Strata Manager Staffing Shortages in Australia: How Committees Can Keep Buildings Running Smoothly

Strata manager staffing shortages are putting real pressure on buildings across Australia. Here's a practical guide for committees and owners corporations to reduce risk, avoid delays and keep operations on track.

Strata manager staffing shortages are no longer a background industry grumble — they're a frontline operational problem that committees, owners corporations and building managers are navigating right now. Across Australia, strata management firms are struggling to recruit and retain qualified staff, and the ripple effects are landing squarely on buildings: slower response times, delayed maintenance approvals, missed compliance deadlines and frustrated owners.

If your building is feeling the strain, you're not alone. More importantly, there are practical steps your committee can take to reduce exposure and keep things running smoothly — regardless of what's happening at your management agency.

Why Strata Manager Staffing Shortages Are Getting Worse

The strata sector has grown enormously over the past decade. More apartments, more townhouse developments and more complex mixed-use buildings have come online — but the pipeline of trained, licensed strata managers hasn't kept pace.

Several factors are compounding the problem:

Licensing and training barriers. Strata management is a licensed profession in most states and territories. It takes time to qualify new entrants, and there's no quick fix to boost supply.
High workload and burnout. Experienced managers often carry portfolios of 20–30+ schemes simultaneously. Burnout is a genuine concern, driving experienced people out of the industry.
Competition from adjacent industries. Property management, facilities management and real estate roles compete for the same talent pool, often with better pay or conditions.
Post-pandemic mobility. Staff movement has increased across most professional services sectors, and strata is no exception.

The result is that even well-run, reputable agencies are operating with vacancies, covering portfolios with temporary or junior staff, or asking managers to absorb more schemes than is sustainable.

What This Means for Your Building

When a strata manager is stretched thin or a role goes unfilled, the impact is practical and immediate:

Delayed responses to maintenance requests and owner enquiries
Slower processing of levy notices and financial reporting
Approvals for repair works taking longer than necessary
Essential safety measures and compliance tasks falling behind schedule
AGM and committee meeting preparation becoming rushed or incomplete
New or temporary managers unfamiliar with your building's history and by-laws

None of these outcomes are inevitable, but they do become more likely when your committee has no visibility over what's happening behind the scenes at your agency.

Steps Committees Can Take to Reduce Risk

1. Open a Direct Conversation With Your Agency

Don't wait for problems to surface — proactively ask your strata manager or agency principal how your portfolio is being managed. Reasonable questions include:

Who is currently managing our scheme, and is there a backup contact?
What happens if our manager is on leave or leaves the agency?
How is handover managed when a new manager takes over our building?

A good agency will welcome this conversation. If the answers are vague or evasive, that's useful information too.

2. Build and Maintain Your Own Building Records

One of the most damaging consequences of staff turnover is institutional knowledge walking out the door. Committees can protect themselves by maintaining their own organised records, independent of the agency:

Copies of the current by-laws, strata plan and title documents
A register of key contractors (lift, fire, HVAC, cleaning, plumbing, electrical)
Maintenance schedules and service histories
Outstanding works, quotes and committee decisions
Insurance certificates of currency and renewal dates
Current 10-year capital works (sinking) fund plan

If your building has this information accessible to the committee, a manager handover becomes far less disruptive.

3. Get Clear on Your Compliance Calendar

Essential safety measures, fire services inspections, lift certifications, pool barrier checks and other statutory obligations don't pause because your manager is juggling too many schemes. Create — or ask your manager to provide — a compliance calendar that lists every recurring obligation, its frequency and its due date.

Review this calendar at committee meetings. If deadlines are approaching and you haven't seen evidence of action, follow up in writing. Documented communication protects the committee and creates accountability.

4. Strengthen the Committee's Own Capability

A well-functioning committee is the best buffer against external resourcing pressure. This means:

Regular meetings with clear agendas and documented minutes
Clear delegation of responsibilities — who is the primary contact for maintenance issues, who handles owner communications, who monitors financials?
A committee member who understands the building's finances, including levy arrears, the administrative fund balance and capital works fund position
Familiarity with the scheme's by-laws, so the committee can field routine owner questions without depending entirely on the manager

Most state and territory strata legislation gives committees meaningful decision-making authority within defined limits. Understanding where those limits sit means you can act quickly when needed, rather than waiting on an overstretched manager for every minor decision.

5. Consider Whether Your Management Agreement Still Fits

Strata management agreements are typically for a fixed term and include defined service levels. If your building has grown more complex — more lots, more infrastructure, more compliance obligations — but your agreement hasn't been reviewed, it may no longer reflect what the building actually needs.

When your agreement is due for renewal, consider:

Whether the fee structure reflects the actual scope of services required
Whether there are clear response-time commitments in the agreement
Whether the agreement includes provisions for consistent management continuity

It's also worth asking whether your agency has the capacity to properly service your building at the current price point. A very low management fee might save money on paper while costing far more in delays, errors and committee time spent chasing up basic tasks.

6. Use Technology to Reduce the Administrative Burden

A significant proportion of a strata manager's time is consumed by routine administrative tasks: logging maintenance requests, issuing correspondence, processing invoices and updating owners. Buildings that use purpose-built strata and facilities management platforms can reduce this burden materially — creating transparency, automating reminders and giving committees real-time visibility without constant back-and-forth emails.

Platforms like Orveya are designed specifically to give strata committees and building managers a clearer, shared view of what's happening across their building — reducing the dependency on any single person and making handovers far less painful.

When Staffing Shortages Indicate a Deeper Problem

There's a difference between an agency navigating a temporary vacancy and one that is structurally under-resourced for the size of portfolio it manages. If your building has experienced repeated manager changes, persistent delays, unanswered communications or compliance failures over an extended period, it may be time to review your agency relationship more formally.

Committees have the right to request information about how their scheme is being managed and to raise formal concerns with the agency principal. In more serious cases, state-based strata regulators and Fair Trading offices provide avenues for escalation.

Practical Takeaway

Strata manager staffing shortages are a sector-wide challenge, and committees can't fix them unilaterally. What committees *can* do is reduce their building's exposure: keep your own records in order, understand your compliance obligations, strengthen the committee's internal capability and have frank conversations with your agency about how your scheme is being resourced. Buildings that treat management as a shared responsibility — not something entirely outsourced — are consistently better positioned to absorb the disruptions that come with a tightening labour market.

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