How to be a Strategic Partner for your Business as the Office Manager

Aligning yourself to your business and their goals, missions and values is something that is talked about a lot now, and in particular for assistant roles where they can align with the individuals(s) they support to ensure they truly represent their executive and, if senior or at C-Suite level, the business too. It has great advantages and can really embed you into every aspect of the business, meaning you can have more autonomy, and fully and effectively support your company.

Strategic partnering is traditionally something between two businesses who could work together to maximise their output, profitability, service, product (whichever it may be) for the benefit of both entities. But how does someone do this in an office management role? And just what is the value to you (and your business) by doing so?

Being the company who is all about office management and empowering, connecting and developing office managers, we wanted to share our tips on how to go about it as the office manager and what it will mean for you, and your business, this is something we teach and talk about frequently in our seminars and within The Office Management Course Advanced Level.

Firstly, it’s important to know what the objectives, missions, values, goals (whatever your company may refer to them as) are. And truly understand what they mean and how it affects things like their decision-making processes, how they recruit and maintain culture, messaging, comms and branding that goes out (the tone, style and so on), client relationships and ultimately why these are what they have chosen to underpin the company’s culture and position in their marketplace. 

We recommend asking your line manager, the COO, HR Manager or, if you have a direct line - the CEO and be well-prepared going into the meeting with some really open and more direct or closed questions too. Marketing may also be a good team to tap into, again if you have them, as they’ll have had a hand in curating these and will be key in that comms and messaging element. 

Next, consider which of these for you as a team for example, the office management team inclusive of reception, can align to and have an impact on. Things like environment and culture at the office will be big areas you can have a direct and indirect hand in influencing. And how can you extend on that, to deepen it and make it meaningful.

It’s helpful at this point to get the job specs together for your staff, update if needed and look at all the ways in which you influence culture. It won’t always be obvious right away, but even areas of responsibility such as the coffee machine to include how it tastes, the speed of fixes and the communication around any upgrades to it or changes will impact on the overall culture and how your staff feel about work.

If it tastes bad, never works, and you never tell anyone about its defects or updates – well, they’ll be left with a feeling of “waste of money”, “gross coffee” and “poor communication” which can feed negatively around a business and significantly impact culture. But it might not just or actually be culture, it may be other areas such as productivity, collaboration, specific missions which you will have to drill into to figure out how you can contribute towards their success.

When you’ve drilled deep enough generate and agree on missions and/or values for your team which link in to the company’s or your line manager’s which hopefully feed into the company’s (it’s like a hierarchy sitting from the top of the tree going down to the trunks and giving it the foundations to keep growing). Now consider which of these you can transfer and evolve to your own role. So, you end up with a three-tier set of missions or objectives. Try to get the buy-in here from your team where possible so it’s a project all can influence and get excited by.

Now work out how to apply them and set realistic goals and ways in which you can monitor and measure their success and effectiveness.  After all, there’s little point in setting these things if we don’t know how they’re measuring up and keep an open mind in reviewing and adjusting them if needed. 

Some examples might be:

Company – “We promote wellbeing and empowerment for our people, finding new ways to add value and ensure we deliver sustainable revenue and profit.”

Department – “It’s our mission to create an environment that is sustainable, productive and works well in which our staff will feel proud to work in, where they can focus with ease and are empowered and feel valued.”

Yours – “I will strive to contribute towards the business objectives by ensuring a first-class service, providing value to my team and the office experience is of the highest standard ensuring a focus on responsibilities and tasks that bring about positive and sustainable change and evolvement.”

You may then have some very specific objectives from this which talk about fixes of kit and equipment quickly, onboarding new joiners effectively so they can work right away, dealing with DSEs so people are comfortable and supported – so many ideas can spring from it (varying dependent on your specific remit!)

 Actively get feedback from your team, from other staff and management in the process and before they’re finalised as well as once they’re implemented and you’re actively acting on them you’ll want others to support it.

 Partnering with your business all the way through the ranks and aligning to their way of working, values and missions will have such a massive, positive impact and will ensure you are more than integral to that business. 

For more on how you can make positive steps to improve and develop in your office management role you can reach out to me directly or find out more about our group or 1:1 training opportunities.