An Office Manager has a wide range of responsibilities, needing to support, plan for, advise, and schedule the entire office. The logistics within the office also needs constant management to ensure maximum productivity and efficiency.
Keeping on top of all these roles is clearly a massive task which takes a lot of work and time. However, office management can be made much more manageable through the use of effective management tools and software. With so many services out there, here are our top runners to make an office manager’s life so much simpler!
Scrum
Scrum is mainly seen as a management tool for software companies, however, in reality it can be used by anyone with a complex project in the making. Scrum has been around for over 20 years and has been labelled as the ultimate office management tool. Designed to allow speedy progress, it helps manage projects, focus on specific goals, adapt to change and avoid unnecessary lag.
Scrum documents milestones, monitors all the elements of a project as well as the progress within each department. It also allows for the constant evolution of project goals to meet the needs of the consumer.
Taskworld
Taskworld is another project management app, however, rather than focusing on goals and deadlines, Taskworld allows for the management of workflows, focusing on teamwork. This tool is great for keeping the entire team up to date - in or out of the office.
Taskworld offers enterprise chat, a place to securely store documents, evaluation performance in real time, and a place to lay out all the work that needs to be done.
Insightly
Every business, whether its B2B or B2C, will have clients; and every office manager knows that keeping track of these clients, as well as maintaining a positive relationship, is highly important. A customer relationship management (CRM) system, like Insightly, can make this huge task a simple process.
In addition to organising client information, Insightly manages a wide range of functions. It assists in the management of projects, directs the user to social media accounts associated with client’s email addresses, and features useful integrations to applications like Dropbox and Evernote.
Due.com
Office managers deal with numerous invoices every week and with so many invoices to handle, keeping track of them all can get complicated requiring huge filing systems that need constant management. Due.com fixes this issue, with great invoice templates, a time tracker and an invoice trend tracker.
Google Hangouts
The tech giant known as Google has the world of online business communications cornered. Google Hangouts has both a free version and a business upgrade. The free version obviously has its limitations, but with the business upgrade you can have unlimited video conferences between unlimited screens.
On top of this, Hangouts has the great function of screen sharing, allowing you to show off your presentations and documents during calls.
Google Docs
Again, Google is great for businesses. This time, its cloud storage, specifically Google Docs, allows you to store almost any digital file. The true value is in the function that allows you to invite any and all team members to view, edit and collaborate on these files in real time.
Hootsuite
While an office manager doesn’t necessarily manage social media, it can be helpful for them to have the ability to monitor (and post) content on the company’s social media pages. Among the abundance of social media schedulers out there, Hootsuite has proven highly popular and effective. This tool allows you to schedule posts for almost every social network. Not only can you schedule posts, but Hootsuite allows you to track how your posts are performing and being received.
Office management can be a tough job with a lot of different tasks. Using effective tools can save you a lot of time and trouble, making it easier to fulfil your responsibilities and get the office organised.