Each job has its own pros and cons. Today we share with you some interesting facts about office managers. Our girls from the Chernihiv, Odessa and Kiev offices communicate with cool people, create great atmospheric events in offices and outside, and cope with various tasks.

So, Just an Office Manager or Super Hero of your office?

I always considered this work to be a mother’s housework. You probably think that this job is too simple to be called important or valuable within the company. But would you dare tell your mother that everything she does at home is not important or easy? Surely, not. After all, what mom does at home brings comfort to your life and stay. Here, the office manager deals with your comfort: the comfort of the workplace, the working atmosphere, staying in the office, and even more, staying at your home, except for complete self-sufficiency and the absence of the need for equipment from the company.

Because of the varied nature of the work that an office manager does, the skills needed to be successful are also quite varied. It is common to see job postings for office managers with the required skills that read like a list of superhuman characteristics. And it’s true. The office manager is a man-orchestra.

Stop asking ridiculous questions!

Often, office managers are faced with such questions or comments from colleagues, such as: “What do you even do at work: buy cookies, huh?”, “You only order napkins at the shop and no one would notice if you disappeared”, “Anyone can do your work, you’re easy to replace” or “You ordered the wrong kind of pizza that I like, you ruined my day.”

This is what my colleagues and I think: “The work is really not incredibly difficult, but it has a high degree of responsibility and a good employee is not so easy to replace, I would even say that you have to be lucky to find a good, reliable, honest and responsible one in a short period of time “.

Often we are faced with the fact that our work can be imperceptible and against this background we remain unappreciated or get the impression that there is no work – but it is there and there is enough of it. Average employees do not understand the amount of work that the manager must perform and do not even notice it. They do not pay attention to the fact that the atmosphere in the office was created by the office manager.

It is impossible to describe every little thing, but there are a lot of them, our work consists of them. Sometimes, not dealing with one problem can cause many problems for the comfort of the work of others. The devil hides in the little things.

It is so important to create a work life balance in the office, because the office is not only about work; set up a coffee machine for a positive working day, because the meeting place cannot be changed, everyone meets at the coffee machine; and who will say break in the battle for the remote control for the air conditioner or for dragging the heater?!; and if someone accidentally pulled the cable to the Wi-Fi router and lost the Internet connection – this is a lost working day, the office manager rushes to help.

The crux of the matter is that the office manager’s work is not only within the office or about the office, there are a bunch of tables for filling in various types of data, a bunch of calls discussing “how to improve employees’ workplaces, the working environment, leisure time, entertain employees, etc. Creating events is a separate universe of tasks altogether. All this is done with you in mind and for you, the company’s employees.

My colleague Victoria shares her experience as an office manager:

“I sincerely believe that the atmosphere and environment in which we work directly affects our productivity and motivation. It’s nice to work where there is an office vibe and everything and everyone for your comfort. I like my job as an office manager and my responsibilities, because I feel in my element, where I am responsible for the functionality and working atmosphere of the office. I communicate with various people, make friends with couriers, with our groundskeeper, Serhiy Pavlovich, who, on a part-time basis, can play his songs for us on the guitar in the office.

I know places where my colleagues and I can taste the most delicious pizza in Odesa, where we can quickly find a place to have fun at our leisure. I know where to look for a professional external service. I like to create details that create coziness in the office: fresh flowers, fruit, juice, an aroma diffuser from sisters aroma (on the right of advertising), fragrant coffee. I like little convos in the kitchen, sometimes long-convos. I like to complete work tasks quickly. Another extremely important feeling of need and gratitude, as in any other position, and this I feel in our company and appreciate it.

I had an interesting experience at my previous place of work when an employee told me that the office manager’s job was just to order napkins at the store and no one would notice if I disappeared. It was pretty unpleasant to hear. His words devalued all the events I organized at that time for the company, my pen test in smm and my administrative work. I took it personally and only later I realized that the opinion of only authoritative people and those whose criticism will be constructive matters to me. By the way, that employee was later fired due to machinations within the company.

The average person spends 70% of his day working in the office or remotely. The workplace is important. The environment is important, because everything shapes us. I am glad that the company creates the conditions, and I make them a reality so that everything is as cool as possible.

IMHO: there is no routine in the work of an office manager, and if there is, it is a pleasant automatism. I write this with nostalgia, of course. I hope that very soon we will win and we will all return to this office routine.”

Each job has pros and cons: we communicate with cool people, create great atmospheric events in offices and outside, close cool tasks, get experience that we can apply in life, but we are irreplaceable or very difficult to replace at our workplace during the holiday period or vacations, because even when you are on the beach near the blue warm water, you are sitting on the phone to solve the issue of an upcoming event, restaurant reservation or sending equipment to a new employee.

This is the life of an office manager. Everything for your successful and efficient work is done by a hard-working, responsible and involved HR team that cares about you.

WRITTEN BY: Yana Dryhalo, Speroteck HR team