Strata Community Management Through the Looking Glass

We all have those challenging days where a client says or does something that stays with us long after we have left the office. It might be a difficult conversation, a prickly email, a problem that could not be solved right away, or a situation that was simply out of our control. Whatever it may be, it weighs on our mind and chances are that we are still thinking about it when we get home. It occupies precious real estate in our brains like an itch that cannot be scratched.

We might relive it when we tell our family about that one person in a roundabout story or bottle it up inside where it spoils like a piece of fruit. It might linger over the weekend while grabbing a coffee with friends. It might make us feel stressed or unwell. It might keep us up at night and even make us anxious to return to work.

Strata community management is challenging work–ask any strata community manager or the supporting staff behind them who are on the ‘frontline’. Good managers are hard to find and even harder to keep. This is a common saying in the industry and a badge of honour for those with established careers spanning several years or decades. To understand the challenges, one must first understand the mysterious and often misunderstood role of the strata community manager.

It all starts with the dreaded ‘m’ word in our job title. The general definition of a manager is a person who is responsible for controlling or administering something. When we picture a manager, we usually think of a person with experience, gravitas, and authority to make important decisions. Under Australian legislation, the strata or community corporation is responsible for administering, maintaining, and controlling the common property for the benefit of all owners, who are mandatory members of the corporation.

While the corporation may delegate any of its functions and powers to a member or an employee of the corporation under the legislation, it cannot hand over or forfeit its responsibilities and each owner has the right to vote. But how often do we hear from our clients that they thought the strata community manager makes all the decisions and is responsible for the common property?

At times, it can feel like we are held out to be all-seeing, all-knowing kings and queens who visit their subjects once a year to impose quarterly taxes and fix everything that needs fixing. While this may be an exaggeration of a certain perception, we commonly see that clients do not understand the legislation that governs their corporation or the services that the strata community manager provides under the management agreement. This can cause clients to become frustrated, discontent, and combative towards the manager—a natural survival response to the unknown.

Strata community managers provide services of an advisory and fiduciary nature to assist corporations with the administration, maintenance, and control of the common property in compliance with the legislation. We typically come from a wide range of backgrounds and have a unique set of skills and knowledge, including customer service, financial management, insurance, building maintenance, compliance, conflict resolution, and community engagement.

As individuals, we wear many different hats. But while these ‘hard skills’ are vital in the role, it is expected that the strata community manager will also have tried and true ‘soft skills’ such as leadership, compassion, tolerance, resilience, patience, and empathy.

These ‘soft skills’ are in greater focus now as we are seeing a significant change in consumer behaviours postCOVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Australians all over the country faced compulsory lockdowns and experienced isolation like never before. We were separated from family and friends. Many of us faced unemployment and lost loved ones. There were shortages of housing, food, basic amenities, and construction materials which led to heightened fear, anxiety, and panic-buying.

This has had a significant impact on consumer behaviours and with the way technology has dramatically shaped the world in the last three years, we have all come to expect convenience, accessibility, and immediacy in everyday life. We now live in a 24-hour society.

This shift in behaviours, coupled with a lack of understanding about the industry and rising cost-of-living for all Australians amid inflation and interest rate hikes, is unfortunately putting more pressure on strata community managers than ever before.

As an industry, we are dealing with a rapidly changing socio-economic landscape and will likely experience or be exposed to more complaints, fight or flight stress responses, psychological distress, and psychosocial hazards at work as a result of this. Psychosocial hazards are situations or factors that can cause harm to a person’s mental health, such as bullying, harassment, violence, aggression, or exposure to traumatic events. These hazards can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues as well as physical harm.

The Strata Community Association (SCA) is advocating for better mental health support and awareness through professional activities, and it has recently developed the Respect Pledge as part of the SCA Respect Campaign which is aimed at enhancing the relationship between strata community managers and those in community living.

The Respect Pledge promotes values and behaviours that encourage harmonious living such as integrity, selfawareness, self-regulation, empathy, trust, honesty, due diligence, and fairness. By taking the pledge, strata community managers and corporations can come together and better understand the role the manager plays.

The reality is that strata community management can be challenging and tireless work at times, but those who rise to the challenge and face it head on each and every day are extraordinary people.

If we continue to acknowledge this and stand in unity as an industry, this will lead to better outcomes for strata community managers and the corporations we service.

As our clients intrinsically look to us for support, acceptance, accountability, reliability, and most importantly trust, so too should we look to each other and through our actions, endeavour to better the industry for the benefit of all.