"Office Manager" and Other Admin Job Titles

Job titles for administrative positions are always interesting, because there is so much of "doing what is needed" in any administrative position. For that reason, people with the same job title at different companies may have only a small percentage of their job duties in common - even if their job descriptions are similar! Or they may have job duties normally associated with another job title. Often, one company's "Receptionist" is another company's "Office Manager", "HR Assistant", "Administrative Assistant", even "Executive Assistant"...or possibly a different title! Of course there are levels of experience and expertise implied, as well as tasks and responsibilities that are generally categorized into each position, but the overlap can still be quite striking.

Confession time: "Office Manager" isn't my official job title. But wait! Before you accuse me of fraud, allow me to point out that much of my job covers duties traditionally taken care of by the office manager. When people at my company introduce me, they often say, "Basically, she's the office manager." My company gave me the title "Operations Administrator" (a title I definitely like) because, my supervisor and the VP of HR explained, I don't technically manage any people, and because the duties encompassed in my roll include so many things that don't fit in the basic list of office manager duties.

Fair enough.

But for my blog, I wanted to use a blog title that would be easily recognizable as covering the types of things I address: running the office and the life of an admin. "Office Manager" seemed to capture it best. I'm not claiming it's my official job title, but it's my function more often than not!

(Thank goodness I got that off my chest!)

Here are the Office Manager and Senior Office Manager job descriptions from OfficeTeam's Salary Guide (which I highly recommend checking out - it drills down average salaries by job description and geographic location. How well are you being paid? Knowledge is power!):

 

Here's the take on office manager job titles on officemanagerblog.com.

I do a lot of the things listed, and many others besides!

How about you? What's your job title? Are you "Office Manager", officially or functionally?


That's it for now. Happy Monday, have a great week!