Job description of an office manager with secretary functions: features and requirements

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Even with a small staff, including only the head of the company and his employees, a responsible employee is needed who would be an organizing force capable of directing and controlling the work process - this is the idea that determines the text of the job description of the office manager.

This position requires the applicant to have a set of specific skills and relevant education, as well as the ability to interact with people. However, the list of requirements is not limited to this.

Job Description

Already at the stage of applying for a position, a candidate can familiarize himself with the normative act regulating his rights, duties and responsibilities in the company. Such a document is called a job description. It consists of five main sections:

1. General provisions. They contain all organizational information: the name of the enterprise, the position held and the structural unit to which it belongs. It also indicates the subordination, the procedure for filling a position and dismissal, as well as the requirements for education andqualifications.
2. Responsibilities. This section provides a list of the employee's responsibilities, as well as ways to implement them.
3. The rights of an employee, that is, all the additional opportunities that contribute to the effective performance of duties.
4. Responsibility. In accordance with this section, management makes decisions on performance assessment, promotion or pen alty.
5. Relationships. This section governs all communications with external and internal divisions that an employee may have in the course of performing their functions.

Principles of drafting a job description

The normative basis for the preparation of such documents is the Qualification Directory for the positions of managers, specialists and other employees (1998). When developing it, considerable attention was paid to the description of the position and the conditions for the employee to fulfill his duties. The specifics of the work are included in the title of the document, for example, "Job description of the secretary" (office manager or chief accountant).

In addition, if there are two positions with the same title but different tasks, then different documents should be prepared to reflect these differences. The job descriptions of the office manager of the personnel officer have certain differences from the same regulation for the secretary.

Requirements for an office manager

A candidate for the position one way or another will have to manage people. This may be just a couple of people in a small company or the entire administrative staff in a large enterprise. Naturally,the applicant must be a confident PC user and be able to work with other office equipment (scanner, printer or fax). An office manager is often a representative of a company, so good speech and the ability to compose business letters are a prerequisite. Very often, companies require from such employees knowledge of the basics of office work and labor legislation. Knowledge of at least one foreign language is still a desirable skill, but when applying for a large enterprise, this is already one of the mandatory requirements.

In some cases, the office manager has to combine his duties with the functions of other employees. This leads to an increase in the required skills. So, an office manager with the functions of an accountant must have the appropriate education and own special programs.

Main responsibilities

Typical job description of an office manager with secretarial functions includes the following items:

• handling mail, both incoming and outgoing; their redistribution within the company;
• control over the timing of the fulfillment of obligations under contracts and agreements;
• making outgoing and receiving incoming calls;
• work with clients and representatives of partner companies;
• monitoring the availability of necessary stationery;
• maintaining office equipment in working condition and calling specialists in case of breakdown;
• distribution of time within the work schedule (in somecases and for the leader);
• organization of necessary events (meetings, conferences, business trips, corporate parties);
• minutes of meetings;
• updating and adding new content to the corporate website.

This list includes only the basic requirements. Other items can be added in accordance with the specifics of the employment contract being concluded. The job description of an office manager with the functions of a personnel officer, for example, instructs the employee to maintain and provide all reporting documentation in a timely manner or to replace the head of the personnel department in case of his absence.

Additional responsibilities

In addition to the basic functions, the job description of an office manager contains a list of various duties that may vary depending on the company's activities. An office manager may be ordered to work with administrative authorities, i.e. obtain permission to conduct trade, open a branch of a company or subsidiary, etc.

One of the most responsible tasks is the actual management of the company in the absence of its director. Of course, this is only possible if the employee has established himself as a responsible and reliable person who can be relied upon. In addition, the job description of an office manager often contains a clause on the need to issue a general power of attorney. Such a document mayrequired, for example, to receive mail of high importance.

Informal requirements

Large companies usually allow candidates for this position to familiarize themselves with a sample office manager job description in advance so that they are fully aware of the list of requirements and responsibilities.

But even with the sight of such powers, the applicant must understand that he remains one of the many employees of the enterprise. In this regard, one should not forget what is not spelled out in the job description. An office manager with the functions of a secretary must be a person who is sensitive to time in order to be able to distribute it as necessary.

Workflow Tasks

The most important requirement for his work is efficiency, so a person holding such a position is obliged to economically spend office materials, control the amount of electricity consumed.

For other employees of the company, the office manager is responsible almost on a par with the head. Because of this, he must ensure that working conditions comply with accepted sanitary standards and safety rules. Finally, in fulfilling his direct duties, the office manager gets access to secret documentation, so one of the requirements is the signing of an agreement on non-disclosure of trade secrets or any other information that could harm the company's position in the market.

Right office-manager

Of course, the performance of such a number of duties allows the employee to enjoy special rights. They are also spelled out in the job description of the office manager. The essence of some of them, such as the ability to access confidential information, directly stems from the need to fulfill their job responsibilities. Others are associated with power privileges. So, the office manager has the right to demand from the rest of the employees to correct the mistakes they made through negligence in production documents, set the amount of encouragement for them or apply pen alties to negligent ones.

Often, the office manager is the link between employees and executives. This position allows him to strive for better working conditions and present collective wishes for improving the quality of work of both a single department and the enterprise as a whole.

Features of the job description of the office manager of the sales department

Office managers have long been indispensable in large and small companies, so they need some special skills to fill such a vacancy. A common case is when several office managers work at the same enterprise with special functions, over which there is a senior. Their job descriptions are essentially the same, but differ in an additional set of functions.

Thus, if an office manager works in the sales department, his job description may contain items such as:

• search for new outlets;
• tracking changes in the structure of demand;
• preparation of reporting documents on perfect sales;
• direct work with the client to receive orders and their subsequent processing;
• work to inform customers about possible changes in the range of goods and recalculation of prices;
• organize necessary meetings;
• signing contracts for the supply of goods.

Further requirements may be related to the specifics of the goods offered by the company. If the company is involved in the sale and purchase of real estate, then the duties of an office manager may include the preparation of information booklets and the execution of specific documents.

Responsibility of the office manager

In case of non-fulfillment of their duties, when committing offenses, including the disclosure of trade secrets, or other actions that damage the company's image, the office manager is liable in accordance with the norms of the administrative, civil and criminal codes. If material damage was caused to the organization, then the punishment is imposed in accordance with the provisions of the labor code.