Like most of you, I've worked in other industries and in an earlier life, while still developing my management skills, I headed up a milk processing factory in the deep south. We employed many young men and while they worked hard, some were a little over-spirited. Imagine the end of the day's processing, with the supervisor in his office completing daily paperwork, and one of these juveniles gives some lip to his mate who has a washdown hose. Of course, we had planned for that and taught them what machinery is waterproof. The supervisors were all young once.
Early in my management career, I learned you can't contain that raw energy and enthusiasm. You somehow need to channel it. I eventually stumbled across a solution.
His name was Ian.
Ian was older. Maybe 23. He was a big young man. Big in size and personality. Ian was a natural leader, and the other guys were always around him, hanging on to his every word.
One day, Ian arrives at work on a motorbike. Within a couple of months, there were four motorbikes in the car park. Then Ian decides that he likes rum, so rum becomes the drink de jour and additional rum is required at the annual Christmas party. (It was different then).
Besides his high emotional intelligence, Ian wasn't especially bright, but he was a genuine bloke and a hard worker. Then, one day, I had a lightbulb moment. I promoted him. I also talked him into studying for a Diploma in Dairy Technology. That was it. Suddenly, I had a team of enthusiastic young men who, following Ian's example, didn't just want a job. They wanted a career.
During the decade or so I headed up that company, I had the pleasure of seeing three of our team leave for management positions in other companies. These exits created welcomed opportunities for others because we now had an environment where people could join at the bottom and see a genuine pathway to greater things. So most stayed, and our team performance improved. We got the job done faster, cheaper and with less drama. And the shareholders liked me.
But we couldn't do it on our own. The New Zealand Dairy Industry has operated a Diploma programme since the 1960s covering subjects unavailable elsewhere. These subjects included microbiology, dairy chemistry, engineering, technology, etc.
The early dairy industry leaders were visionaries who understood that the individual companies couldn't train their future technicians and managers, at least not at scale.
Dairy is arguably New Zealand's only world-class industry, and I believe this status could not have been attained and sustained without a commitment to industry-level training.
However, there is another, perhaps more subtle, outcome of industry-level training and certification. When people have put time and effort into developing valuable skills, when they move on, they are more likely to stay in the industry. It's not only you who have invested in their skills; they've also invested.
One of the interesting facts about our body corporate management profession is that every practising body corporate manager you meet, at some time, worked in a different industry.
OK. I might be exaggerating a tad when I say "fact”. But I doubt many kids are saying, "I want to be a body corporate manager when I grow up". And if you look around, the vast majority of us ended up here because there came a time when we were looking for our next adventure and had one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moments.
We are a rag-tag bunch who have landed in a profession where each business operator, big and small, has had to develop their own operating manuals, including how they recruit, train and retain their people. The result has been that the industry's customers have experienced variable service standards.
The free marketer in me says that's OK. After all, each Body Corporate Management Company competes with the others. But inconsistencies and poor standards don't help create a perception of us being part of a "profession". And if we want people to value our services, it would help if we could maintain some national minimum standards.
Also, when a valued team member resigns, it would be helpful if we weren't back to training new recruits.
This is where the SCA(NZ) comes in. Don't get me wrong. I don't see the role of the SCA as one of laying down rules for others to follow. Think “guidelines” as opposed to “rules”. However, in addition to suggesting what might be best practice, there are a few things that only an industry-level organisation can do.
One relates to the continued development of the people employed within the industry, something our SCA(NZ) has been offering for some time. Another is a platform for recognising exceptional people in our ranks. This is new.
This brings me to the inaugural New Zealand Strata Community Excellence Awards.
People respond to recognition. We all yearn for it. For most of us, nothing is more rewarding than being recognised for our efforts and praised by our peers.
We can all learn from the dairy industry that if you want a well-trained profession, it's more effective to develop and administer the programmes nationally. It will take time and investment, but eventually, you will have a pool of trained personnel able to move from company to company.
But in the meantime, if you want to retain your best people, if they are worthy, you might recognise them, and one simple way is to encourage them to put their names forward for the SCA Community Awards.
The worst that could happen is they might win, and you might have to give them a few days off and pay for a trip to Hobart for the international award ceremony.
At best, you will have a team member who knows they are valued and will become a role model.
Like Ian.
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The Plan Heaven team.
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