpose. These techniques are entirely based around your unique capabilities as a manager to go out of your way to motivate employees to put forth their best effort for the sake of the rest of the staff.

One exceptional way to initiate this attitude within your office is by establishing realistic goals that employees can base their work off of. This is a unifying force that inspires higher levels of productivity and pushes each employee to contribute their own capabilities in order to aid in reaching these set objectives. These goals can range in specific qualities whether you choose to set them on a more short term or long term scale.

As long as they are continuously being set and are being established in a manner that is ambitious yet achievable, your team will benefit as a result. Over time, as these goals are accomplished a general feeling of fulfillment occurs which can boost company morale and strengthen staff bonds. 

3. Carry Out Effective Communication

No matter what specific position you are focusing on within a business communication is always important; however, this quality is an especially vital skill when you are looking at what capabilities should be possessed by an office manager. Within the office management industry, you will be coming into contact with many different departments and different employees each day. These meets often come with important discussions that are set up to maintain clarity and productivity within the office as a whole.

In order to make sure that you are able to carry out your job effectively, you must be able to communicate well with each of your coworkers regardless of the specific situation at hand. There are many separate facets of communication within the workplace that you must be proficient at. These range from one on one conversations with an individual to group meets where you are addressing the staff as one common entity. Each of these instances brings about the need for different strategies to be used.

There are many parts of an office that call for a unifying force that can act as a point of contact for employees so that all needs are met. From making sure that you are able to write professional emails that easily convey the tone and meaning of your message all the way to being a confident public speaker that feels comfortable in front of an audience of spectators, you must take the necessary steps to improve your abilities as a communicator so that you can leave a continuously positive impact on your staff with ease. 

4. Set The Standard

As a leader within the office, you must carry out yourself as a sort of role model that sets the standard for the rest of the employees within the office. This means going out of your way to always be the best that you can be and go about your work in a manner that is synonymous with how you would want the rest of the staff to function on a daily basis.

Most employees, no matter their department or specific responsibility, will look to you as a template for how to reach a high quality level of performance in regards to their work. The best way to lead is to lead by example and prove to each of your team members that a positive attitude and overall sense of perseverance can open up a world of possibilities that enables you to maximize your success in the long run. 

5. Learn More About Your Job Daily

Each day, you should be going the extra mile in order to learn the most about what you can do as an office manager to assist in delivering your team to success. This means putting forth efforts to expand your possibilities and foster your own self-development even outside of the workplace such as taking classes or workshops that develop your skills that can be used during the workday.

There are many unique responsibilities that you must target while on the job. These range in their requirements and how they must be completed so that success can be achieved. You should go above and beyond to truly become a jack of all trades so that your employees can always count on you as a guiding source of leadership and efficiency. 

6. Stay Professional

Part of establishing yourself as a great office manager from the first day on is making sure that you maintain a line between being professional and casual when working with your employees. 

While it is very important that genuine relationships are built between you and the team that is based on loyalty and trust, you want to ensure that a boundary is set up between your personal life and your work life so that the focus is always on what is best for the company rather than personal interests.

You should commit yourself to achieve a friendly demeanor that makes you easily approachable for each of your employees while still making sure that they know that a professional tone is always to be set when discussing matters of the company and the workplace. 

7. Adopt A Leader's Mindset

Although as an office manager you may not be directly responsible for one sole department, it is important that you maintain the mindset of leadership and guidance for the rest of the team. When going about situations within the workplace, you should always be approaching them with a state of mind establishes trust and responsibility on your part.

When you are able to do this properly, it becomes much easier to do your job as a whole because of the respect that is developed as a result. One of the best ways to go about doing this is by thinking what would you want your own manager to do in the case of a problem or specific scenario. Carrying out this thought process furthers your end ability to truly work as an effective leader.

Looking for a way to manage your workplace more efficiently? Check out what Eden’s Office Management Software can do for your office.