lesson-9

LESSON 9

OFFICE: MEANING, IMPORTANCE

FUNCTIONS

AND

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OBJECTIVES ...................................................................................................2

9.1

INTRODUCTION................................................................................................2

9.2

STANDARD FACILITIES IN MODERN OFFICE BUILDINGS .........................................3

9.3

OFFICE INFRASTRUCTURE ................................................................................3

9.3.1 Reception ..................................................................................................4 9.3.2 Work Stations, work space arrangement in offices ...................................4 9.3.3 Office Equipment and Machines ...............................................................5 9.3.4 Storage Area .............................................................................................7 9.3.5 Conference and Meeting Rooms ..............................................................8 9.3.6 Mail Room .................................................................................................8 9.3.7 Common Areas .........................................................................................8 9.3.8 Wash rooms ..............................................................................................8 9.4

FUNCTIONS OF AN OFFICE ...............................................................................9

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IMPORTANCE OF AN OFFICE ...........................................................................10

9.6

SUMMING UP ................................................................................................11

9.7

ANSWERS TO SELF-CHECK QUESTIONS ..........................................................11

9.8

TERMINAL QUESTIONS ...................................................................................11

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GLOSSARY ...................................................................................................12

9. Office: Meaning, Functions and Importance

The most important entry point to most companies is the physical office space. It provides the opportunity to leave a positive imprint on the minds of customers. Meeting clients in a less than professional setting imparts an impression of carelessness that can easily turn off prospects. Thus, a proper setup of the office space has become more a necessity than a choice on part of the management. It is therefore important to understand the office setup and the functions an office performs.

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Objectives After going through this lesson, you will be able to answer the following:

i. What is an office, what are its components ii. What are the functions of an office iii. The role an office plays in improving functioning of an organization

9.1

Introduction With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the lives of people changed. They started going to work. Their working space was no longer confined to the walls of their homes. They had to go where the jobs and machines were located. These work locations were huge factories employing large number of people and thereby creating cities and increased transportation options.

Then came the era when these along with these factories came the concept of tall buildings filled with individual workspaces called offices. Going to work became a part of our lives which involved leaving homes and going to offices which was another space where the chair, desk, phone was replicated in order to ease the working.

Definition: An office is a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it. It is a place of work where professional activities deploying non-manual techniques are performed. These activities could be clerical, administrative or managerial in nature. Institutions and organizations sep-up offices in order to have their employees and other associated partners have a common place to work together and help attain collectively the work targets set out to easily complete a job or set

of tasks and to ultimately help the business or establishment be successful. In an office there could be special studies conducted to develop reports based on the results, and provide input to management on the development of policies and procedures. In short an office acts as a one point contact place of work for employees, clients, partners of the organization. Working in an Office would typically entail being in a job where most of the time and activities are spent within the confines of four walls.

Location: While offices can be built at any location in almost any building, some modern requirements for offices make this more difficult. These requirements can be both legal (i.e. light levels must be sufficient) or technical (i.e. requirements for networking). Along side such other requirements such as security and flexibility of layout, this has led to the creation of special buildings which are dedicated only or primarily for use as offices. An office building, also known as an office block, is a form of commercial building which contains spaces mainly designed to be used for offices.

Office Building: The primary purpose of an office building is to provide a workplace and working environment primarily for administrative and managerial workers. These workers usually occupy set areas within the office building, and usually are provided with desks, computers and other equipment they may need to work.

An office building will be divided into sections for different companies or may be dedicated to one company. In either case, each company will typically have a reception area, one or several meeting rooms, singular or open-plan offices, as well as toilets. Many office buildings also have kitchen facilities and a staff room, where workers can have lunch or take a short break.

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9.3

Standard facilities in modern office buildings Water Electricity (distribution through entire office space with many separate points) Illumination Connections to local telecommunications providers Parking Structured cabling for internal networking and telecommunications

Office infrastructure Office infrastructure normally has the following:

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Front Office or reception equipped with EPABX or multiple phone lines Work stations or work desks

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Office equipment such as computers, fax, photocopiers, printers, projectors Storage area like cabinets, vault etc Conference or meeting rooms Mail rooms Pantry or cafeteria Wash rooms

Self-Check Questions Answer True or False 1. Clerical, Administrative or managerial work is performed in an office.

