What does an office manager do?

Runs the day-to-day operations of an office: supervising front-desk and admin staff, managing vendors and facilities, keeping HR and finance paperwork in order, tracking the budget, and fixing whatever is broken that week. In a small business it also absorbs a lot of work that has no other owner.

What's the difference between an office manager and a receptionist?

A receptionist owns the front desk and the phone. An office manager owns the office — including, usually, the receptionist. The overlap is real in small businesses where the same person does both, which is worth being explicit about in the posting so nobody is surprised.

What qualifications does an office manager need?

Most employers screen on experience rather than credentials. What matters is having run something before — a desk, a team, a budget — and being able to point at it. Bookkeeping or HR exposure shortens the ramp considerably in a small business where those land on the same desk.

Should the office manager answer the phone?

In a small office they inevitably will, at least as cover. The question worth settling before you hire is whether that's the exception or the expectation — an office manager spending two hours a day on the phone is not doing the job you're paying for.

Office Manager job description — free template and generator

What the role involves

We're looking for an office manager to keep the place running. You'll oversee the front desk, manage vendors and supplies, keep the admin and HR paperwork straight, watch the budget, and be the person everyone asks when something needs sorting. It's a broad role in a small business — part operations, part people, part whatever today needs.

Core duties

Answer and route incoming calls
Book, reschedule and confirm appointments
Greet visitors and sign them in
Take accurate messages and pass them on
Monitor the shared inbox and reply to routine email
Order and stock office supplies
Manage meeting room bookings
Maintain the team calendar and travel bookings
Supervise and schedule the front-desk team
Handle invoices, expenses and petty cash
Keep HR paperwork, timesheets and PTO records in order
Manage vendors, service contracts and office facilities
Track the office budget and flag overspend
Run onboarding for new starters
Maintain filing and document systems

Requirements

Experience managing an office, a front desk, or a small operations team
Comfortable owning a budget and chasing a supplier who hasn't delivered
Organized enough to hold a dozen open threads without dropping one
Confident with spreadsheets, scheduling software and basic bookkeeping
Discreet with HR, payroll and personnel information

Nice to have

Experience with the bookkeeping or payroll system we use
Background in our industry

Skills to screen for

OperationsVendor managementBudget trackingPeople managementDiscretionProblem solving

Be honest about the phone

An office manager usually inherits the phone twice over: covering the desk when it's short-staffed, and owning the decision about how calls get handled in the first place. The second one is the real job, and it's the one that never makes it into the description.

Worth writing into the description rather than leaving as a surprise. Candidates who are good at it will recognize the description and apply; the ones who would have quit in month two will screen themselves out, which is the cheapest screening you will ever do.

What the hire actually covers

Pay for this role varies more than most — it spans two different federal wage categories depending on how much the job supervises, so there is no single defensible median to quote. Check local listings for comparable businesses of your size, and budget above base for employer payroll taxes, benefits and paid time off.

Either way you get 40 of the 168 hours in a week. The remaining 128 — evenings, weekends, lunch cover, sick days, holidays — are hours our office still takes calls, and nobody is on the desk for them.

Hire the person. Just budget for the gap too, and work out what it's costing with the missed-call cost calculator.

Office Manager FAQ

What does an office manager do?+
Runs the day-to-day operations of an office: supervising front-desk and admin staff, managing vendors and facilities, keeping HR and finance paperwork in order, tracking the budget, and fixing whatever is broken that week. In a small business it also absorbs a lot of work that has no other owner.
What's the difference between an office manager and a receptionist?+
A receptionist owns the front desk and the phone. An office manager owns the office — including, usually, the receptionist. The overlap is real in small businesses where the same person does both, which is worth being explicit about in the posting so nobody is surprised.
What qualifications does an office manager need?+
Most employers screen on experience rather than credentials. What matters is having run something before — a desk, a team, a budget — and being able to point at it. Bookkeeping or HR exposure shortens the ramp considerably in a small business where those land on the same desk.
Should the office manager answer the phone?+
In a small office they inevitably will, at least as cover. The question worth settling before you hire is whether that's the exception or the expectation — an office manager spending two hours a day on the phone is not doing the job you're paying for.

The other 128 hours

Hire the receptionist. Cover the rest of the week.

RingOwl answers the calls your front desk can't — after hours, at lunch, and on the second line when the first one's busy. It books appointments into your calendar, takes messages, and emails you a summary of every call.

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