Combine the supply chain disruptions and periods of lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic with a shortage of external wall survey (EWS1) assessors and concerned leaseholders with worries about cladding remediation and rising insurance premiums, and it has no doubt been a challenging year for block managers. All this is before thinking about the impact of the forthcoming building safety reform and its strict requirements and penalties.
The Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) and the Institute of Residential Property Management (IRPM) looked into the pressures block managers faced in their Industry Wellbeing Survey Report. Of 743 respondents, almost half were involved in cladding remediation for clients and leaseholders. Leaseholders themselves were facing pressure from mortgage lenders who had been reluctant to approve loans due to concerns over cladding.
59% of respondents thought their mental health or safety was at risk from their work, 94% had been treated rudely through language or voice, and 72% unkindly. As a result, the organisations created an Unreasonable Behaviour Policy to help block managers safeguard their wellbeing.
Building Safety Series: Webinars and Guides
Anticipating the pressures reforms will bring, much of our content this year has been focused on unpacking the upcoming Building Safety reforms through a series of live and recorded webinars and written guides.
Building Safety Reform: What It Means for Block Managers with Shaun Lundy (Director of Strategy and Innovation, Tetra Consulting), Andrew Bulmer (CEO, IRPM), and Nigel Glen (CEO, ARMA) provided an overview of the new building safety laws and offered pragmatic advice for block managers looking to prepare themselves.
Our eBook, The Role of Building Safety Manager, was published in collaboration with Tetra Consulting to examine the competencies of the Building Safety Manager, a key part of the new building safety regime.
The webinar Resident Voice: Rebuilding Trust Post-Grenfell discussed with Andrew Bulmer, Nigel Glen, Nygel Scourfield (CEO, My Future Living) and Bob Smytherman (Chairman, Federation of Private Residents’ Associations) how to nurture engagement with residents to ensure they are involved in building safety matters.
Cassandra Zanelli (Solicitor and CEO, Property Management Legal Services) has helped us understand new legal requirements and case law as they develop in our Quarterly Legal & Compliance Updates for Block Managers series of webinars. All of these webinars and eBooks are available for free on fixflo.com.
How Fixflo is Working to Help Block Managers
To help block managers perform their day-to-day duties, we at Fixflo have been working to develop innovative software solutions. With tech, many of the manual tasks required to meet compliance standards can be automated, thus freeing up block managers to handle leaseholder queries and engage with residents.
2021 has been both a productive and eventful year for the Fixflo team. Our customer base has grown by 38%, and our number of managed properties on the platform has reached 1.2 million.
In May this year, we were acquired by leading European property software company Aareon AG, and with increased availability of resources at our fingertips, we aim to continue the growth in our team size, focusing on building an industry-leading product and development team to understand the challenges block managers face and drive innovation across our products and services.
As we look towards the future of building safety, our new features will continue to help managing agents track the compliance status of their managed portfolios, engage residents and leaseholders and allow them to comply with new regulatory and safety compliance standards.
