Corporate Services Managers
Plan, organise, direct, control and coordinate the overall administration of organisations.
Move week at Harbourline
You are the corporate services manager at a freight company, three days away from moving the whole head office to a new building. It is Wednesday morning. The removalists arrive on Friday night. You manage the facilities, administration and records teams, and every department seems to have a last-minute request.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
My team need to be in the new building on Friday, not Monday like everyone else. We have a big client visit on Monday morning and I do not want them sitting in boxes. Can you just make that happen?
Say yes to keep him happy and sort out the details afterwards
Declan is delighted for an afternoon. Then facilities points out the sales floor is the last area to be cleaned and cabled. You now owe a favour you cannot deliver, and other directors hear about it.
Ask what the client visit actually needs, then offer a ready meeting room and a fast-tracked sales floor
Declan wanted a good impression, not a particular date. A finished meeting room and a priority sales floor fix that without breaking the plan, and you have something concrete to put to the other directors.
Say no because the schedule is fixed and applies to everyone equally
The plan stays intact and the rule is fair, but Declan goes to the chief executive anyway. You did not find out what sat behind the request, so you lose control of the conversation.
We have just found about forty boxes of old files nobody has looked at in years. Some might need keeping by law and some are junk. Moving them costs a lot, and the truck is already full. What should we do?
Move all forty boxes exactly as they are and sort through them in the new building once things settle
Nothing is lost, but you pay to carry rubbish and fill the new storage room on day one. Mei Ling is relieved, though the sorting never finds a quiet moment.
Have the team bin the lot this afternoon, because nobody has asked for those files in years
Months later someone asks for a contract file that should have been kept. Not being missed is not the same as being safe to destroy, and now the company may have a legal problem.
Ask the legal adviser what must be kept, then sort the boxes and move only those worth keeping
It takes a day of Mei Ling's team, but you follow the rules, save truck space and leave a clean list of what was destroyed and why. Good records work is dull until the day it matters.
I have just heard the phone system cutover may slip to the following week. Is that right? Tell me straight, I am about to speak to the board and I do not want surprises.
Say it might slip, you are not sure yet, and you will let her know when you do
It is honest, but Fatima still walks into the board without a plan. A clear picture would have let her say what you are doing about it.
Tell her it is on track, since the supplier has promised to catch up before the cutover date
On Friday the supplier confirms the delay. Fatima has already told the board otherwise, and she trusts your next report a little less.
Confirm the risk and tell her what you are arranging as a temporary fix
Fatima has what she needs to speak calmly. Bad news with a plan attached is something executives can work with, and she remembers who gave it to her early.
How it went
By Friday evening the boxes are labelled, the sales floor is first in line and the phone fix is arranged. Corporate services is a job of keeping a whole organisation running smoothly while many people want different things. Does being the person who sees the whole picture appeal to you?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The office move that nearly missed payday
A fictional case set in the head office of a fictional freight company, in the weeks around an office move.
The situation
Harbourline Freight was moving its head office across town over a long weekend. Wanjiru Kamau, the corporate services manager, had planned the desks, phones and filing room down to the last box. On the Thursday, a payroll officer mentioned that the link which sends the pay file to the bank ran through the old building's network. Nobody had put it on the plan. Pay day fell on the Tuesday after the move. The removalists were booked, the executives wanted no changes, and the technology contractor said they were fully booked.
What they did
Wanjiru did not wait for the contractor to find time. She wrote one page explaining the risk in plain words and took it to the finance manager that afternoon, so both of them understood what was at stake. Together they agreed a fallback: payroll would be sent early from the old office on the Friday, with the bank told in advance. She also asked the contractor for a fixed time slot on the Monday and moved one lower-priority task to make room for it.
How it turned out
Pay went out on time, and only the payroll team knew how close it had been. The Monday reconnection ran late, and two printers did not work until Wednesday. Wanjiru added a step to her move checklist: ask every team what leaves the building electronically, not only what is carried out of it.
What would you do?
- Who would you have told first when you discovered the gap, and why?
- How do you decide which problems to fix yourself and which to hand to someone else?
- What do you think a corporate services manager needs to know about every part of an organisation?