Office Management

This chapter discusses the key attributes of running an efficient and organized office. Your office(s) first and foremost needs to be a productive work environment for your staff. When hiring a new employee is the space, phone extension, and computer ready for them on the day he or she arrives—or are you scrambling to get these things set up during their first couple of weeks on the job? Further, the professional services firm office is your face to clients and prospective and existing staff. It ref lects either organization or disorganization, confidentiality, or lack thereof or it ref lects...
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Office Management 20 Office Management JOHN BASCHAB AND JON PIOT There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship. —Iris Murdoch, British novelistThis chapter discusses the key attributes of running an efficient and organ-ized office. Your office(s) first and foremost needs to be a productive workenvironment for your staff. When hiring a new employee is the space, phoneextension, and computer ready for them on the day he or she arrives—or areyou scrambling to get these things set up during their first couple of weekson the job? Further, the professional services firm office is your face to clients andprospective and existing staff. It ref lects either organization or disorganiza-tion, confidentiality, or lack thereof or it ref lects simplicity or complexity.What catches your client’s attention when entering your office space? Whatfirst impression does your office and staff leave? Office management includes support services such as managing and main-taining the facility; organizing and managing the administrative staff; ensur-ing proper services are provided such as phones, offices, and documentreproduction centers. Office management may also include some of the softeraspects of running the firm including fostering the firm’s culture and captur-ing and maintaining the history of the firm. For smaller firms, office manage-ment duties are typically combined with other functions (e.g., book-keeping)that can be carried out by one person. In larger firms, office managementmay actually be the function of a dedicated full-time employee or a depart-ment of employees. In this chapter, we discuss many of the basic servicesprovided by the office management function and the growth points in the lifeof the firm when transitioning from part-time staff to full-time staff andother organizational actions are appropriate. 517518 The Back Office: Efficient Firm Operations Why Is This Topic Important?This topic doesn’t receive the attention it deserves because it is a supportfunction. The bulk of professional services firm management attention, in-vestment and discussions will appropriately focus on billable activity andbusiness development. However, business development will suffer if onewalks into a poorly run professional services office and notices immediatelythat no one is attending to the reception area, the phones are not answeredconsistently, and the space looks cluttered and unorganized. A disorganizedoffice begs the question: If the firm is willing to treat its own offices thispoorly, how well can it possibly service client accounts? Conventional think-ing would suggest that running a simple function such as answering thephone or maintaining an impressive reception area should be an easy act fora professional services firm. Doing the work of the firm, selling, and workingwith clients is complicated; managing the office is not. Or is it? Rarely does the “plant” run as smoothly as one wishes. Many importantduties can get complicated due to inattention, time demands or office poli-tics, for example: • Assigning offices • Optimizing administrative staff assignments • Prioritizing duplication services • Executing common tasks, such as new employee onboarding or recruit- ing events • Filing confidential client or employee information What can appear to be a simple office change for one attorney or consul-tant can cascade into a mess of negotiations and disgruntled workers whodon’t want to be moved or don’t like their office assignment. A well-run office management function is important for four key reasons: 1. It helps keep your billable staff from focusing on unproductive office and administrative matters. 2. The reception area and workspace are transparent to the client and re- f lect on the firm. 3. The organization of the workspace can increase staff productivity or hinder it. 4. The function can be (and most often is) a central force in promoting a culture. A professional service firm maximizes profits by ensuring the profession-als are as billable as possible. Their time is not well spent on office or facil-ity issues. So the a critical objective for the office manager is to keep the Office Management 519professionals from having to spend precious time on nonbillable office man-agement issues. Additionally, the office manager ’s goal is to provide servicesthat make the job easier, or to facilitate doing components the job using a lessexpensive resource (i.e., graphics specialist, research analyst, typist). This chapter provides an overview of the office management function. Wediscuss the typical support services provided, facility management best prac-tices, and the hiring of office managers. What Is Office Management?Office management consists of three primary functions. First, office man-agers typically provide support services to the rest of the employees. Theseservices include administrative support, scheduling, print and document re-production services, design/graphics support, telecom, mail, and so on. Sec-ond, the office manager maintains the physical facility and manages thelandlord and building services. Maintaining the facility encompasses spaceplanning, maintenance, office moves, security, storage, vending and coffeeservice, break rooms, and so on. Finally, the office manager in some casesmay be responsible for other duties such as coordinating local office social ac-tivities, celebrating major firm events, publishing firm newsletters, maintain-ing a ...