Eat, Strata, Meet [???], Repeat
How many times will we repeat strata stuff before finding a better way …
Since strata buildings mostly do the same things over and over, it should be easy to identify and handle these recurrences. Plus, large scale repetition over time allows for easier analysis and process development. But, it seems that many strata buildings, owners, committees, and, strata managers are stuck in a repeating pattern without any prospect of change or improvement.
[12:30 minutes estimated reading time, 2460 words]
A hip musical introduction [sing along if you know the tune]
So, there was this strata dude he was like kicking off
I don't know what he was doing, but it was sick man
Like, he was like, hands in the air
We were all strata titling
And, I don't know whether he was really saying it, but all he kept saying was …
Eat, strata, meet, repeat
Eat, strata, meet, repeat
Eat, strata, meet, repeat
Eat, strata, meet, repeat
* With my apologies to Fatboy Slim, Riva Star and Beardyman for all the liberties I have taken here with their lyrics.
So, please listen and enjoy the real thing here.
The strata merry go round
Strata building operations and their management are basically a stream of repeating and predictable events and activities punctuated by the minor and major variations in those things and the occasional random event that needs handling.
So, why does almost everyone treat many strata building activities as if they’re happening for the first time ever and they’re almost surprised that it happened or arose and needs to be handled?
After all, the following things are totally predictable:
that the electricity bill came in last quarter too and was for about the same amount,
it’s almost guaranteed there’ll be a few reports of water leaks after a rainy weekend,
strata owners have questions about their levies when they get their quarterly notices,
funnily enough, the annual general meeting happens every year [and usually at about the same time],
some strata owners won’t pay their levies on time,
there are going to be issues with pets, kids, noise, parking, etc, and
long term maintenance needs to be planned before they are needed or due.
There’s also plenty more examples when you start looking. And, if you look at a lot of strata buildings in a macro and high-level way, you’ll find many examples that apply across all or most of those strata buildings.
So, it’s surprising to me that we haven’t seen much published data on repeating strata activities, research on the topic or changes and innovations in strata operations arising from this [obvious] insight about the repeating and common nature of many strata operational activities.
Instead, most changes and innovations in strata building operations occur as a result of strata law changes or crises [like combustible cladding or Covid-19].
So, why are strata stakeholders on this strata merry go round and how can we get off?
Some possible reasons for the strata merry go round
In my view, the main reasons we see strata stakeholders caught up in repeating cycles of the same or similar activities in their strata building [individually], and, in larger groups of strata building [across strata manager portfolios or business organisations], are because no-one is taking a critical macro view of these things and because there a number of other factors that mitigate to prevent that happening.
I can’t say or do much about strata stakeholders’ lack of critical thinking, but some of those preventative factors that apply are as follows.
1. Government isn’t interested and/or doesn’t understand
Whilst governments create the strata laws and operate the bodies that regulate strata buildings and strata managers, they really don’t have a good understanding of strata buildings, strata owners and strata building operations.
You can see this in the many issues facing strata owners that are not addressed or poorly addressed like building defects, strata dispute handling, and, more recently, the strata specific public health orders that are being issued in 2021 when Covid-19 crises arise.
That’s because governments have limited foci on strata buildings that are usually limited to:
a property development focus: where strata buildings are one of the end products of the construction sector which they care about for economic and employment benefits, that interest is limited to facilitating strata development and those interests are usually driven by budgetary considerations and lobbying by interest groups,
a planning focus: where strata buildings simply fit into land planning and use policies that apply across their jurisdictions and are not differentiated from other property types, that interest being often driven by local and immediate matters rather than long term thinking and that is negatively affected by nimbyism, and
a consumer protection focus: where strata operations are measured against the negative impacts on strata owners and residents’ rights and experiences so that one-off problems achieve overly important status and collective strata building issues are secondary or subservient.
Plus, most governments [and opposition parties] don’t have detailed or considered policies about strata building issues at all as I wrote about in ‘Strata Reforms [NSW] Update 1: Policy considerations & objectives’.
So, there’s no strata sector regulatory focus on strata operations.
2. No [or limited] research and data
There’s no broad-based, reliable or available research or data about the kinds and frequency of strata building activities to look at or compare.
The best strata research so far in Australia has been focused on overall sector size and demographic data or building defects or climate change as I wrote about in:
But, there isn’t any way to find out what strata buildings spend on different things, what they spend time on and what decisions they make.
The number of strata owner contacts or queries to strata buildings and strata managers are not captured or analysed to see what’s going on.
The approach taken in relation to strata operations by strata committees or strata managers is not recorded [outside of an individual strata building’s records] for comparison or re-use elsewhere.
And, no one is doing any of this research or collecting that data of which I’m aware.
So, even if I wanted to compare how thousands of buildings have handled water leaks into strata apartments to determine an optimal approach it’s impossible. And, for the reasons I’ve explain further below, there no incentive for anyone to do so either.
So, there’s no data, information or thinking to help strata stakeholders with strata operations.
3. Strata buildings and strata managers are siloed
Strata sector stakeholders tend towards being isolated which prevents [or complicates] broader views, analyses and solutions as the following points demonstrate.
Firstly, each strata building operates on its own, independently of other strata buildings [including its neighbours] and according to the decisions of its unique set of strata owners. What happens in other strata buildings appears irrelevant. And, in many instances, strata buildings are proud of their uniqueness and jealously guard that independence.
Secondly, the managers of strata buildings are also focused on each strata building in connection with its issues and operations. Whether that’s the strata committee [which can only focus on their own strata building], the building manager who operates at individual strata building sites or the strata manager who is individually contracted to that strata building, and, [as explained below] still treat each strata building separately despite having a portfolio of strata buildings.