2. No legal or technical aspects need to be kept in mind while designing an office space.

3. An office should have the basic amenities like kitchen facility, toilets etc.

4. An office is the face of any organization as it provides a meeting ground for clients, customers and partners.

9.3.1 Reception The Reception is the first impression and most lasting of any office. Ideally a person trained in handling walk-in guests, telephones, courier and mail, incoming and out going material and basic security vigilance should man a reception. This person is called a receptionist. The reception is designed in a way that it has special seating arrangement for the receptionist and guest seating arrangement or waiting area.

9.3.2 Work Stations, work space arrangement in offices There are many different ways of arranging the space in an office and whilst these vary according to function, managerial fashions and the culture of specific companies can be even more important. Choices include, how many people will work within the same room. At one extreme, each individual worker will have their own room; at the other extreme a large open plan office can be made up of one main room with tens or hundreds of people working in the same space.

Studies suggest that, Open plan offices which put multiple workers together in the same space with no or very less space for each employee lead to only short term productivity. But, at the same time the loss of privacy and security can increase the incidence of theft and loss of company secrets. A type of compromise between open plan and individual rooms is provided by the cubicle,

which solves visual privacy to some extent, but often fails on acoustic separation and security. These should be so designed that each cubicle wall is not very high but put in such a way which eases interaction and also give a feeling of openness. Similar functions could be clubbed together in the seating plan to give greater efficiency to common work execution, that is, clubbing each department.

Typical Offices

9.3.3 Office Equipment and Machines The most often-used office equipments are EPABX, Telephone, fax machine, photocopier, computers, scanners, LCD projectors and printers. These basic devices fulfill various communication needs of the organization and its employees. These have been explained in detail below. a. EPABX: Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange commonly abbreviated as EPABX is device into which many phone lines can terminate into one answering capability. The calls from here can be forwarded or transferred to employees on their own phone extensions available at their desks. b. Fax Machine: This device can read documents, store the contents in its memory and transmit it to a dialed number where a receiving device is available at the other end for example, another fax machine. It can receive documents faxed from other remote fax machines. This device provides very quick way of receiving and sending hard copies of information in their original image form.

Fax Machine

c. Photocopiers: This device can copy documents in their original form. Modification can be made to the size of copy by enlargement or by reducing the image electronically. Most commonly used are photocopiers which give a black and white copy but Color photocopiers are also available

Photocopy Machine d. Computers: Computing devices used most commonly in small offices for information storage and management, word processing or communicating when linked to a network or Internet. Computers are either desktop, which are large and sit on top of a desk or are laptops, which are small and portable. The size of desktop vs laptop does not change the functionality of the device.

Computers

e. Scanners: This device can scan a document and store the image. This image can be transmitted via electronic mail or as a soft copy can be exchanged between people. Such electronic soft images can be stored on electronic medium/ hardware and can release space occupied by large and bulky files.

Scanner f. Projectors: In current automated offices most commonly used are LCD projectors. These projectors can be linked to a computer and what is displayed on a computer screen can be displayed on a large screen for better viewing by larger audiences. For such projections special projection screens are used to get the best picture quality and image.

Projector g. Printers: A printer is usually attached to a computer to take an output on paper of a document or any other file. Printers come in various categories such as ones which give ink prints or laser prints or impact prints.

Printer 9.3.4 Storage Area Every office has a variety of records, documents, files that it needs to maintain.

To keep these files, stationery etc secured, good storage or filing systems are required

Filing Systems- Files are efficiently managed by keeping them in filing cabinets or filing systems by topic/department followed by date and then by arranging them in alphabetical order. Filing Hardware and Electronic Data Storage – Hardware devices such as floppies, CDs, cartridges, external drives are used to store data. It is essential to store these in a dust free and cool cabinet.

9.3.5 Conference and Meeting Rooms Every office has special areas earmarked to conduct meetings. Small meetings such as interviews, face-to-face discussions are normally conducted in meeting rooms where as meetings requiring large number of people to participate are done in the conference room. Large conference rooms are equipped with audiovisual equipment for making presentations.

