There needs to be value assigned to training maintenance teams (paid training/certification as needed) with a matching pay scale. Owners often don’t understand the needs of properties and they often look to cut maintenance first (cutting off the proverbial nose to spite their faces) to trim budgets. Maintenance team members need to take an active role in immersing themselves in company culture, advancement opportunities at sister properties and take pride in their crucial roles on property management teams. Property administration teams should share budgets, educate on management of said budgets and offer bonuses when goals are achieved.
As a GC that works exclusively on Multi family properties doing CapEx and Large Scale Projects I see things from a 3 party side. I see a lot of lack of experience leading to frustration, lack of training, a lot about pay and not having proper supplies or tools to do their jobs and getting little to no support to solve the issues.
I have seen and heard about how they are being treated, playing favorites, and how the chatter is (talking about team mates to other teams and bad mouthing executives and I've seen executives do the same as well to other team mates as well).
Many talented techs leave the industry due to the overall culture and environment, in additional to the pay and benefits being less than desirable for their skills. So many properties are short staffed in the maintenance area, the remaining techs get overloaded and overwhelmed, with little or no support from management. Maintenance techs often aren't treated very well in the industry either, both by management and residents.