What Do Managers Do?

Your Manager job descriptions should detail the leadership functions and how they fit in your company culture. Your job advert should detail the manager’s role and duties, which are essential for the day-to-day management of the office and its team members.

Depending on the company type and size, good managers oversee:

• Project management and project risk (Project Managers)
• Day-to-day operations
• Strategies to hit key performance indicators
• Middle Managers and Team Leaders (Vice President and Top Level Managers)
• Delegating tasks to other team members
• Implementing new ideas
• Goal setting
• Hiring, training, and motivating team members
• Planning budgets
• Presenting to senior managers and stakeholders

Management Role

Manager tasks are performed by individuals in roles titled as:

• Project Managers
• Team Managers
• Product Managers
• Operations Managers
• Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
• Vice President
• Commercial Director
• Business Manager

Management Responsibilities And Duties

Management duties and responsibilities are the must-do essential functions and high-priority tasks of the role. These are the job aspects that you will likely govern the person’s performance on, and as you can imagine, they differ significantly depending on the level of seniority and whether the individual is managing people or the business’s strategy and direction.

Important tasks of management roles might include:

• Business administration/business management
• Attending management meetings
• Setting standards to ensure regulatory compliance
• Allocating resources to a department or team
• Providing direction and communicating the company’s vision and mission
• Overseeing health and safety of the work environment/working conditions
• Organising staff rotas and schedules
• Resolving problematic situations
• Managing people, training staff members, performance, and motivation
• Developing and implementing business strategies to meet KPIs
• Managing the day-to-day business operating unit
• Planning budgets/financial responsibilities
• Identifying risks to company performance/ensure productivity
• Setting sales and quality goals/strategic goals
• Presenting performance and activity reports to stakeholders and senior executives
• Hiring staff
• Project management

These duties are pretty generic, but you can make the job’s duties more engaging and meaningful by saying how the responsibility should be accomplished. For example, ‘You will be responsible for project management and deadlines, overseeing planning and coordinating the activities of other staff.

Management Skills

To ensure your company completes its day-to-day tasks, effectively completes specific projects, and meets its objectives, you need managers with wide ranging hard and soft skills that include:

• Project management (Project Managers)
• The ability to motivate employees
• Analytical and critical thinking
• A big-picture mindset
• Business systems and industry knowledge
• Negotiation and presentation skills
• Written and verbal communication skills
• Market research skills
• Business awareness/business acumen
• Active listening
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Decision making
• Time management
• Organisational skills
• Integrity
• Receptiveness
• Coaching and mentorship of existing and new employees
• Team-working and collaboration
• Problem-solving skills
• Objectivity
• Planning and organisation to implement strategies
• Committed
• Stamina to meet the mental and physical demands
• Adaptable
• Influential
• Multitasking
• Detail-orientated/attention to detail
• An ability to manage resources/allocate resources

Management Qualifications And Education

The education and qualifications depend on the role and level of seniority but might include:

• A Master’s or Bachelor’s Degree in Operations Management, Business Administration
• A Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, or similar
• Knowledge of financial and accounting principles
• Computer and MS Office proficiency

Required Management Experience And Management Training

A business management job description usually states the desired previous experience and training. A Business Manager may have complete a Business Administrator Higher Apprenticeship, Level 3 Diploma in Business Administration, or T Level in Management and Administration.

Management Job Description FAQs

Here we answer your questions on management roles, job titles, and writing job descriptions.

WHAT QUALIFICATIONS SHOULD MANAGERS HAVE?

When you interview managers, an excellent candidate does not necessarily need a degree or even a high school diploma or GCSEs, although many do. Proven experience in a management position or extensive industry knowledge may suggest the individual has the foundation for senior leadership positions.

WHAT ARE THE DUTIES OF A BUSINESS MANAGER?

Business managers use their skills and general knowledge to lead a company and its employees. They may oversee Human Resources, planning and organising staffing and evaluate the business’s performance on various tasks.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF MANAGERS AND WHAT ARE THEIR KEY SKILLS?

Managers are responsible for many tasks that require a diverse set of skills. They develop junior staff and have responsibility for ensuring business objectives are met. Employers should seek out candidates who have taken the initiative to develop their skills through training, qualifications, and mentorship.

HOW DO I HIRE A MANAGEMENT PERSON?