Thirdly, strata managers and strata management businesses are almost universally organised so that their contracted strata buildings are separated into portfolios and allocated to individual strata managers [and their support teams] to manage. Plus, customer relationships with individual strata managers [rather than the strata management business brand] is the predominant business growth and retention strategy. So, each strata manager is permitted [and even encouraged] to operate in their own unique ways within the strata management business in relation to their portfolio of strata buildings [especially if they are effective in their roles].
Plus, each strata manager in a strata business guards or hides their particular management style and techniques for managing strata buildings: whether they are good [to preserve their status and secrets], and/or if they are bad [to cover up their mistakes or failures].
This phenomenon occurs in the smallest and the largest strata management businesses.
So, there’s no collective or shared approach by those who manage strata buildings over strata operations.
4. Centralised, risk-managed and reactive processes
I’ve witnessed a shift in strata operations over the last 30 years from delegated decision making and action by strata executives, committees and managers to a centralised approach where decision making and action is deferred and left to all strata owners collectively.
Regulators have progressively reduced the power of strata committees and strata managers to make decisions for strata buildings; forcing those decision to strata owners’ meetings.
Strata committees and strata managers have become concerned about legal claims and legal actions over decisions they make that turn out to be wrong, that receive owner complaints or cost a lot of money. So, they prefer to defer those decisions to strata owners’ meetings to avoid those risks.
Strata owners have also become more sceptical and less trusting of strata committee and strata manager decisions and actions and, so, complain more, and want to see and approve strata activities and decisions. Which the risk-averse strata committees and strata managers are happy to do.
And, these trends to centralised decisions by strata owners’ meetings have also led to a reactive [rather than a proactive] approach to strata operations. So, instead of strata managers identifying issues and acting quickly to address them, issues arise, options are developed and a strata owners’ meeting is scheduled [14 or more days later] to discuss and decide about those issues.
Whilst I support more strata owner engagement in their strata buildings and decisions, unfortunately this has occurred without a comparable or matching increase in strata owner knowledge or understanding about strata issues through education, information and tools that help them make better decisions.
So, we have more and more but less informed and experienced strata owners making strata decisions reactively rather than educated and experienced strata managers doing so proactively.
5. A propensity to save money & do as little as possible
Underpinning all strata operations is money and, unsurprisingly, strata owners would prefer to spend less than more money.
Of course, the correct financial approach in strata buildings is not to spend more or less money but, rather to pay the correct amount of money and to get value for that money. But, that message and understanding seems lost [if it ever existed] and strata stakeholders everywhere have a ‘low spend’ or ‘no spend’ mentality in relation to strata building operations.
Strata owners with poor knowledge, experience or understanding of strata issues and who don’t have education options, information and tools will often choose the cheaper option and/or defer action and expenditures.
Strata committees also fear advocating spending more money than is available since they are unpaid volunteers doing a thankless job who would prefer not to alienate other strata owners.
And, strata managers know that one of the key reasons strata buildings change strata managers is because they believe they are paying overly high strata levies and/or that expenditures are increasing. So, there’s an incentive for strata managers to support lower levies, reduced or deferred spending, buying the cheapest option and squeezing supplier prices down by getting multiple undifferentiated quotes [leaving strata owners with difficult choices that degenerate into buying the cheapest].
These trends also mitigate against medium or long term approaches in strata buildings and against comparisons of the cost, effect and outcomes of different approaches between strata buildings and over sequential time periods.
So, there’s less and less focus on value in strata operations, which can only be assessed over time and with a broader and comparative perspective, and more on price.
An alternative approach to recurring strata operations
So, perhaps strata stakeholders need to get off the strata merry go round.
To do that, I suggest we flip the way we run strata buildings around so that we focus on the anomalies as one-off and uniquely handled issues and standardise the routine by doing the following thing.
1. Identify repeating strata activities and issues to remove them from strata manager or strata committee focus as one-off matters and reposition them as standardised processes with a predetermined set of actions and predictable outcomes. This can happen progressively by doing one strata activity at a time as they are identified and the processes developed.
2. Develop standardised and predetermined responses and actions for the most common strata activities and issues that apply by default whenever they occur. This should be coupled with a system to identify, filter and process those activities or issues and a way to also extract anomalies and to identify when things go wrong.
3. When common strata activities and issues are being consistently by the standardised processes, introduce more automation into the processes by using technology and by including self-help or DIY tools for strata stakeholders: thereby further improving efficiency, cost, speed, predictability and quality.
4. Identify one-off, complex and crisis-driven strata activities and issues that need higher level and/or specialised skills and approaches so that they can be notified to strata committees, strata managers and affected strata owners or residents and handled by the appropriate person/s.
5. Train and educate all strata stakeholders [from strata owners to strata managers] about the strata activities and issues that have been identified as routine and non-routine to help them better participate in strata operations and use the developed processes, understand the processes and have faith in the outcomes.
6. Collect, analyse and share the data that is generated by these new filtering and strata operations management processes so that more insights can be made and further process and system refinements can occur. Plus, it’s likely that the shared information can be used to demonstrate the higher value this management approach provides to strata buildings and strata owners.
Remember not all strata activities and issues need to be handled this way initially or ever.
But, any commonplace activities that are removed from traditional hands-on, reactive and time-intensive management process will deliver better outcomes for all strata stakeholders.
Conclusions
Rather than having strata buildings treating every new strata activity or issue that arises like it is the first time it has ever happened and needs personalised attention, let’s see if we can take the routine strata stuff out and run it more efficiently and predictably, so we can work harder on the non-routine, urgent and more complex strata activities and issues.
Doing more mundane things with less work and putting that work into more interesting and valuable things is way better than just doing more and more strata stuff and improves the strata sector.
August 23, 2021
Francesco ...