Office Clerks, General

Job purpose

To carry out the varied clerical work of an office — answering calls, typing and proofreading documents, maintaining filing, mailing, inventory and database systems, keeping basic accounts, managing calendars and operating office machines — so that enquiries, records and transactions are dealt with promptly and to established procedure.

Skills

• Broad working knowledge of office systems and procedures rather than depth in any one: filing, inventory, mailing and database systems, basic bookkeeping and banking, business and government forms, document formatting, and the operation of photocopiers, scanners, facsimile machines and computers. Secondary-level education is the most common qualification, closely followed by a two-year degree, plus up to a year of on-the-job training.
• Answers the telephone, directs calls and takes messages, and deals with customers, employees and others to answer questions, explain information, take orders and address complaints. Telephone, e-mail and face-to-face contact runs at high volume and includes external customers and the public, some of whom are discourteous. May train colleagues in office applications and transcribe minutes.
• Answers requests by reviewing files and records for the information needed, and troubleshoots problems with office equipment, hardware and software. Checks data, computations and documents against the required format and standard. Problems are varied rather than deep, with established office practice to work from, and decisions are frequent.
• Holds together a diverse set of duties — calendars, appointments, mail cycles, filing, ordering and reporting — against deadlines under time pressure, completing work schedules and arranging appointments for others, and setting much of the day's order of work.
• Seated screen and telephone work with repetitive keyboard motion and steady use of the hands to operate office machines, handle documents and count or measure materials.

Responsibilities

• No formal line management, though at times monitors and directs the work of lower-level clerks and trains other staff in activities such as using computer applications. Delivers messages and runs errands as required.
• Collects, counts and disburses money, keeps basic books and completes banking transactions, and prepares and issues bills, contracts, invoices and cheques. Amounts and approvals are set elsewhere; holds no budget and commits no expenditure.
• Ordinary care of the office's shared machines — photocopiers, scanners, facsimile machines and computers — including first-line fault finding. Inventories and orders materials, supplies and services.
• Maintains and updates the office's filing, inventory, mailing and database systems, manually or on computer, and compiles, sorts and files records of office activity and transactions. Computes, records and proofreads data, types and edits correspondence, and processes forms and expense reports. Exactness is required throughout and errors affect colleagues and the office's results; the content is set by others.

Effort required

• Steady attention to detail across a wide mix of short tasks, each straightforward in itself but drawing on a different procedure, with exactness expected in every one. Decisions are frequent; the demand is breadth and accuracy rather than analytical depth.
• Frequent contact with employees, customers and the public, including complaints and some dealings with discourteous people, calling for an even manner. Much of the work repeats.
• Predominantly seated at a workstation, with repetitive keyboard motion and regular use of the hands on office machines and documents. No lifting or exertion is evidenced.

Working conditions

• An ordinary indoor, environmentally controlled office, in close proximity to colleagues, with no physical hazards or exposures. Psychosocial demand is modest, arising from the volume of contact and the occasional discourteous caller.
• Effectively all incumbents work a regular established schedule, most around forty hours a week and a quarter fewer. Time pressure is present and the same tasks recur through the day; latitude is bounded, duties being assigned in accordance with the office's own procedures, with supervision available and priorities partly set elsewhere.