What a Tech Office Manager Really Does, and What Can Come off the Desk
Office and residential towers, Tel Aviv
An office manager in a Tel Aviv tech company does two jobs under one title. One is about people: welcoming new employees, wellbeing, events and the company's culture. The other is about the building: cleaning and maintenance suppliers, repairs, invoices, deliveries and the building's management company. The first is why companies hire for the role. The second can move to someone else, so whoever runs the office has time for the first.
We read the office manager job ads of three tech companies with offices in the Tel Aviv area, Winn.AI, SuperPlay and Remitly, to see what the role actually includes. Some of the ads are no longer open, but they describe the job well.
What the ads say
Winn.AI asks the office manager to manage and operate the office end to end, including day-to-day coordination with vendors and service providers such as cleaning and maintenance, and to keep the work environment clean, organised and pleasant. The same ad adds office expenses (handling invoices, paying suppliers, issuing invoices to clients and tracking collections), employee engagement and welfare (happy hours, company events, holiday gifts), the early stages of recruitment, onboarding, internal communication and company culture.
SuperPlay describes the day-to-day operation of the office: welcoming employees, candidates and guests; office supplies, kitchen inventory and equipment; coordinating vendors, building management, deliveries and office maintenance; and office purchases, invoices, access cards and parking. It also asks for support in planning company events and employee experience initiatives.
Remitly Israel (formerly Rewire) titles the role "Office Manager & Employee Experience". It includes office operation and maintenance, from food and supply orders to managing the cleaning services and deliveries; responsibility for the facilities, including communication with the property owner and vendors; vendor management, from price negotiations and contracts to invoices; greeting visitors and onboarding new employees on their first and last day; and employee experience: annual welfare plans, events, volunteering, happy hours and holiday gifts.
Two jobs in one title
Read side by side, the three ads divide into two lists.
The people:
- Onboarding: welcoming new employees, their first day and their last.
- Wellbeing and events: welfare plans, happy hours, holiday gifts, volunteering, company events.
- Culture and internal communication: the office as a place people want to come to.
- Recruitment support: scheduling interviews and staying in touch with candidates.
The building:
- Suppliers: cleaning, maintenance and other service providers, including price negotiations and contracts.
- Repairs and maintenance: keeping the office in working order.
- Invoices and payments to suppliers.
- The building's management company or the property owner.
- Supplies, the kitchen and deliveries.
None of the three ads mentions fire safety, but someone has to own it. Midrag notes that the law requires an annual inspection of fire equipment, and in many offices that falls to whoever deals with the building.
What stays with whoever runs the office
What is human stays. The people, onboarding, wellbeing and culture are the reason the role exists, and no outside provider should take them. The decisions stay too: the office manager, or whoever they report to, approves the budget, chooses between suppliers and signs off on any change. Some administrative work that runs through the company's own systems, such as issuing invoices to clients and tracking collections in the Winn.AI ad, also belongs inside the company.
What can move
What is operational can move:
- Suppliers: choosing them, supervising the work and replacing a supplier when needed, within the budget the company approved.
- Repairs: one message to report a fault, and someone else follows it until it's fixed.
- Supplier invoices: checked against the agreement before they reach the person running the office.
- The building's management company: service calls, approvals and the question of who pays for what.
- Fire safety: the annual inspection, the certificates and the repairs the inspection finds.
The line isn't always sharp. Vendor price negotiations, which the Remitly ad lists, can be prepared outside the company, but the choice and the signature stay with it. Kitchen stock and deliveries can stay with whoever runs the office, or move with the kitchenette supplier, depending on how the company likes to run.
How to tell if the building is eating the week
If you run the office, a few questions to ask about your own week:
- How many hours went on suppliers, repairs and invoices, and how many on people?
- How many open faults are there right now, and who is following each one?
- Does anyone else know which supplier to call for which system?
- What happens to the office when you are on holiday?
If the answers point to the building, the office load calculator estimates how many hours a month it takes.
How we do it at Bauhouse
We don't compete with whoever runs the office, we free them: they manage the people, we manage the building. Bauhouse Workplace takes the cleaning, maintenance, air-conditioning and pest-control suppliers, the repairs, the supplier invoices, the building's management company and fire safety. The decisions stay with them: they approve the budget, the suppliers and any change.
There is a page written for the role itself: for office managers. More on office management, or see how much time the building takes in the calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does an office manager in a tech company do?
According to the ads we read, two kinds of work: people (onboarding, wellbeing, events, culture, recruitment support) and the building (suppliers, repairs, invoices, supplies and the building's management company).
What can be taken off the office manager's desk?
The operational part: suppliers, repairs, supplier invoices, the building's management company and fire safety. The people and the decisions stay with whoever runs the office.
Does outside office management replace the office manager?
No. It takes the building off the desk, so there is time for the part of the job the role exists for: the people.
Who approves budgets and suppliers?
The company. The office manager or the management approves the budget, the suppliers and any change, and the suppliers' contracts are in the company's name.
