People Spotlight: Michael Kourakis, BGIS Account Director

How long have you worked for BGIS?

I commenced my employment with BGIS is May 2024. My experience has fundamentally always centred around the delivery and maintenance of social housing, be it with the public and/or not for profit sector from project and development management to contract and executive director positions over the course of 30 years in south Australia and New South Wales.

Tell us about your contract/scope of work.

I am currently employed as the Account Director for the Homes NSW Responsive and Programmed Maintenance (RAPM) contract. BGIS holds a five-year contract with Homes NSW, with the option to extend for a further five years. The contract encompasses the delivery of both responsive maintenance, ranging from 4-hour to 18-day priority works, depending on the urgency of each request and programmed maintenance activities, including vacancy works, dwelling modifications, minor and major capital upgrades, lawns, grounds and common area servicing, and component (statutory) servicing. The scope of the contract covers approximately 13,500 dwellings across northern New South Wales, from the Central Coast to the Tweed region.

The account delivers maintenance works with a help desk and programmed coordination team, who distribute work orders to over 110 vendors including BGIS’ Self Delivery team. Programmed Works are monitored and managed by two area managers and their teams of Works Supervisors most of whom are located in Cardiff to manage works in Newcastle and the Central Coast, and a further five team members to oversee works from Coffs Harbour to the Tweed Region. The account currently employs 68 employees.

Tell us any highlights and/or interesting things about your account.

An interesting aspect of this account is the high volume of work orders being raised by Homes NSW, which has exceeded our initial expectations. As a result, we have had to recalibrate the resources required to deliver the contract, including engaging additional vendors to manage the significant level of maintenance requested by the client. The immediate challenge has been to incentivise vendors to meet their contractual obligations, particularly given that many had previously been selective in accepting work orders due to the sheer volume received. Recently, however, we have successfully onboarded new vendors, which has increased competition for work orders. Combined with ongoing performance management and evaluation, this has begun to deliver improved outcomes for the client.

Also to note, we have dealt with floods and cyclones within the first nine months of the contract!

What is unique to working in your sector?

The client is very committed to improving the lives of current and future social housing residents, an essential social outcome for the NSW Government. For BGIS, this means our people, systems, processes, and vendors must remain focused on delivering maintenance works within agreed timeframes. This ensures Homes NSW can allocate housing to those on priority waiting lists and that dwellings are safe, secure, and maintained to contemporary standards.

Secure, safe and suitable social housing is a major determinant of the quality of life of a public housing tenant and for those who reside within them.  It provides the stability and an environment whereby occupants can seek opportunities such as employment, training, education, improving their physical and mental health while also increasing their participation within the community. BGIS has a significant role to play in assisting tenants seek their full potential, and our team is aware of this and is supportive and motivated by meeting the goals of Homes NSW and the State Government as they relate to the social housing system.

What innovation(s) has your team introduced into your contract?

Recently, we introduced a measurement tool designed to assess the capacity of our vendors. This enables us to determine the number of work orders each vendor can feasibly complete within the contractual timeframes. If a vendor is consistently missing time frames, it may indicate they have exceeded their resource capacity. Capacity limits are now directly linked to vendor performance and their resource expansion. In such cases, they will not be allocated additional work orders until they have reduced their backlog and/or increased their available resources. This approach encourages vendors to complete work orders on time and, with a broader pool of vendors now available, is expected to significantly improve overall work order completion timeliness.

How do you stay client-focussed?  

In relation to this account, it is essential for our team to remain aligned with the strategic objectives and priorities of Homes NSW and the State Government as they relate to social housing. In that regard, we are in constant dialogue with the client to understand and respond to their expectations, which are centred on improving the social housing experience for tenants. For BGIS, this means a continued focus on delivering high-quality, timely services that ensure tenants’ homes are safe, accessible, and appropriate to their needs, all within the boundaries of our contractual obligations.

A key piece of FM career advice…

Two main points I think that are important:

1.  Be responsive to the client, understand their requirements, respond to queries in a timely manner.  Be aware of the clients KPI’s and as far as our service obligations are concerned, ensure we do our best to assist the client KPI’s being met.
2. Understand the contract, and the risk allocation behind its structure, and ensure that your team is fully across this as well.  Don’t assume that the client understands the contract either, and this being the case it’s all too common to be asked to perform services that are not strictly in our remit, and to push back with respect.  In addition, there usually are grey area’s that will require negotiation particularly in a new contract.