4 ms·

> you should invent some performance metric profitability and growth

IshKebab 8y ago
That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.
- Gys 8y ago
  I gave some suggestions to the manager of the cowork space where I go. She was very friendly and said yes thank you, but it was clearly not what she thought to be important. So no real improvements. Even though others tell me the same (and also switch to the much cheaper plan because that is the more rational thing to do then). So suggestions only work if it clicks with the other person (people). One guy asking an IoT water cooler could do the trick ;-)
- ehnto 8y ago
  I agree. Metrics have side effects as well. Optimizing for particular metrics can make an organisation incur tunnel vision, and leads to some really perverse and inefficient practices that don't really achieve the spirit of the metric. Think hard about what to measure and not measuring anything at all is totally valid. Just talk to the humans in your org to see if they're happy and if they need any particular changes.
- freddie_mercury 8y ago
  I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on. In my office here's a list of "staff ideas" and how they turned out: - "Let's have standing desks!" After the first six months, not a single person in the office has changed the height of their desk in over a year. - "Let's get a microwave, so people will start bringing their lunch from home." The microwave gets used once a week (by the person who requested) and now it is one more thing that needs to be cleaned weekly. - "Let's have couches, so people can work from places other than their desk!" The person who requested this used the couch every day. After he left the company, no one else has ever used it. - "Let's buy more whiteboards and put them up in various places so it is easy to have discussions anywhere!" Of the 6 whiteboards, 5 of them have had the same writing on them for over six months. One whiteboard has had the same project diagram for over a year. The ink is so set I couldn't even erase it last time I tried. Only one whiteboard ever gets used -- the one we had before the suggestion. - "Let's get croissants/yogurt/fresh fruit/whatever". In 90% of cases, the person who requested it is the only person who ever eats it. After a few months I have to discontinue ordering it because we are throwing away 90% of it.
  - owlsaway 8y ago
    Is there a way to have an anonymous voting system? I mean, not all suggestions by individuals have to be immediately implemented, do they? If no one else feels as enthusiastic on microwaves or couches or what have you, then wouldn't voting avoid the problems you describe?
  - ahmedfromtunis 8y ago
    A voting system (maybe on a Trello board, or something similar) may help gauge the requester-user problem.
  - burfog 8y ago
    I've seen lots of those work, more or less... standing desks: People who want to stand will normally put 8 concrete blocks under their desk, then get a tall chair for when they don't wish to stand. This is cheap and effective. microwave: Heh, we wore out many, and then got 4 restaurant-grade ones. We also have a couple toaster ovens. This is for a couple hundred people. For special occasions we also have a griddle, several 1-coil burners, and a propane grill. couches: They get some use, mainly during meetings and when people play video games. Some people sometimes sleep in them. whiteboards: The ones in weird places get used for polls, contests, etc. croissants/yogurt/fresh fruit/whatever: This gets eaten. Bananas seem to get ripe late on Friday though, which doesn't end well, but at least they are cheap.
    - corrigible 8y ago
      We cut & freeze overripe bananas to make shakes/sorbet next morning
  - rtpg 8y ago
    I know a lot of people who say this as a sort of implied "maybe not do any of this", but the alternative solution is "do all of this" There are obviously sometimes conflicting requests, but imagine if you had staff whose main job was making sure employees enjoy their working environment and you just shifted stuff in and out of the office as requests changed. Almost every employee would have their pet want fulfilled and you could be experimenting with new stuff every day. Sounds really expensive, but imagine what something like that might to do turnover if done well EDIT: it sounds like you did try a lot of stuff, didn't mean to imply you didn't. I just wonder what the logical endpoint of this idea is and whether it is workable
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- manigandham 8y ago
  Office managers cant tell the company is doing better just by looking? How about asking for a simple report if it's really that hard. Or... they could just not change things and waste money unnecessarily because they feel they have to. If there's nothing else for them to do, then is there even a need for an office manager in the first place? I've seen way too many 20 person startups that have more HR/office staff than actual product related people.
- speedplane 8y ago
  Love this post, for very personal reasons. My family were German Jews living in Germany for generations, and in the 1930s before it got really bad, they moved to the USA and started a water cooler business. Back in the day, water coolers were expensive to manufacture, roughly $500-1500 per unit. The company was ostensibly a water company, but would sell water with a minimal profit. Their real money renting out the water coolers at $10-20/month. Then in the late 1990s / early 200s China came online. Those $500 water coolers all of a sudden were being sold for $70. Obviously, it's pretty difficult to rent out a $70 piece of equipment for $10/mo. So the business had to shift from making money off of equipment to water, a much lower profit margin business. A few tips for any entrepreneur going into this business: - Obviously sell hard during the summer when it's hot - Asian folks often prefer hot water to cold, so have some solution that caters to them. - The bottles themselves can become a relatively large expense. Think about how to deal with them. - Moving heavy bottles of water is extremely labor intensive. Your workforce will eventually become unionized, build that into business plan. - Drinking spring and/or purified water is often subject to trends. Have a plan for when municipal water becomes "hip" or when customers demand that you reduce your carbon foot-print and stop shipping in water from out-of-state. - A common complaint about water coolers is that people find bugs in their water. More often than not, this has nothing to do with you water, and has everything to do with the location in which it's placed. You won't be able to fix every situation, have a plan for this. Good luck! You're up against some heavy-weights!

That's not something that is measurable for office managers. I don't think office managers need metrics - just a suggestion box. Most thinks are really obvious, especially if you let people tell you about them. I guarantee if the had a suggestion box nobody would suggest an IoT water cooler.

