Managing Staff - I just hired my first office manager!

[Account Closed]

For the last year or so I have a project manager that works with me on a lot of the re investing work. For a while we were able to divide up all the work in the field, as well as get all the paperwork done at the office. For the last few months it has been difficult or even impossible. Imagine stacks and stacks of envelopes, and piles upon piles of paper that need to be corresponded to or filed away. I am just sick of sitting in the office until 1am dealing with paper. Organization also has never been my forte. Today, after 2 weeks of interviews we have found the perfect office manager for our office!!

I am wondering if anyone else here has an office manager, and I am wondering a few things:
- How do you maintain and assess the effectiveness of your staff?
- We have recurring tasks, as well as other projects including fires that need to be put out every day. How do you divide up responsibilities among different staff members?
- How do you keep everyone in the loop? If people are leaving at 7:30 am to head out to the field, what is the best way to keep everyone in touch? I was thinking of having at least biweekly (twice a week) meetings for all 3 of us to at least touch base.

Any other insights in the the management of staff would be deeply appreciated!

[Ed L.]

You have to be careful with employee compensation when working in real estate. I've seen first hand how salaries going out in a dry spell can empty the coffers pretty quickly.

That being said. Ivehad a full time assistant for about two years now and it has definitely led to increased productivity. Ie.... Going on vacation and the machine chugs on without me. I also have a app on my iPad that allows me to remotely control my office desktop. Log me in is the name of it I believe.

We do minimum wage plus weekly bonuses based on our productivity.

His primary function is to man the office 9-5 and field calls for my brokerage. I cant believe we used to do the cluster fu$& phone day routine at my office. Got to be the most inefficient real estate model ever.