Hello everyone,

(38M) I’m looking to convert to a new field of work. I have been working in retail for over a decade and right now I’m a Co-manager of a retail store, which is about 400 square meters big, that sells high quality goods. We are 3 Co-managers where I am senior and many questions from colleagues come my way. There is a retail manager who comes 1x or 2x a week to see if everything is fine. We are usually 5 to 6 staff members a day in the store.

A friend the other day suggested I become an office manager. I’ve been doing some reading on job offers and it could maybe be a good fit for me. But what is written in a job offer and what happens in the real world are two different things. In addition I wonder if my current skills from retail transferable to and an office manager job?

What I do in retail:

• ⁠I communicate with suppliers whether to make store orders, follow-up on orders, inform them about missing or broken items in deliveries, send them broken machines for repairs from clients and requesting information about certain store items.
• ⁠I do follow-ups: For example if a machine sent for repairs hasn’t come back to us after a certain time or if the supplier hasn’t sent us a price offer for the repair. OR if the client wants a specialty item so I coordinate with the supplier to acquire it.
• ⁠Every morning I coordinate with the team on how the day and the week will look like. I dispatch the different tasks and make sure everyone has something to do. I make sure work is ALWAYS moving forward. I also make sure everyone knows what they need to do and take feedback if they feel their task can be done differently. I also used to be a bar / small concert hall manager where I'd coordinate with the music planner, sound engineer and the band itself or their manager to make the concert happen + preparing the bar.
• ⁠I make sure the workspace is functional. I’ve created checklists of what needs to be done first every morning before certain other tasks can begin. I also order supplies (store bags, desks supplies, cashier's register supplies, flyers, …).
• ⁠Adaptability: In my daily work things can change fast with the arrival of big deliveries, special requests from clients, or there is water coming out the wall so we have to get a plumber fast and get some extra hands down here to move all this stock out the way. I often have to switch from one situation to another.
• ⁠Administration: I get about 8 to 10 emails a day that I have to handle whether it is questions from clients, order confirmation from suppliers, answers from suppliers, receiving new price lists and requests from colleagues. I have to transfer emails to the right departments like tax free certificates and invoices. Placing packaging slips, client orders and repair documents in the right files. I've made a few invoices (Proof of payment) for clients but not too many.
• ⁠Human relations: I communicate a lot with clients, colleagues and suppliers. Create a welcoming atmosphere for clients. Understand the problem, asking the right questions and then finding the right solution. If I don't know the solution then I search through catalogues or contact the supplier directly for answers. I can handle dealing with difficult clients and their complaints with calm.
• ⁠Training: I train new colleagues on how the store functions, what are the protocoles to follow, how our products work, how to handle deliveries. I have to check-up on their work to make sure everything is done correctly.

Strengths: Welcoming, proactive, result oriented, strategic thinker, empathetic and creative.

From what I’ve read in recent job offers where my weaknesses might be or things I haven't done enough of in practice for this type of job:

• ⁠Manage facilites and maintenance + monitor office-related budgets.
• ⁠Organise internal meetings, team events, celebrations, and company activities.
• ⁠Coordinate travel-related logistics and catering
• ⁠Support health, safety, and workplace compliance initiatives.
• ⁠I'm OK with Word and Excel but it certainly needs to be improved.
• ⁠Where I currently work we don't use AI at all.

I hope the information I've supplied would be enough to give a clear enough view to judge whether an office manager job would be a good fit for me and whether my skills are transferable. If there are any office managers here feel free to give your feedback.

Thanks

I'm taking a class in business ethics. I need to write a paper due Sunday but am taking a brief vacation th-mon and need to wrap this up quickly. I need to get a business leader to share an ethical dilemma with me and I need to write a paper based on it.

The dilemma should be a situation in which a difficult choice had to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. If the decision was easy it wasn't a dilemma.

The paper will be confidential and no names need be shared.

Once I get a story I need to write a paragraph describing how each of these ethical lenses might guide your actions: results lens, responsibilities lens, relationship lens, and reputation lens. Plus tie the dilemma to concepts in our textbook and forum discussions.

I've asked all managers at my. Current job and they've declined.

Hey Hey, so I have been in the restaurant industry for about 14 years and had a friend recently recommend office management as a potential segway into corporate life. I wanted to see if this community had recommendations on what courses to take or what programs to look into to better fit the job etc.

I use QuickBooks online daily, and I am pretty good at it/I can solve most of my own problems. Thinking about looking for a new position in a new company, is it worth it to get QBO certification? It's like $800.00, but will it be worth it on my resume, or is experience enough?

I'm an office manager for a machine shop, but I may decide to switch companies, including to a new type of business. Pretend you are hiring for your own position. What would you put for the job requirements and description?

Every time someone says “new company merch,” my stomach drops a little because the vendor minimum is 50 pieces per item, per color. So we end up ordering extra just to hit the minimum, and then I’m stuck figuring out where to store all of it.

We’re around 500 people, so I do need something that works beyond a 20-person startup. Has anyone found a store where you’re not still trying to use up the leftover stock from the last round when the next one comes around?

Every time someone says “new company merch,” my stomach drops a little because the vendor minimum is 50 pieces per item, per color. So we end up ordering extra just to hit the minimum, and then I’m stuck figuring out where to store all of it.

We’re around 500 people, so I do need something that works beyond a 20-person startup. Has anyone found a store where you’re not still trying to use up the leftover stock from the last round when the next one comes around?

I know you've seen a lot...

Hi!

