What does a building manager do?

The buildings manager’s role is made up of two main aspects, ensuring the day to day maintenance and running of the people is happening as well as looking after the culture of the building and that all residents are upholding the Body Corporate rules.

Summary:

The building managers’ role is not as easy as people perceive. They have two main jobs which are the day to day role of ensuring maintenance, cleaning, rubbish and so on is taken care of and the second is being in contact with the residents, owners, tenants, organising and running of meetings and AGMs.

The day to day operations include but are not limited to several task. Cleaning is an important aspect of this, including the inside and outside of the building. They also ensure the building Warrant of Fitness is up to date as well as certifying the security is up to scratch.

The building manger is also in charge of the looking after the culture of the building, this term is more commonly known as the Body Corporate rules. This means they are looking out for residents and the living conditions for example ensuring there is an acceptable level of noise or people not hanging laundry off the balconies and so on.

The building manager’s role is not easy and their time taken is much more than we realise. The person who takes on this role within the building deserves a lot of respect and understanding at all times.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Good day, it's Andrew Murray here from the Apartment Specialists, talking about building managers. Now, a lot of people think they've got an easy ride. That's actually not the case. So, I'm going to talk to you today about what a building manager in an apartment complex actually does, along with their day-to-day task and throughout the year.

Now, there are two main aspects of what a building manager does. One is the day-to-day maintenance of the building. This will be anything from cleaning, to your safety checks for the council - and that kind of thing. The second aspect, which is the most important, is your communication with your owners. For example, owners committees and AGMs.

I'll firstly go into the first part, which is your day-to-day operations. The first one that comes to mind is obviously cleaning. This is where, basically, if you look at an apartment complex, it's like a huge house. Where you've got one guy who's in charge or a female in charge of basically making sure all the chores to do with the maintenance of that large building is done.

It's cleaning and watering the plants. It's making sure the rubbish is removed, and it's making sure that all the tests that have to happen each year for the council. For example, the fire checks, the building warrant of fitness - all these kinds of tasks. These things that have to be done every day and weekly. Now, the second part of this maintenance is the long-term maintenance plan. They're not just in charge of looking after the building at the moment, they're in charge of looking after the future of the building. So, that's looking at the long-term maintenance plan.

In three years time, the building may need to be painted. So, they'll have to coordinate that. It's also reporting back on when things need to be done, for example, the carpet's looking pretty good at the moment. It was supposed to be replaced next year, but it's actually standing up  pretty good. So, let's push it out a year in the long-term maintenance front.

They're also responsible for the culture. The culture is what I call it, but most people refer it to as the body corporate rules. For example, the noise in a complex, when it's late-hour. The music or whether people are allowed to have washing on their balcony. Washing on your balcony often makes a complex look not that nice. So, making sure the tenants or the owners are not having washing on their balconies, is part of the building manager's job to enforce that.

I see that as enforcing the culture, and up keeping the standards. The body corporate has all agreed to, or the owners have agreed to, and which needs to be obviously upheld. Now, the second aspect, which is the most important part, is you can't really talk it that much. It's where you're reporting to the owners. And that is at any general meeting level as I mentioned before, or an owner's committee level. Now, if you think of an  apartment complex as one big community, and there's always something going on. The building manager is the eyes and the ears of the owners.

They live on the ground floor, and they're there all the time. Apartment building manager know when issues are coming up. They know what's going well. They know what's not going well, and they'll have suggestions on how to improve the daily management of the building. It's very important that a building manager attends every single AGM, obviously.

Most do, some don't, but in my opinion, every single committee meeting should be attended by the building manager, to give the owners the feedback they need. Especially, when they're making decisions on how the building should be managed, that building manager needs to be very efficient. As you can see, there's a lot to being a building manager, and it's not as easy as it sounds. They deserve more respect, and I believe in the industry, a great building manager is absolutely gold.

Anyway, Andrew Murray, Apartment Specialists, talking about what building managers do, when looking after an apartment complex.

If you have any questions about the responsibilities of a building manager, flick me an email at [email protected] or call +6421 424 892 and I’ll be happy to help you with your queries.

Cheers. Thank you.