Understanding the Role of a Construction Office Manager

The coordination efforts involved in construction projects are difficult to comprehend, let alone organize and manage. Every day general contractors are orchestrating precision, timing and teamwork to bring complex projects to life, and construction office managers are the connection point between field teams, office operations and the client. Often working behind the scenes, office managers do the seemingly remedial tasks that allow projects to run smoothly – acting as the vital link among all parties.

This article will discuss various aspects of construction office managers’ roles, the personal traits necessary to bring it all together and how technology has changed the work they do.

What does a construction office manager do?

The title construction office manager is actually a bit of a misnomer — in many cases, the role involves many different locations and roles, from project sites across an entire region to a central construction office and into meetings with clients.

Just during the preconstruction phase, the construction office manager may be in charge of the following tasks:

• Helping collect and write up information for a project bid
• Contacting and helping to schedule subcontractors in relation to in-house teams
• Liaising with the safety manager to ensure appropriate training
• Gathering signatures on appropriate paperwork through the CFO and contract manager
• Working with the estimating team to get purchase orders and subcontracts in place
• Gathering and organizing drawing iterations and making sure everyone has the latest set

Throughout a construction project, there are some key roles a construction office manager fulfills.

Acts as Administrative Liaison

Construction office managers act as liaison between office and field teams and the client. They bring information together from superintendents, the project manager and the client to organize and disseminate as needed.

For instance, an office manager for a self-perform general contractor working on a wastewater treatment plant would speak with the owner, in this case municipal committees, the GC’s CFO, who would make sure financials were in place for the project, and the company’s estimating and contracts team.

A good example of the type of work a construction office manager performs is to organize, catalog and distribute drawings. Construction drawings get updated and changed throughout a project, and they have to be organized, numbered and categorized for the records.

Further, the office manager ensures that all project teams are aware of changes to drawings and have access to the most recent set. Even though cloud computing has allowed construction drawings to be shared on a common space that’s available to all construction parties, the office manager still notifies all the stakeholders so they’re aware of the change, in case they’re working from a printed or downloaded copy that would now be out of date.

In short, the office manager acts as a point of contact for the administrative work on the project.

Coordinates Data Collection with Field Teams

While the construction office manager isn’t technically responsible for making sure field teams use the construction management technology assigned to them, the office manager does need to get complete and timely information from field teams.

The office manager needs to make sure field teams know which data to track and how to use a digital platform to collect and save the numbers. Liaising with the field team may involve translating time and materials (T&M) tickets from muddy documents into the construction management platform.

Keeps an Eye on Project Parameters

Part of the construction manager’s role involves collecting and analyzing lien waivers that come in with subcontractor pay applications. The office manager compares lien waivers to the project’s schedule of values and ensures the work aligns with receipts for services and materials delivered to site.

Conducts Resource Management and Planning

The construction office manager takes part in daily planning meetings, offering insights that help the site staff allot work effectively. For instance, the office manager can look at the work planned for the day and identify workers with the skills and certifications necessary to crew each task.

The office manager may also travel to the job site to review the project plan to track progress and begin any necessary change orders.

Manages the Project Plan

When it becomes clear that a project has fallen off schedule or budget, the office manager meets with the office manager to discuss what part of the project is at risk. After discussing how to get the project back on track, they discuss the ideas with the client to come up with a plan of action.

For instance, the project manager and the office manager can help the client decide whether to increase the budget or move the completion date out in order to meet all the project’s parameters. Once a decision is made, the construction office manager can begin the paperwork for a change order.

Handling an Unexpected Change

The field team doesn’t often get the leeway to make project-altering decisions on the fly. Usually, they will speak with the office manager, who will discuss with the executive team and the client to come to a conclusion together. However, there may be some instances that the office manager has to smooth over a decision the field team made on their own.

How to Become a Construction Office Manager

There is no single path to becoming a construction office manager. Candidates may come from other roles on the administrative team, such as the accounting department, or they may have office experience from outside the company.

In any case, what’s more important for fulfilling the role as a construction office manager is the knowledge of how construction projects function within a contracting company.

The office manager needs to understand the flow of information, be able to communicate with stakeholders internally and externally and be able to stay organized enough to keep everything straight. It helps to have some specific skills to help get the work done.

Organization

The construction office manager needs to help project teams manage deadlines for pay applications, collect lien waivers and arrange for employee payroll. Multiply that many moving parts by the number of projects the GC has taken on at any given time, and it becomes clear that organization will be one of the fundamental skills a successful office manager possesses.

Communication

A construction office manager needs to relay all kinds of information, from financial to interpersonal, between members of the project team. Good communication skills are critical for understanding what, how much and when to send messages to each one.

A construction office manager needs to be diplomatic enough to work closely with all the different roles and personality types involved in a project to maintain functional relationships between them.

For instance, a single self-perform GC may have five or six projects going at one time, at locations hundreds of miles apart from one another and from the office. The office manager can’t visit those sites to get all the data it needs to help manage field operations. Rather, the office manager must work with superintendents to ensure all the critical information has been relayed back to the office or inputted into project software to keep everything up to date.

Knowledge of Construction

A construction office manager must have a fundamental knowledge of construction projects. They must know the flow of information between the stakeholders and what needs to happen to keep everything on track. An effective construction office manager must have a strong understanding of the impact of the flow of communication, paperwork and decision-making so as not to take the role too lightly. If a single team member continues to work from an out-of-date drawing, it can cost the project days of rework and all the costs that come with it.

Further, a team that doesn’t have faith in the construction office manager may not work effectively with the office team, which can also lead to frustration and delays.

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How Technology Changes the Role of the Construction Office Manager

Digital technologies are allowing construction teams to share information and ideas wider and faster by using a single platform to communicate with one another and store documents.

The construction office manager is always going to spend a lot of time calling, emailing and messaging back and forth between field teams and clients — an important part of the job. However, technology allows teams to cut off some of the entry and reentry to allow office managers to focus more on deeper work and less on data entry.

For instance, field teams can enter T&M tickets directly into shared platforms, so the construction office manager doesn’t have to spend 16 hours a week entering them on the field team’s behalf. Those types of abilities have cut down significantly on redundant work just forwarding information from the originating team.

The estimating team can go into a shared platform and do all their work rather than working in a big spreadsheet or a giant sheet of paper they’ve been scribbling on.

The office manager doesn’t have to go into each individual person’s office to pull information to get it together to ensure all the notes are correct. Instead, each person can input things directly into a shared platform for everybody else to see.

A construction team will never be able to avoid phone calls or in-person conversations, but technology allows everyone to access that information and team members can reference it and look at it later. It’s faster and cleaner to do it through software.

The Future of Construction Office Management

Contrary to the name of the role, construction office managers do a lot more than just managing some office work. Often working behind the scenes, these professionals help make sure projects run smoothly by acting as a link among all parties involved.

As construction projects become increasingly complex — and the industry continues to onboard digital tools — the role of the construction office manager continues to evolve as they continue to support effective communication, financial and operational oversight and client relationship management.

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