There seems to be an app for everything these days: ordering food, purchasing services, staying fit – computers can take care of it all now! The same holds true in the workplace. There are robots whirring about supplying office envelopes, staples and even printer toner.
But you’re an office manager and a human one at that (hopefully); figuring out how to organize office supplies is no job for some robot. So to aid you in your job, we here at Quill want to offer you some quick steps for office supply organization.
Get the Right Office Supplier & Supplies
Buying office supplies online is as easy as a click of a button in today’s digital world, and choosing the right place and the right inventory for your office needs is crucial. You’ll save yourself and everyone who relies on you a lot of headaches if you choose right the first time. But before you start organizing, you need to make sure you have the right stuff to organize!
When considering what you need for your space, there are a few things to consider:
- How many employees does your company have?
- What sort of supplies does your workplace most use?
- When looking at employees’ desks, is there anything else you should be considering?
- Are there multiple office locations to consider?
- Is there something unique about your office culture that needs to be reflected?
We recommend answering these questions and then making a simple list of all essential items for the office (or offices). Without answering them, you won’t know how much printer ink and toner to buy, for example, or whether or not that beer fridge will fit into your office environment.
Next you need to create a system to manage the inventory and automate what parts of the purchase cycle you can. Pay close attention to which items are used up the quickest to figure out if you need more/less next time. Once all of these margins are determined, you can set up automatic reordering to save you time to make sure you stay on top of the rest – like setting up that ergonomic office system for a more modern, cutting edge space.
Office Supply Closet Management
You can have all of the right supplies and have the re-stocking of everything on auto-pilot, but that doesn’t matter if there isn’t an organization system in place. There are a few ways you can take care of this.
Choose the Right Space – Find the closet(s) you’ll be using to store your office goods. When answering the questions above, you’ll know how many of each item you’ll need to purchase – this will help determine how big a space you need. If you’re company is large, you might need a storage room rather than a closet.
Organize the Space – After you know where you’re keeping everything, you need to make sure everything is in order. Keep the most commonly used items in plain view and place less frequently utilized materials closer to the back of the space. There should also be logical groupings of items – all things for desktops can be put in one spot, while anything related to the conference rooms can be grouped in another area.
Storage – Once everything has its own spot, you need to figure out how to store it all. Storage bins, boxes, and other closet storage organizers can be used to solve this matter.
Additional Space – In some cases, it might make sense to store some of your office supplies near to where they’ll be used. For example, anything related to the café (cups, plates, silverware) should be kept in drawers and cabinets in that café area. Or, anything related to printing can be kept next to designated printers. If it makes sense, you can also get additional utility closets for microcosms of office supplies organized throughout the workplace.
In the end, you’re the one who has to keep track of what you have, what your unique office space will require, and what you’re going to personally need amid a flurry of day-to-day fires that you and only you can put out. We’ve even put together a helpful list of office and workplace blogs to help you out!