Last week I attended a very engaging conference on the Gold Coast – the biennial Griffith University Strata Title Conference.
In the last conference session we heard a very accomplished woman in strata – Reena Van Aalst – share her ‘take home message’. Having listened to each of the speakers over the previous three days, it had become clear to Reena that the day to day issues strata managers are now expected to deal with have reached a level of significant complexity, only to become more complex as our communities grow. Reena identified that, to be able to provide the required standard of service to their clients, managers now need skills in accounting, law, psychology, HR, project management, dispute resolution…the list goes on.
We are left with the question: do strata managers today receive the education and training required to properly equip them to meet the demands of their role?
During the conference, Michael Teys shared with us his experiences when he wears his ‘two hats’: when acting as a strata lawyer and charging $650 per hour, he commands respect and his advice is listened to and often accepted. When acting as a strata manager and charging $65 per hour, he is dismissed as just another strata manager who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Of course, he is the same person, probably giving the same advice regardless of the hat he’s wearing.
There is an important insight here. Lawyers study for somewhere between 4 and 6 years (or more) and are required to hold a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, as well as a current practising certificate. In NSW, a five day course is sufficient to register yourself with NSW Fair Trading as a strata managing agent.*
Right or wrong, in the eyes of the general public (ie: our clients), higher levels of education translate to professionalism and value. It seems to me that, for strata managers, the benefits of increased requirements for formal education and training are likely to be twofold:
- equipping strata managers with the right skills and expertise to assist them navigate their complex responsibilities; and
- shifting the perception of their occupation from industry to profession, immediately increasing their value which, one hopes, will translate into strata managers receiving the respect they deserve.
I am very interested to hear your thoughts.
Another thought provoking blog Amanda. Continually educating ourselves is valuable and necessary if we are to continually improve our knowledge and skills. There are many extremely intelligent and very well educated ladies in our industry, what we need to do is sing that from the mountain tops. Tell our clients how educated we are, share our knowledge with them and tell them when we learn something new, let them see that we add value for them.
Hi Amanda, I find your articles extremely interesting and thought-provoking. Thank you for sharing them.
I think you’ll be pleased to know that Strata Community Australia is currently working with the Construction & Property Services Industry Skills Council (CPSISC) to develop the certificate III, IV and Diploma courses in Strata Community Management. SCA Members were sent a communication today advising the first draft of the qualifications are open for feedback. If you’d like to provide feedback or find out more information, the details can be found at the CPSISC site: http://www.cpsisc.com.au/projects/Prop_Projects/Redesign_PDSM_
Great, thanks for letting us all know Erin. It seems this was a well-timed article!
Hi Amanda and managers
I don’t see that a TAFE course will raise how we are viewed, as that is what one does to become a tradesman and we all know how they are viewed. A Diploma is the answer I suspect, time will tell.
On the other hand, once we have Diploma’s and start to charge more, I expect that will raise another issue. As I’m sure all experienced managers are aware, owners seek legal (or say engineering) advice on a limited basis, mainly due to the cost. So something more will need to change.
Perhaps day to day repairs are all a general admin person in a strata company will be able to do – eg with a Cert III or IV, and then the “Manager” only engaged on the more technical things – in which case then the fee is at an hourly rate, like a lawyer. To get people use to this what we need to do well throughout the industry in charging Schedule B’s. There are firms of course who don’t and charge minimal management fees. This is because of course there are people on limited incomes and such expenses can’t be afforded – even if they saw the merit in it – so what is to become of their buildings – particularly when in the end for many the only home they will ever own will be a unit? How many people could then afford to own a unit?
Please don’t think I disagree, I fully support yourself and what the speakers at the conference have said, I’m just wondering what the end result will be.
In the meantime there is something we can be doing – pushing our clients to get legal advice and building advice and driving home our area of expertise is in the strata legislation, not every other legislation made by Govt – and so when we use that expertise in strata law – we charge for it, as that is what we did study and should be compensated accordingly (PS some of us spent 2 years doing the course part time – 6 hrs a week – at TAFE some 25 years ago – from what I’ve seen studied now it is more on strata than knowledge over a wider range of subjects – so it took longer – and so maybe we were better prepared for the range of issues that arise in strata today – eg part of the course covered building construction).
Hello Amanda, The Griffith conference was my first “Strata”conference, and I listened to Micheal Teys speech. Coming from a Government career as well as a training perspective, I thought it was interesting to listen to the amount of facilitators and attendees rehashing similar “training” topics.
As a “newbie”” it seems there’s a real gap in the Strata market for skilled and unskilled people.
I think similar to the trade industry there’s a real demand for skills, particularly those that are specialised.
I think there’d be a large percentage of people in Strata that do possess the necessary skills to deliver a valuable service. Perhaps it’s more about promoting themselves as professionals?
The example I was thinking of was the comparison of a professional athletes. Is it fair to compare someone who’s trained at the Australian Institute of sport for 5 years to someone who’s practiced for twenty years day-in-day-out?
I’d like to believe that a persons career cannot be measure by their educational attainment.
In saying that, I also believe Knowledge is power.