Strata Buildings as Future Workplaces

How will strata change when more of us work from home …

Covid 19 has turbo-charged longer-term trends over remote working and work from home. Whether or not those changes are permanent or temporary, they will impact strata buildings in obvious and less expected ways that need to be identified, considered, and addressed as strata buildings become future workplaces.

[8:50 minutes estimated reading time, 1689 words]

Become a paid GoStrata Stak subscriber

Introduction

I’ve been thinking a lot about how the rolling lockdowns due to Covid 19 that keep us out of workplaces and at home might transform work and labour practices (especially for professional and knowledge services-based workers like me).

It’s certainly changed things for most of us who do that work and for our families and others who used to enjoy home life without us there.

And, in the high-density environments of strata buildings, that phenomenon will have some predictable and less obvious impacts on those strata buildings, strata owners and residents, and other strata stakeholders.

So, in this article, I’ll cover the trends and possibilities and my views about the likely impacts.

Changes to work practices

By necessity, we’ve been forced to stay home now for significant parts of 2020 and 2021 [so far] and had to learn ways to do our work [or at least some of it] from there. 

Employers, workers, and customers have adapted to the changes and, we’re all getting used to it as the ‘new normal’ until the correct Covid 19 milestones [whatever they are] are reached.

Those changes may or may not be permanent and if you speak to a range of people, you’ll hear different views and preferences: from those who can’t wait to get back to the office and others who are dreading the return to their old workplaces.

I don’t know what will happen and the long-term outcomes will be different in different places, at different organisations, and for different people.  But I believe it’s pretty clear that things will not go back to exactly the same as they were before.

So, to a greater or lesser degree, regardless of Covid 19 more people will work from their homes for some of their time in the future.  And it’s likely that centralised office and workplace use will change with less space and/or space that’s used differently.

The recent article by Ross Gittins in The Age ‘History tells us what will decide whether we work from home in the future’ and the speech by Michael Brennan, the Productivity Commissioner, at RMIT ‘The Working from Home Evolution’ sets out the workplace and work issues very well.  

It’s well worth reading both as they put these changes into historical context and identifies economic, social, and drivers and considerations that will affect the work changes.

There’s also some Productivity Commission research to be released soon about working from home: what it might mean for cities, for our work health and safety regime, the workplace relations system; what it might mean for productivity.

Why do strata buildings care?

So, that’s very interesting, but why do strata buildings and strata stakeholders care except in relation to their own work experiences?

Well, there’s plenty of reasons as I explain below arising from the fact that many workers live in strata buildings [and even more will in the future], and even small changes to the time they spend at their strata homes change things dramatically for them and others.

After all, many office workers leave their apartments to go to work at 8 AM and aren’t usually back till 6 PM [or later] and if they’re now working from home even just half of the time, that’s an additional 25 hours per week at the strata building out of a total of 168 hours in a week [an increase of at least 15% of strata time].

With more people in the strata building more often and for longer we’ll likely see the following impacts on strata buildings and strata stakeholders that will create issues and need management and solutions.

1.   More people in strata buildings

This means higher use of both private and common areas and facilities in strata buildings by:

• traffic [foot and vehicle],

• use intensity of services like lifts, stairs, doors, HVAC, etc,

• wear and tear on building structures,

• utility consumption, and

• more.

So, those things will lead to more frequent failures, more damage occurring, reduced lifespans and higher consumption requiring more repair and maintenance and higher costs.

The higher people density in strata buildings will also test their capacity to handle those densities which haven’t been tested before since high or full occupancy usually occurs during quiet times like evenings, overnight and weekends.

2.   People in strata buildings for longer

The higher density levels in strata buildings will also last longer, further exacerbating the higher use of strata building areas and facilities.

3.   More noise in strata buildings

More people in strata buildings for longer periods doing work and other things during busy times means more noise being created than usually.

So, since noise in strata buildings has always been a source of disagreements, conflicts, and disputes, I believe it’s likely there’ll be a need to deal with the newer phenomenon of daytime noise.

