Wearing many hats is tricky, but these tools can make a huge difference in making your life as an Office Manager easier and more organized.
Originally posted by SnackNation. Reposted with permission.
Being really good at office management means being able to handle a wide variety of tasks and responsibilities.
The title “Office Manager” might as well be changed to “Jack (or Jill) of All Trades.”
Office management is managing and improving the logistics within an office in order to support all the employees within that organization. As an Office Manager, you are expected to do more than most in the office. You’re the scheduler, financial advisor, overseer, office shopper, and so much more.
Keeping all of these roles manageable is dependent on one key factor: the office management software and other tools you use. How do you know which tools are the most effective, though?
These top 10 office management tools will make your life as an office manager a complete breeze.
Free Bonus: Get a PDF version of The 2018 State of The Office Manager Report. We surveyed 572 Office Managers to uncover 10 takeaways you can use to hit your goals and overcome challenges. Plus learn what other Office Managers are getting paid (and how you can earn more)!
Known mostly as a management tool for software companies, scrum is a project management style that helps companies quickly adapt to change and minimize unnecessary lag. Created in 1993 by Jeff Sutherland, Scrum has helped small car companies to governmental organizations achieve their goals well before deadlines. In other words, scrum is the ultimate office management tool. The process is characterized by:
But a scrum board can only go so far. A few Post-It notes on a wall are easily forgotten. Plus, what happens if you have people working outside of the office? That’s where monday.com comes in – we use it at SnackNation!
With the ability to lay out the work, manage everything with custom workflows & visual overviews, chat with your team, securely store documents, and evaluate performance in real-time, Monday.com is the perfect solution for keeping everyone in your office up to date on the projects that matter most.
No matter if you’re a B2B or B2C business, you will have clients. Keeping track of them all can seem like an insurmountable task. Luckily, Insightly, a customer relationship management (or CRM) system makes the process easy. Like most CRMs, Insightly organizes all of your clients and helps you manage projects.
But Insightly also does a lot more.
For one, it detects all of the social media accounts associated with your client’s email address. It also has a lot of useful integrations to applications like Evernote and Dropbox. With Insightly, all your information is in one place, making running your business a complete breeze.
The human body needs fuel. Everyone knows that. But did you know that stocking the break room with healthy snacks could improve productivity? According to a study performed by office supply giant Staples, one in two employees reported leaving the office at least once a day for a coffee or snack run. Some reported leaving the office as many as five times a day.
By providing healthy snacks for your workers, you are reducing the amount of time spent outside the office and, therefore, helping your team boost their productivity. Plus, it definitely wouldn’t look bad on your part to be the guy or gal who started getting snacks delivered to the office.
For office managers, the one thing that can be depended upon is invoices and lots of them. Keeping track of all of them either requires a degree in finance, an overly complicated filing system, or Due.com. With clean and easy-to-read invoice templates, a time tracker, and even an invoice trend tracker, Due.com is the easy answer to all of your invoicing needs.
Being the tech giant it is, one would expect Google to have the business market cornered. With Google Hangouts for Business, it definitely does. Like Skype, there is a free version of Google Hangouts, but it has some limitations. For example, you can only videoconference between two screens. With the Business upgrade, which costs five dollars per month per user, you can have unlimited videoconferences between an unlimited amount of screens. That also includes screen sharing, so any presentation you give doesn’t have to be completely in-house.
Has your company launched a new product? Google Hangouts for Business takes care of that too. By holding a public hangout, you can share your product with industry leaders and other interested parties. Plus, the video can automatically upload to your YouTube account, making new product announcements a breeze.
Google continues to impress with Google Drive, a cloud storage center that can store virtually any file type. The best part? You can invite team members to collaborate on documents and see their changes in real-time. No more waiting a day and a half for a file.
With Google Drive, you can work together to make the company more productive. Google Drive is also free, but more storage is included in the Google Apps for Business price.
Organizing travel for yourself can be a hassle. But organizing travel for two in-house and three remote workers? Forget about it. That is unless you use Hipmunk. Like many other sites, Hipmunk advertises comparing flight and hotel deals from multiple sources. However, Hipmunk’s easy-to-use interface allows you to not only compare flight prices (and layover lengths) but also see exactly where the hotel you booked is.
You can also buy packages using Hipmunk, meaning that your company’s trip will be put on one easy transaction. Best of all, you can save your travel searches and access them later, so you can make sure to get written approval from your boss before booking the flights.
A surprisingly time-consuming part of your job is probably ordering products for the office. Whether it’s new printer ink, note pads, or matching company jumpsuits, Amazon Business has got you covered. Need those three-ring binders in time for Friday’s meeting? Not a problem. With Amazon Business, you get free two-day shipping.
As an Amazon Business customer, you also have access to creating multiple accounts, making it easy for other employees to purchase products, but also requires you to approve the charge before it goes through. On top of that, you have access to business-only products and pricing with Amazon Business. Basically, Amazon Business is your one-stop shop for all things office-related.
While you might not be the social media manager for your company, it is still good to be able to monitor what is being posted on your brand’s social media pages. That’s where a social media scheduler like Hootsuite becomes useful. With Hootsuite, you can schedule posts for over 35 social networks, find out what people are saying about your brand, track how well posts are performing, and increase your social reach by finding other social media outlets that might interest your audience.
The best part?
You can leave most of the number-crunching to your marketing manager. All you have to do is check in using Hootsuite’s multiple-user feature.
ProofHub is a cloud-based project management software to help project managers and their teams deliver projects as per the deadlines and budget. It brings together your team members, projects, and clients at a central place and comes with amazing features that make collaboration among remote workers a breeze.
Its features include task management, online discussions, notes, online Proofing, multiple Timers, Gantt Charts, Calendar, reports, files, and third-party integrations. In addition to this, it also allows you to access Freshbooks, Google Calendar, iCal, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Onedrive, and Outlook within its interface. It’s a great way to keep all your scattered files in one place. And, the native mobile app ensures that you can carry your work and your projects along wherever you go.
Bonus Resource: GreetlyEver faced this situation: You need to do something in the back of the office and at the same time you are stuck in the reception area waiting for an important visitor or delivery? Never again! With Greetly you can virtually be in two places at once.
Greetly is a visitor management system that allows guests to check themselves into your office. You or your coworkers will be instantly notified by voice call, text message, email, Slack, Hangouts, or Teams notification when their 10 am appointment, lunch order, important package or other visitors arrive. Greetly can also capture visitor photos and legal document eSignatures and print visitor badges. With a ton of integrations setting up and managing Greetly is a snap. Free yourself up with Greetly.
Wearing multiple hats can be tricky, but using the right tools can make a huge difference in making your life as an Office Manager easier and more organized.
When you are in charge of lots of critical tasks, a visitor management system like Greetly takes a ton of the legwork out of signing in visitors.
Greetly is an easy to use visitor management system and a crowd favorite because of its friendly interface, customizable platform, and simple set up.
If the prospect is coming to your office, preregister them with Greetly, a visitor management system so every guest feels like a VIP.