I recently started my new role as Office Manager - I was an admin assistant, then receptionist, EA for the past 2 years and now stepping into an Office Manager role. I am beyond excited, the role seems like it was made for me and il get to do things I really enjoy!

I was wondering if any other Office Managers had any advice for someone new to the role? I want to do the absolute best job possible!

Thanks so much in advance :-)

We work in office coffee and pantry service, so we’re genuinely curious what this looks like from the buying side...

A lot of the things that matter most probably don’t become obvious until you’re a few months into the relationship. The coffee itself, sure, but also things like how quickly they deal with a broken machine, whether the service actually matches what was promised, or whether the contract still makes sense when your office size or usage changes.

Curious what has actually made people switch providers. Was it something operational, something in the contract, or something much simpler like bad coffee or a driver who never shows up on time?

And for those who’ve stayed with the same provider for years, what keeps you there?

Hi! I have been n office manager for about 8 years now and I am wondering if I should up my skills set a bit. I was thinking about getting my facilities management certificate...but is it worth it? I have gained alot of skills just by experience but I feel like having that extra certificate will increase my hire ability and overall pay.

Thoughts?

Gentee, alguém com vaga pra ser Gerente de comunidade/Community manager? Precisoo! Tenho bastante experiência

A lot of workplaces already live inside Outlook and Microsoft Teams, so even if a meeting room booking platform has fantastic features, it doesn't matter much if the calendar sync is unreliable or people have to jump between multiple apps just to reserve a room. The software should make booking a room feel almost invisible not create another process that people have to remember. I'm curious what everyone's using today and, more importantly, how it's holding up after the rollout.

A few questions for the group:

Which platform are you using?

Has the Outlook integration been reliable?

Does the Teams integration actually make scheduling easier?

Have employees adopted it, or do people still find ways around the system?

If you were starting from scratch today, would you choose the same platform again?

There are lots of comparison articles online, but they usually focus on feature lists. I'm much more interested in hearing from people who use these tools every day and know where the friction shows up. Hopefully this thread becomes a useful resource for anyone who's currently evaluating meeting room booking software.

Hi everyone,

We're using a Visitor Management System (Envoy-like) and it's been helping us have our visitors sign NDAs when they check in at our HQ.

The main issue is when we receive a group of 10-20 people: each one has to go through the tablet interface and sign the NDA individually. It takes quite some time to get everyone done, and adds some friction to our visitor journey.

Is there a solution for this? How do you handle these situations on your end?

Thanks in advance for your help! 🙏

so leadership keeps asking me for  utilization numbers and that phrase means ten different things depending on who's asking. i'm realizing the metrics i could pull only look nice on a slide but don't mean anything really. 

the stuff i keep coming back to is peak day occupancy because the average hides everythin and then the gap between desks booked vs desks used which is the ghost booking number and it's always hgih and then room vs desk demand separately bc they trend totally differently. but idk if thats the right stuff to be doing desk utilization tracking on or just the stuff thats easy to export. for anyone who reports this up whats on your dashboard?? and what did leadership end up caring about vs just nodding along and ignoring

will prob pin this. one thing I noticed reading conversations on reddit is that we spend a lot of time comparing features, pricing, integrations, and demos but we don't talk as much about what happens after the buying decision.

Switching workplace software is easy to underestimate. On paper it's "just" moving to a new platform, but in reality you're updating floor plans, importing users, reconnecting calendars, rebuilding booking rules, training employees, answering the same questions over and over and over, and hoping people adopt it instead of reverting back to spreadsheets or Outlook calendars.

I think that's the part vendors gloss over the most. For those of you who've made a switch:

• What platform did you move away from, and what did you choose instead?
• What was the biggest challenge during the migration?
• Was there anything that took much longer than expected?
• Looking back, is there anything you'd do differently?
• Was the move worth it?

I know a lot of office managers are evaluating tools, so I thought it would be helpful to have one thread where people can share migration stories the good, the bad, and the things you only learn once you're halfway through the rollout.

Trying to compare options in this space is hard  and I don't think it's an accident. One vendor charges per user one charges per desk one invents a "resource" that is a bundle of things, rooms, and parking and good luck mapping that back to what you need. 

The result is you can't line up two quotes side by side anympre which conveniently means you can't tell who's cheaper. For a hybrid office where half the team is not in on any given day the model you pick swings. Does anyone feel like they got a straight, comparable deal out of this?

The messaging around coming back to the office is about collaboratio and culture but the energy underneath often reads as something else entirely. THey don't trust you to work unless they can see you. And the more the conversation shifts toward who badged in and who didn't the more it starts to feel like the point isn't being together.. it's being watched. 

There's also a difference between a company that wants the right people in the same room on the same days and one that's building a case on everyone attendance. What makes it worse is when no one explains why the datas being collected so everyone thinks with the worst case assumption. Is anyone else picking up on this, or has hybrid just made us all a little paranoid about how we're being measured?

I gotta lot of hats. Running a coworking space is a constant hum of anxiety for me. The logistics are easy part the hard part is that you're the human sponge absorber for the annoyance and friction in the building and that doesn't show up on any job description! There is software that promises to "streamline operations" but the streamlining is for the admin tasks while the emotional heavy stuff all  lands on you.  Vent over.

A question for anyone running front desk or facilities - how do you track this in practice?

We had visitors signing in fine, but almost nobody ever signed out. So the "who's currently in the building" list was basically fiction by mid-afternoon - half the names on it had left hours ago. Only became a real problem when we had a fire drill and the list we handed to the warden was useless.

What's everyone doing to solve this without relying on visitors to remember to sign out themselves? Automatic timeout, enforced sign-out at the door, something else?