The document discusses the meaning, purpose, characteristics and future of office work. It defines an office as a place where business activities are planned and information is received, handled and stored. The main purposes of an office are to facilitate decision making, coordination between departments, and preserve business records. Office work involves tasks like handling communication, accounting, and planning. Modern offices aim to standardize processes, simplify work, and establish control mechanisms to ensure efficiency. Future challenges for offices include reducing paper work and costs while meeting government regulations.

2. Contents
1. Meaning of Office
2. Object And Purpose of Office
3. Office Work
4. Characteristics of Office Work
5. The Modern Concept of Office Work
6. Future Office Challenges and Tasks

3. Meaning of Office
A place where business activities are planned for
the growth in future is known as office. For
planning and controlling, various information
from past and present is required, thus the
accumulation of these records in a single place is
called an office.
One can also say, office is a place where business
is carried on and the control mechanism of the
organization is located. It is the nerve center and
brain of the business enterprise, an information
desk where all types of information is received
and handled.

4. Object And Purpose of Office
 To provide proper and sufficient information
 To facilitate the functioning of other departments
 To facilitate decision making
 To preserve the records of office
 To plan the activities and implement them
 To set-up coordination between various department
of the organization
 To handle the various factors of business
environment

5. Office Work
Office Work differs from enterprise to enterprise. But
there are work that are same in all the offices such
as:-
 Handling calls and mails
 Planning, administration, communication etc.
 Accounting, auditing and budgeting.

6. Importance of office work
Office is an integral part of a business unit which
cannot be neglected. It contributes in
management of data and records, planning and
setting objectives and also in controlling &
rectifying errors.

7. Characteristics of Office Work
 The work in office is more important rather then place
 It mainly consists of paper work
 Office work consist of service function
 It indirectly contributes to the profit
 It helps in the functioning of the whole organization
 The volume of the work depends on the external factors
continued ->

8.  It is difficult to measure the work in office
 As office work consists of paper works it’s difficult to
exercise control over it
 It is very difficult to know when the work in office will
be interrupted
 The contents of work in office are similar in all
organization eg. Typing, mailing etc.
Thus we can say that office work mainly consists of
handling of information and records.

9. The Modern Concept of Office Work
The modern concept of office implies:-
 Job analysis- what to do and how to do
 Cost Benefit analysis- to consider how much investment is required to
complete the task
 Standardization- standardization is required to complete tasks and jobs
without any error in a decided way
 Work Simplification- It is required to reduce perplexity, time and cost in
completing a particular task
 Follow up activities are required to check errors and correcting it
eliminate the repetition.
 Establishment of control mechanism is required for proper
implementation of plans ensuring effectiveness and efficiency.

10. Future Office Challenges and Tasks
Office activities had gone under a tremendous change due to
industrialization and advancement in science and technology. Today
offices are more organized and are managed by qualified and expert
managers
The challenges faced by offices are:-
 Reduction in paper work
 Complying with requirements of the government rules
 Reduction in cost of office work
 Meeting the needs and requirements to mechanize the office
 Employment of well qualified personnel in office for future, as it is a
big challenge due to shortage.

11. Factors determining the size of office
The factors that determine the size of offices are:-
 Size of the business- larger the business larger the office
 Nature of the business- office of a trading concern are
usually larger then the manufacturing concern
 Type of organization also affects the size of office, corporate
have larger office then of sole proprietorships
 Finance and funds plays a key role in setting up of office
 Scale of operation and volume of work helps in deciding the
size of office
continued ->

12.  Variety of work & number of departments decides the
size of the office
 Quantity of employees helps in deciding the size of the
office as large no. of staffs increases the size of the
office
 Extent of automation- automation and mechanization
helps in faster work with lesser number of people thus it
contributes to the size of office
 A centralized office is larger then a decentralized, so
the degree of centralization also contribute to the size
of office.
 Layout and design play an important role in size of
office as it decides what to where.

13. Measures to decide the size of Office
The size of office can be measured in the following
ways:-
 Number of employees
 Size of budget for office expenses
 Number of visitors
 Office area required as considering the size of
employees and work