Job advertising for Management will vary depending on the position, key skills, team size, or project requirements. You will need to implement a recruitment strategy that leverages advertising on general and specialist manager job boards, social media, and word-of-mouth referrals. Your manager hiring strategy might also include having a presence at conferences and online with professional bodies and organisations.

Writing an effective manager’s job ad and selecting the proper job title is crucial to your hiring efforts. To create an effective advert that attracts a good leader with the right skills, consider the new skills you need, the nature of your team, your culture, and manager benefits and compensation.

Flat fee recruitment solutions continue to deliver the best results when hiring effective leaders.

WHAT IS A MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION?

An Assistant Manager job description or Project Manager Job Description is a document that sets out the role’s duties, tasks, and key skills. Putting these in black and white is vital and will help you find the ideal operations or office manager for a position that directly affects your workforce, business operations, revenue, profit, strategy, and the overall success of your company.

An effective job description should be transparent and clearly set out who you are, who you want, what they will do, and why management professionals might want to work for you. It helps tremendously to use language and jargon that connects with and engages your audience.

When you get all of this right and include the best words to use when writing management job descriptions, you will get job applications from qualified candidates that closely match your ideal person profile.

HOW DO I WRITE A MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION?

When writing an office manager job description either for advertising a job or an internal job specification you need to focus on 5 main criteria:

1. What are the key jobs, tasks, and duties required for a management position
2. Consider all the job responsibilities required for a management role
3. What skills the person must have for the job
4. What personality traits the person must have to work in the management team
5. Appropriate and relevant education and qualifications

These five criteria should help you build a picture of your ideal candidate. Good questions to consider that will help you write a concise management job description that stands apart from others (essential in the current competitive job market), and attracts candidates of a high calibre, include:

• What value does this role bring to your department?
• How does the role align with your company culture, values, and mission?
• How does this role differ from other positions?
• How is this role similar to other positions?
• What are the minimum management or transferable skills?
• What are examples of your goals, standards, and targets?

Suppose you are not hands-on with the day-to-day management functions or highly familiar with the company’s management policies. In that case, it can help to interview one of your office managers or upper management team to gain a greater understanding of the role.

A word about jargon: The phrase ‘jargon’ has good and bad connotations, and if it isn’t carefully considered, it may deter suitable candidates from applying. Ask yourself if words and phrases are company or industry exclusive, or recognisable by individuals who may have valuable transferable skills refined in an alternative business sector.

Furthermore, if you are hiring for senior-level management positions, you should expect candidates to have a greater vocabulary and understanding of leadership jargon. However, if you are hiring supervisors or entry-level office managers, consider being as straightforward and transparent as possible.

WHAT MANAGEMENT TASKS SHOULD I INCLUDE IN A JOB DESCRIPTION?

The tasks of an office manager are any other activities that they complete occasionally or on a daily basis. These are usually subsidiary tasks such as administrative tasks.

It is tempting to leave some of the more ‘mundane’ tasks out to make your jobs sound more attractive, but this can lead to trouble down the road as you may recruit an individual that is not a perfect match or willing to carry out certain tasks. If you hire the wrong managers for your business, its employees, customers, and financial performance may suffer. The employee might leave your company, and you are back to square one, requiring another investment in recruitment and training.

If you get to the end of the process outlined here and find that your job description is too long and concise has gone out the window, it is time to review your first draft. To bring things back into line, you should delete unnecessary phrases and fluff, remove prepositional phrases, focus on what is role critical, and refrain from putting your entire ‘about us’ page in your content.

HOW DO I ENGAGE MANAGEMENT CANDIDATES?

As a final note for employers and recruiters, it is crucial to remember that while a job description is about what and who you want, describing this alone will not create an inbox full of eager candidates willing to comply. A good job description and job advert must go beyond the duties, skills, education, qualifications, traits, and tasks that you want and communicate the position’s value to job seekers.

Your company or organisation should convey its employee value propositions to engage candidates, highlighting both monetary and other benefits. Benefits that will entice qualified job seekers to apply might include:

• Stating the average salary range rather than saying ‘competitive salary’
• Focusing on work-life balance
• Flexible working – is the role remote (work from home), standard office hours, or are hours flexible?
• Further training opportunities
• Career development opportunities
• The quality of facilities, equipment, products, or services
• How the organisation’s values align with those of employees or its customers