Set Your First Office Manager Up For Success (With Tool Recommendations and Downloadable New Hire Checklist)

You’ve hired your first office manager. You know of all the amazing things they can do for your business, and you’re excited. Even if you’ve hired someone outstanding, they still need the right support in order to do the job well. Hiring the right person is only one small part of the equation.

As the hiring manager, it’s up to you to ensure that your office manager has the right tools and resources in place to help your new employee be successful in their role. Research shows, that when office managers are set up with the right support, they can have an enormous impact on company culture and office morale that directly influences the bottom line

Want to know how to help your office manager make a great impact on your business? Follow our new hire checklist for office managers and admins to yield the best results!

1. Get Them the Tools They Need

Anytime you’re going through a new hire checklist, making sure they have the tools and software they need should be a priority. This goes for office managers, too, especially since their jobs can involve so many different responsibilities that can be difficult to organize all at once.

The following tools can be particularly useful for office managers:

• Scheduling software like wheniwork if they’re in charge of employee schedules. This tool automates part of the process, plugging employees in when they’re available and preventing accidentally booking someone when they’ve requested leave. This software also allows employees to request shift trades from others qualified to do the job needed.
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• ‍Project management tools like Asana if they’re involved in any aspects of project management or have their own tasks to track. Asana lets you create cards containing specific tasks or projects and tag involved team members, set checklists and to-do lists, establish deadlines, and attach files as needed. Keeping up with a million tasks and assignments is simplified with Asana and tools alike.
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• Chat communication software like Slack. There are plenty of chat communication software tools available that allow brands to have immediate, chat-based communication instead of relying on delayed-response email campaigns. It’s often beneficial for office managers to be able to quickly get in touch with key team members as needed and to share relevant documents or files with them natively.  
  
  

• Travel booking tools like TravelPerk. This site makes it so easy for your office manager to book and manage everything travel related, which is important if they’re in charge of handling employee or management travel plans. You can find hotel rooms, review rates, book flights, and view the status of any current plans all from one dashboard.
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• Secure password storing software like OneLogin. Office administration staff has so much to keep up with that the last thing they need to be doing is getting stuck trying to remember a million passwords. OneLogin is incredibly secure and will allow your office manager to access the information they need as soon as they need it.
  
  

Office managers can be the glue that's holding your entire office together, so giving them the specific tools they need to do that will benefit everyone immediately.

2. Help Them Set Up Planning & Goal Setting

OKRs (which stands for “Objectives and Key Results”) is a type of management strategy that determines how an organization sets different goals. They’ll feature several objectives, which are different things you need to accomplish in order to reach or get closer to your overall goal. Under each objective will be several measurable key objectives to help you track your progress.

The site OKR Examples offers several different examples of what OKRs might look like for office managers, including the following:
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Here, the objective is to make the office a more desirable place to work, and the key results are actionable, measurable steps like “find a supplier for food and drinks in the office” we can help with that here!) and “gather feedback from 10 employees on improvement ideas.”

Help your office manager set up OKRs so that they can set different goals and track their own progress. In many cases, 30-60-90 plans are a great option, as they’ll offer immediate, intermediary, and long-term steps needed to reach larger goals. It keeps people focused by limiting action items to what’s most immediately relevant right now.

3. Ensure They Have the Resources They Need

The last thing you need to do to set your office administration up for success is to make sure they understand how your business works and that they have the support and resources needed to do their job well.

If they have an issue with the budget or are hitting a wall with scheduling, who should they go see? Giving them a specific name gets them to the right place faster while also ensuring they don’t accidentally go over someone’s head. An open line of communication is always good but also helping your office manager understand how your specific business dynamics work will make it easier for them to do their job.

It’s important to consider if they’re equipped to handle every task that you’ve given them. If someone has never done payroll or scheduling before, have you offered them training or paid for a class teaching them out to do it?

If you’re unsure of whether your office manager has the support they need, ask! They’ll typically be more than happy to fill you in on what they feel like they need a little extra help with, especially when they’re first getting started.

Conclusion

Office managers are often hired to keep the office running smoothly, handling all those extra tasks that no one else has the time, availability, or organizational skills to tackle themselves. They play a crucial role in the workplace, so invest the time and funds to make sure they have everything they need to excel at their job. Because when they do, it opens up room for everyone else to excel at their jobs, too. ‍

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