Gys 8y ago
I gave some suggestions to the manager of the cowork space where I go. She was very friendly and said yes thank you, but it was clearly not what she thought to be important. So no real improvements. Even though others tell me the same (and also switch to the much cheaper plan because that is the more rational thing to do then). So suggestions only work if it clicks with the other person (people). One guy asking an IoT water cooler could do the trick ;-)
ehnto 8y ago
I agree. Metrics have side effects as well. Optimizing for particular metrics can make an organisation incur tunnel vision, and leads to some really perverse and inefficient practices that don't really achieve the spirit of the metric. Think hard about what to measure and not measuring anything at all is totally valid. Just talk to the humans in your org to see if they're happy and if they need any particular changes.
freddie_mercury 8y ago
I disagree. Have you ever done this? I've been on the other side of it. (I own my own company.) Get suggestions from staff & follow through. In the real world staff have lots of wants, nice ideas, and "wouldn't it be good if" suggestions. They have very little concept if other people are interested in their idea, if people would actually continue to use the idea once the novelty wears off, and so on. In my office here's a list of "staff ideas" and how they turned out: - "Let's have standing desks!" After the first six months, not a single person in the office has changed the height of their desk in over a year. - "Let's get a microwave, so people will start bringing their lunch from home." The microwave gets used once a week (by the person who requested) and now it is one more thing that needs to be cleaned weekly. - "Let's have couches, so people can work from places other than their desk!" The person who requested this used the couch every day. After he left the company, no one else has ever used it. - "Let's buy more whiteboards and put them up in various places so it is easy to have discussions anywhere!" Of the 6 whiteboards, 5 of them have had the same writing on them for over six months. One whiteboard has had the same project diagram for over a year. The ink is so set I couldn't even erase it last time I tried. Only one whiteboard ever gets used -- the one we had before the suggestion. - "Let's get croissants/yogurt/fresh fruit/whatever". In 90% of cases, the person who requested it is the only person who ever eats it. After a few months I have to discontinue ordering it because we are throwing away 90% of it.
- owlsaway 8y ago
  Is there a way to have an anonymous voting system? I mean, not all suggestions by individuals have to be immediately implemented, do they? If no one else feels as enthusiastic on microwaves or couches or what have you, then wouldn't voting avoid the problems you describe?
- ahmedfromtunis 8y ago
  A voting system (maybe on a Trello board, or something similar) may help gauge the requester-user problem.
- burfog 8y ago
  I've seen lots of those work, more or less... standing desks: People who want to stand will normally put 8 concrete blocks under their desk, then get a tall chair for when they don't wish to stand. This is cheap and effective. microwave: Heh, we wore out many, and then got 4 restaurant-grade ones. We also have a couple toaster ovens. This is for a couple hundred people. For special occasions we also have a griddle, several 1-coil burners, and a propane grill. couches: They get some use, mainly during meetings and when people play video games. Some people sometimes sleep in them. whiteboards: The ones in weird places get used for polls, contests, etc. croissants/yogurt/fresh fruit/whatever: This gets eaten. Bananas seem to get ripe late on Friday though, which doesn't end well, but at least they are cheap.
  - corrigible 8y ago
    We cut & freeze overripe bananas to make shakes/sorbet next morning
- rtpg 8y ago
  I know a lot of people who say this as a sort of implied "maybe not do any of this", but the alternative solution is "do all of this" There are obviously sometimes conflicting requests, but imagine if you had staff whose main job was making sure employees enjoy their working environment and you just shifted stuff in and out of the office as requests changed. Almost every employee would have their pet want fulfilled and you could be experimenting with new stuff every day. Sounds really expensive, but imagine what something like that might to do turnover if done well EDIT: it sounds like you did try a lot of stuff, didn't mean to imply you didn't. I just wonder what the logical endpoint of this idea is and whether it is workable
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
manigandham 8y ago
Office managers cant tell the company is doing better just by looking? How about asking for a simple report if it's really that hard. Or... they could just not change things and waste money unnecessarily because they feel they have to. If there's nothing else for them to do, then is there even a need for an office manager in the first place? I've seen way too many 20 person startups that have more HR/office staff than actual product related people.
speedplane 8y ago
Love this post, for very personal reasons. My family were German Jews living in Germany for generations, and in the 1930s before it got really bad, they moved to the USA and started a water cooler business. Back in the day, water coolers were expensive to manufacture, roughly $500-1500 per unit. The company was ostensibly a water company, but would sell water with a minimal profit. Their real money renting out the water coolers at $10-20/month. Then in the late 1990s / early 200s China came online. Those $500 water coolers all of a sudden were being sold for $70. Obviously, it's pretty difficult to rent out a $70 piece of equipment for $10/mo. So the business had to shift from making money off of equipment to water, a much lower profit margin business. A few tips for any entrepreneur going into this business: - Obviously sell hard during the summer when it's hot - Asian folks often prefer hot water to cold, so have some solution that caters to them. - The bottles themselves can become a relatively large expense. Think about how to deal with them. - Moving heavy bottles of water is extremely labor intensive. Your workforce will eventually become unionized, build that into business plan. - Drinking spring and/or purified water is often subject to trends. Have a plan for when municipal water becomes "hip" or when customers demand that you reduce your carbon foot-print and stop shipping in water from out-of-state. - A common complaint about water coolers is that people find bugs in their water. More often than not, this has nothing to do with you water, and has everything to do with the location in which it's placed. You won't be able to fix every situation, have a plan for this. Good luck! You're up against some heavy-weights!