THE OFFICE MANAGER

The Office Manager

The Office Manager

Introduction

An office manager (estate agent) runs an agency's sales plans with the purpose of making the maximum profit. He makes the procedures and training programs for sales people. An office manager has to assign sales territories and goals to sales representatives. (Consumer Reports 1990, 460) Office manager evaluates and hires the sales staff. Office manager interprets and enforces company policies, prepares business reports, and helps the staff solve problems. Office manager needs to analyse the sales statistics in order to determine the sales potential and determine the needs of customers. All purchase requests must be approved by the office manager. The office manager maintains contact with dealers and distributors. Office manager has to deal with all customer and staff complaints. (Kotter 2001, 85-96)

Roles and Responsibilities

Generally speaking, when a person is employed to find a buyer of property, he is commonly said to be employed as an agent, and the term "estate agent" is a common description of a class of persons whose business is to find buyers for owners who wish to sell property. (Munro 2004, 11-19) But the mere employment of such a person under the designation of agent does not, apart from the general rule that the employer will be responsible for misrepresentations made by him, necessarily create any authority to do anything which will affect the legal position of his employer. He may, of course, be given any express authority which the employer thinks fit to give him, and estoppels may arise, but the law does not imply from the mere fact of employment to find a purchaser a general authority to do on behalf of the employer anything which may be incidental to the effecting of a sale.

In estate agency an office manager has a business, fair and legal duty to work on behalf of his customer, i.e. the trader. This means getting the best price for the property, negotiating terms that are favourable to the vendor and acting in accordance with the vendor's instructions at all times. As the purchaser, you should expect estate agents to be helpful and friendly towards you in order to encourage you to view the properties that they have available. But, however nice the estate agent is, you must never forget that their job is to act in the interests of the other side.

In these competitive times, survival depends largely on an organization's capabilities to anticipate and prepare for change rather than just react to it. The role of the financial officer, thus, becomes crucial to meet these technological, economic and political, changes.

In today's business world what is the role of an office manager? We have all heard at one time or another that an office manager wears many hats. The role of the office manager has expanded beyond traditional responsibilities related to estate agency's finances. An office manager though his/her understanding of the company's financial health, the current market, and the goals of the company helps set directions and guides decision ...