4.   More sensitivity to noise by strata residents

Coupled with the increase in noise, it’s also likely that strata owners and residents will be more sensitive and sensitised to that noise for a few reasons including:

• strata residents who previously enjoyed quiet days when the building was empty will not like the new noisier strata days,

• strata residents now working from home will want quiet to do their work [including Zoom meetings],

• children at home will make noise as it’s [rightly] in their nature, and

• it’s normal for people who are disturbed by noise to become more sensitively attuned to it over time and hear it more and more often.

That just adds to the challenges of dealing with daytime strata noise.

5.   More strata renovations in strata buildings

We’re already seeing an increase in strata renovations since people have a bit more time to do them, property values are increasing and interest rates for home improvements are low.

Plus, as strata owners spend more time in their apartments, they can see flaws they want to change and look for changes to improve amenity and comfort.

So, there will be more strata renovation requests being made, more renovations taking place and more simultaneous strata renovations occurring.  So, the challenges for strata approvals I wrote about in ‘Strata Apartment Renovations: Guiding Principles’ and managing the work on-site in strata buildings will be more frequent.

6.   Higher demands over strata building facilities and services

More people in the strata buildings will not only increase the use of common areas and facilities, it will also lead to more demands about communal recreation areas since they are the closest, safest, and best places for strata owners and residents to get outdoor or out of the apartment time.

Think about things strata building gardens, playgrounds, and recreation areas which are typically basic and lightly used.  But when those gardens, playgrounds, and recreation areas get used more often and by more strata residents there will be a desire to improve or add to them.  The same applies to all other kinds of common area facilities.

Plus, we’ve already seen the challenges of managing higher health risk areas in strata buildings like pools, spas, saunas, and gyms during Covid 19 actually lead to a reduction in the availability of common area facilities for strata owners and residents.

As a result, there’ll be increasing pressure to keep providing existing and provide better common area facilities in strata buildings.

7.   Increased focus on security, safety, and health matters in strata buildings

More people, more often and for longer in strata buildings [especially during a pandemic] increases pressure on strata building security and safety resulting from the increased traffic and density.

Plus, Covid 19 infections and best practices about sanitising have also focused attention on the health consequences of poor quality and infrequent cleaning in strata buildings.

So, regardless of how good [or not] strata building practices in relation to security, safety and health currently are, I expect strata stakeholders to be required:

• by-laws or public health orders, or

• due to strata owner and resident demands,

to improve things over time.

8.   Greater awareness and scrutiny of strata buildings quality and performance issues

As more strata owners spend more time in their strata buildings, they will have more time to both notice and identify things that aren’t working or working satisfactorily.  And, since they’ll be reminded of those things more often.

Plus, as we’ve all experienced, they also have more time and motivation to notify and complain about them to building and strata managers [as well as following up complaints].

Sometimes those things will be small like dead light globes and loose door handles and sometimes they’ll be more significant, like building defects.

So, building and strata managers, will need to deal with more communication than before and, as result, have to organise more inspections, repairs and maintenance and checks with resultant increases on time, stress, and costs.

I wrote [satirically] about the efforts involved in simple strata maintenance issues in ‘How Many Strata Managers Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?’

9.   Higher strata owner and resident involvement

But there might also be some good news with all these extra strata owners and residents spending more time in their apartments, using strata building facilities, noticing more issues and looking for improvements to their apartments and the strata building itself.

That increased participation and involvement by strata stakeholders should bring better outcomes for them and the strata building.  Plus, it will increase their knowledge of strata building, operations, and legal issues.

After all, we’ve bemoaned the lack of strata owner engagement in the past and even complaints are engagement.

Conclusions

There’s a long-term change coming to the amount of time that people stay in their strata buildings and what they’re doing there. 

Whether it is minor or major and short-term or long-term is hard to say.

Regardless, it will change things in strata buildings and for strata stakeholders in ways I’ve identified and in ways that we can’t predict.

So, we’ll need to deal with these changes as both challenges and opportunities.

August 25, 2021

Francesco ...