Let’s get construction back to work -safely

The Prime Minister wants “Construction to get back to work''. The Government’s official guidance for construction was published on Monday May 11 by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Prime Minister stated on Sunday May 10 that he wants people back on site by Wednesday May 13. The guidance is comprehensive but there's a lot for contractors, clients and consultants to work through.

Many sites have already been operational and for those that haven't been both groups, I am sure, will be having their health and safety and management teams ploughing through the new guidance to get things in place. Much of the guidance is common sense and many would have already implemented some or most of these measures. 

The ONS released worrying stats that you're 2.5 times more likely to die from Covid 19 if you are a male working in construction than the general population so safety for people onsite much be the most important thing.

How realistic is it that main contractors and sub-contractors can get this level of risk assessment done across multiple sites and projects in such a short spaces of time? How can they get all the right safety items in places such as signage, walkways, access routes and train people returning to site how to work safely?

Oh and don’t forget they’ve also been asked to share their risk assessment efforts openly with their employees and on their websites - it'll certainly be interesting to see if anyone complies with that last part by Wednesday.

To understand why getting sites back up and running by Wednesday is such a huge undertaking you need to know about how the industry works.

The construction industry structure

Here’s a simplified chart that shows typically the main roles on a construction project:

Construction Industry Structure Chart

The main issue for “Getting construction back to work” is that getting back to work will mean something different depending on where your role sits within the sector.

Where’s your role based?

The construction industry largely comprises two types of roles - office based or site based. Office based roles tend to be more design orientated, service based with qualified professions carrying out functional roles such as architecture, quantity surveying, planning and engineering etc. These roles can be done remotely from home via remote network access and laptops so therefore they have largely continued going strong during lockdown. In the main, these roles will attend construction sites now and then but their main role is desk based.

Contractors and sub-contractor roles are the ones that are mainly site based comprising hands-on workers and trades who have to be on-site in order to work (plasterers, bricklayers etc). Sub-contractors are mainly an army of specialist trades who come on site to get build things on behalf of main contractors. Many of these people lost their income, as they’re self-employed, when sites were shut due to Covid 19.

Site based roles can’t work from home

The Prime Minster has advised people that construction should go back to work. The roles that can be done from home are the client side and consultant roles and they’re already in place and will just continue to work from home. Site based roles have faced a mixed bag as the Government guidance had been so ambiguous up until yesterday (May 11) when a new Government guidance document was published. Since lockdown was announced in March some project sites continued working, some paused for a certain period and some closed altogether.

Avoiding public transport is easier said than done

Site workers (main contractors/subcontractors) tend to travel by public transport. Even when lockdown was fully on – the media was reporting that the reduced tube service was still packed with construction workers.

Specialist tradespeople tend to travel to construction sites on public transport and now they’re being told to go back to work (they can’t work from home) and not use public transport. If they drove to work – where would they park? How much would that cost? Do they even have cars? Plus, if they cycled to work – does their site have bike storage or shower/changing facilities or even how would they take their tools to work? There is a lot of issues for site based employers to work through here.

The office based consultant roles tend to be set up for cycling to work with storage facilities and changing facilities on tap. These roles are being encouraged to continue working from home. But realistically they may need to travel to site now and then to check up on live projects.

It’s difficult to maintain a 2m distance on site

Construction sites by their very nature are not the easiest places to work or to keep clean at the best of times. You’re often working in confined spaces with tight walkways and multiple trades on site at the same time working to tight deadlines. The industry associations such as the Construction Leadership Council and CIBSE have been working with their members to develop guidance on how to work safely on site.. Up until now there does seem to have been very little Government support in this area so contractors and associations have had to step in to fill this void. It’s vitally important that they do.

Disparities on government economic support

In terms of site based roles, many contractors and sub-contractors will be self-employed so if their site closed they may have fallen outside the Government support net. So, many tradespeople have continued working throughout the crisis if their sites remained open and continued using public transport and therefore exposing themselves to higher levels of Covid 19 risk.

Where will the buck stop?

Above I’ve outlined some of the challenges of “Getting Construction Back to Work” – as the industry is complex – the solution will be too. Employers will have to set up systems and processes to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of all their employees when they’re on site.

The Government guidance has even called for employers to be fully transparent and share their risk assessments with their employees. They’ll need to ensure that social distancing is maintained, that people can get to work safely, that there’s adequate PPE and that there’s adequate hand washing facilities. 

If there is an outbreak of Covid 19 on site it’ll be interesting to see where the legal responsibility will fall – will it be down to the client who commissioned the project, the consultants who designed it or the main contractors or the sub-contractors who hired the workers on site? With such a complex industry structure in place it’s difficult to truly know where the buck will stop but we all have a responsibility to work together to try and safeguard the industry as a whole.

Yes, “Construction must get back to work”  but let's make sure it's done safely.

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