School principals used to be able to focus mainly, if not solely, on curriculum planning and student well-being. Not so nowadays. While still core focus areas, these responsibilities have been joined by an ever-growing list of responsibilities that include maintenance, budgets, school presentation and safety. Recent studies suggest that time spent on maintenance activities leave school administrators – principals, senior school executives, bursars and property managers – with less capacity to fulfil their core responsibilities, even when they share its burden.
The NSW Department of Education found that principals spend 40 per cent of their time ‘managing their school’: facility upkeep, technology issues, tree audits, minor asset repairs, building maintenance, and other ad-hoc tasks crucial to the school’s presentation and operations needing immediate attention. Understandably, these exacerbate personal stress levels.
Outsourcing maintenance to external specialists reduces the toll on principals and their team. And, yield better operational time, cost and quality efficiencies.
Benefits of Outsourcing Maintenance
With strategic outsourcing of school maintenance, school administrators can better balance their workloads and accountability pertaining to leading, managing and developing the school. It also eases stress, helping them to perform – and feel – better overall.
Outsourcing maintenance to a professional provider benefits school executives by:
- Freeing this senior management team and other internal resources to focus on core educational activities instead of managing unfamiliar tasks which can include legislative and compliance requirements they may not be aware of
- Providing access to specialist experts who can quickly and effectively resolve any planned and unplanned maintenance issues
- Easing budget woes; schools can access quality, well-maintained plant, equipment and technology without the need for costly expenditure unrelated to education and learning.
- Reducing unexpected costs and allowing more predictable budgeting through proper management and maintenance scheduling
Flexibility is another advantage, as there is always the option to outsource as much or as little as required in order to achieve the best results for the school.
These benefits make entrusting a school’s maintenance to a professional company a compelling strategy able to yield improvements on both organisational and personal levels.
Access the FREE School Maintenance Efficiencies whitepaper which discusses the administrative challenges schools encounter regarding maintenance, and learn how to reclaim your time, energy and resources through a strategy for outsourcing. Download your free copy here.
