Travel Booking and Management

Travel planning, scheduling and management is another service worthy of centralizing. Travel agents and administrative staff know the travel market and keep traveler preferences, and so on. Firm-wide travel policies can be implemented routinely. Travel agents are much better at locating low cost airfares, car rentals and accommodations than the typical layman thus lowering overall travel costs. Depending on the size of the firms annual travel budget, travel agencies may provide this service for free because they will be paid a commission by the airline, hotel, and rental car companies. In any case, having someone who can check flights and make rapid changes for professional staff on the fly (e.g. while they are en-route to the airport) can be an enormous time-saver and benefit.

Mail Room

The mail room is a basic and familiar centralized resource in most companies. This function is important to an efficient operation. The scale and scope of this function will depend on the type of firm and the volume of outbound and inbound mail received. For most small to mid-size firms, assigning this task as one part of administrative persons duties will suffice. Many third-party delivery services (UPS, Federal Express, DHL, et. al.) will provide high-quality outsourced services for outbound mail management on-site and can keep the mail-room effort to a minimum.

Record Keeping and Document Management

Record keeping is critical for most firms, particularly medical practices, law offices, architects and other document-dependent services. Record keeping is typically a subset of administrative duties. In many cases, record keeping can be mandated by the law. A good filing system is critical. Storage and retrieval of files should be a core competency of the administrative staff. The office manager is responsible for ensuring an efficient system. Today many firms are going paperless which consists of scanning paper documents, particularly original signed documents, and storing them on a computer system for easy indexing, search, and retrieval. Todays office manager should be well aware of these systems and be able to implement one with outside help if requested. A variety of cost-effective, feature-filled systems such as Microsoft SharePoint are available and can be economical even for the small office.

Other Services

Depending on the type of professional service organization, other services may be candidates for centralized support. These services should be looked

at individually and using some of the criteria discussed earlier determines whether any should be centralized in your firm. Other services may include:

Local technology support

Telecommunications support Tele- and video-conferencing support Research services

Whenever deciding to centralize a support function, consider several additional infrastructure issues. Ensure that whatever you are centralizing can be done as or more efficiently than what the typical professional could do on their own. If the professional can complete a job faster without use of the support function, then they will not use a centralized support function. Therefore it is incumbent on the office manager to maintain efficiency and fairness when operating the function. Professionals will not want to:

Wait an inordinate amount of time before receiving the support.

Be overcharged for the services (over market rates).

Have onerous administrative burden to receive the service (complex

forms to fill out, approvals, complicated phone menus). Get substandard quality (must be equal or better).

Additionally the administrative staff will need to design a streamlined efficient process. Make sure you have developed a system to efficiently do the following:

Handle service requests quickly and efficiently. Determine how requests will be prioritized-by title, by client, by urgency, and so on.

Schedule the work. Can reservations be made? How early can requests be submitted (a week or a month in advance)? Labor must be scheduled to address peaks and valleys in demand.

Deliver the finished product in the format needed. How will graphics be delivered (i.e., Adobe Acrobat or Powerpoint format?).

Ensure that service is high quality. The office manager must periodically solicit feedback from professional staff on the quality of the services provided. Annual surveys, staff feedback, random sampling, and service level reporting are all tools that can be used to measure quality.

Appraisal and professional staff career track support Paralegal support Graphics support

Managing Facilities

Facilities management is the other major function of office management. These activities comprise the following:

Space planning: Managing physical office space including the reception area and ergonomics of workspaces. This topic is covered in depth in Chapter 18, Real Estate and Facilities.

Space maintenance and repairs: The office manager should be the primary liaison with the office building management and maintenance. The goal is to ensure that maintenance is routinely provided by the building for all plant items that are in need of repair (e.g., HVAC, lighting, restrooms, electric power, elevators and building security).

Meeting space and scheduling: The office manager will manage or assign an administrative assistant to manage central scheduling for meeting spaces and the policies governing such. The goal is to promote easy accessibility and fairness. Additionally the responsible party should ensure that the meeting spaces are stocked with all required items such as dry-erase markers, erasers, easels, conference phones, food service items, and so on.

Storage: Items that only need to be accessed in the event of an emergency, less than once a year, or confidential stored records may be stored off-site in less expensive real estate. The office manager is responsible to procure the storage space, ensure its security, and coordinate the storage and retrieval of items.

Furniture: The office manager is responsible for the maintenance and procurement of office furniture.

New hires, office moves, and employee departures: The office manager support human resource policies and procedures regarding the on-boarding and off-boarding of employees. The office managers responsibilities typically include preparing office space and equipment for new hires, managing office moves, and ensuring equipment and security access is returned when an employee leaves.

Other Duties

In many cases, the office manager is dubbed the firms culture keeper and firm historian. There are other support personnel who might assume some of these responsibilities, but generally the office manager has the tenure and visibility into cross-firm activities that make them the ideal choice.