Office Managers: 5 Surefire Ways to Make Your Boss Love You

Executive Summary

• An office manager is a key to running an efficient, productive workplace.
• Several aspects can ensure success in the eyes of management and co-workers. Largely, office managers must be highly organized and prepared for a wide variety of potential events.
• While simultaneously understanding where they play into the organization's larger goals, including the value of each customer and budget realities.

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As an office manager, you already know that your higher-ups count on you to keep the office running smoothly. And as someone who interacts with everyone in the office, your influence travels far and wide throughout your organization. You’re often the hub of office processes and operations—the office jack-of-all-trades—with a LOT to juggle. We salute you, office managers, and offer these five tips to help you garner the admiration you deserve from your leadership team.

1. Ensure Clients Are Always Taken Care Of

Any successful company’s highest priority is its customers and clients—so yours should be, too. Whether you oversee the reception staff or handle front desk duties yourself, as the office manager, you’ll want to make sure visitors are greeted and helped promptly. Work to establish effective staff schedules for front-desk coverage, and look to digital visitor management systems like Greetly, which help ensure guests aren’t left pacing the lobby, waiting for a receptionist’s phone conversation to end. They’ll be swiftly connected to the person they came to see through automatic notifications to the appropriate employee. 

2. Research a Time-Saving Solution Yourself

Don’t wait for your boss to suggest a new digital tool or app to solve a problem or improve efficiency. Proactively undertake research on your own to solve office bottlenecks or inefficiencies. You’ll earn major bonus points when you come to your execs with well-researched and innovative tools that save time. Whether it’s automated appointment scheduling, supply ordering, meeting room reservations, or a digital reception solution that integrates with your entire office, you’ll be rewarded for your forward-thinking, tech-savvy approach to problem-solving.

3. Send Meeting Agendas and Recaps Relentlessly

Time is precious for executives and supervisors, as you know, and meetings tend to eat up a lot of it. Shorten meeting time by providing a well-thought-out agenda in advance, which sets expectations for the purpose of the meeting, topics you’ll discuss, and how much time you’ll spend together. Post-meeting, sending a written recap will increase the accountability and likelihood that follow-up actions will happen. While it’s easy to get in the habit of skipping these steps, you’ll really stand out to your boss if you reliably complete them every single time.  

4. Get to Know All Aspects of the Company

While your job might, at times, seem a step removed from the “doers” in your office who produce, market, or sell a product or service, your intimate knowledge of the company’s business model is critical to its success. How impressed would your boss be if you took 20 minutes each week to have coffee with the head of each department and ask about their biggest priorities and responsibilities? In turn, you’ll gain an advantage from a deeper understanding of the whole organization and be able to keep operations flowing smoothly to support its key values and revenue goals.

5. Be a Penny Pincher

While it might not seem like a big deal if a box of printer paper costs 50 cents more from one supplier over another, little expenses can add up over time. Challenge yourself to find savings: Maybe a lunch caterer that’s 10% less expensive than the last, a new event space that’s offering a special deal for your next gathering, or front-desk technology that adds the power of an extra employee for a fraction of the cost. If you keep costs to a minimum and keep an eye out for savings everywhere you look, your leadership team is bound to take notice of your respect for the bottom line.

A Bonus

And a surefire way to impress your boss: Take a free tour of Greetly and see if it’s a good fit for your office. You’ll learn how to modernize your front desk, customize the software to offer guests and staff a personal welcome, and create efficiencies with easy integrations.