A Modern Conference room 9.3.6 Mail Room The mailroom handles all the mail received and dispatched by the office. External mail can be received as packets/parcels via the postal department, courier or via hand delivery at a certain receiving point in the office 9.3.7 Common Areas Every office has certain common employee areas such as a pantry and wash rooms. Pantry caters to the food and beverage need of employees. Many large offices have a cafeteria serving not just beverages but also full meals.

9.3.8 Wash rooms Wash rooms are commonly known as toilets. They are a must for large offices.

Self-Check Questions 5. EPABX stands for 6. How should an open plan office be designed.

9.4

Functions of an Office Any small or large office will perform a combination of the following main office management functions:

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Budget development and implementation, Purchasing, Human resources, Fiscal, Accounting, Printing, Records management, Forms management, Payroll, Facilities management, Space management, Risk management, Grants administration, Affirmative action and equal employment opportunity, Information technology and telecommunications.

Management functions such as controlling, planning, policy and strategy making

The main functions of an office is to provide a sense of safety and comfort of working to its employees in order for them to perform their jobs in the most effective manner. Thus the major functions of an office can be summed up as: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Providing Acoustic Privacy Supporting impromptu meetings Supporting one on one meetings in the workplace Supporting administrative services Providing enough storage Supporting undistracted group work Having dedicated project rooms available Providing physical comfort

9. Accommodating needed technology in the workplace

9.5

Importance of an Office An office if equipped with all essential tools and equipments will help in increasing the efficiency of its employees. Also it would maintain a proper flow of systems and authority. A physical office would ensure that all employees are reporting at the same place and thus would mean a better interaction between them and the surroundings. It would ensure that the work is not hampered because of unnecessary commuting.

The office should be such which eases out the various functions taking place in the same. A single room with many departments working alongside will add nothing more than clutter and will never make its employees efficient. For increasing, the productivity and efficiency of its employees, an office should be so designed so as to comfort them to the maximum. This should also include keeping the safety and security of employees the foremost in the setup.

The physical layout of the office also has an influential impact on the well-being of people, their motivation, their individual and collaborative performances, their creativity, their patterns of communication, and the efficiency of the organization’s work flows.

The physical layout of the office is important as it affects team performance, individual learning and overall job satisfaction. In order to have a positive impact on these, an office must provide a distraction-free work area while at the same time support impromptu worker interaction. The interaction between employees is one of the most important way of employees learning what they need to know to perform their job. If physical space is constrained or eliminated, the employees will not be free to communicate and interact with each other and thus this would hamper their learning process.

The design of an office is a means for boosting the creative and innovative performance of organizations, and therefore the design becomes an important aspect to be kept into mind. The surroundings, furniture, office equipment, and further technical facilities work as potential supportive means for the generation of innovation, and also for the wellbeing of the employees in general.

Self-Check Questions State whether True or False: 7. An office place should be so designed to provide security and privacy to its employees.

8. An office space should also support the technology needed for efficient working.

9. An office helps in maintaining a proper flow of resources and information between employees.

10. An office has an impact on the well being and the motivation of the employees.

9.6

Summing Up An office is the face of the organization where its employees perform clerical, administrative or managerial jobs. An office consists of a reception area, open rooms with cubicles or closed cabins, cafeteria, storage areas for documents and software and equipment to support technology required for increasing productivity and efficiency of the employees. An office becomes important because it is a place of interaction between the company, its clients and its partners. If well designed, it can help improve team efficiencies as well as the overall performance of the organization. It fosters increased interaction between employees thereby facilitating there learning process. An office can also boost creativity and innovation within the organization.

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Answers to Self-Check Questions

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

True False True True Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange An Open Plan Office should be designed to avoid clutter and facilitate maximum interaction between employees.

7. True 8. True 9. True 10. True

9.8 1.

2.

3.

4.

Terminal Questions What are the standard facilities that should be available in an office?

What does an office infrastructure consist of? Explain.

Mention important functions of an office space Explain in detail, how an office and its design is responsible for improving efficiency and team performance of employees.

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Glossary Front Office: Reception of an office EPABX: Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange Mail Room: This handles all the mail received and dispatched by the office