Construction Industry & COVID 2019

Was COVID 2019 preventable? Discussing and debating over this would be of definite use to mankind but, discussing and debating over whether businesses have been able to prevent or reduce the impact of COVID 2019? Given today’s context of technology, digital significance, real time, data as the new oil, artificial intelligence etc., all this seems to convey only one message – YES, we could have prevented or reduced the impact of COVID 2019 on the businesses to a greater extent. We need to deep dive, understand all perspectives obviously for the benefit of mankind so that we are better prepared to develop appropriate foresight, to handle it in a more matured manner in case of re occurrence of such a calamity in the future. The question is even if such a calamity reoccurs, how best we can now prepare businesses to absorb such shocks, reduce or prevent the damage to the minimum possible.

Development and Destruction, both travel hand in hand; Remember, the building kisses the sky after the trees touches the ground.

Whether it is Construction or any other industry, employees at the helm of affairs are conspicuously obsessed to do ‘Nice to do things’ for obvious reasons. Decision makers often fall prey to this because most of the times there is an urgency. Therefore, it is extremely important for the decision makers ‘To know an organizations must-haves and nice-to-haves’.

COVID 2019 is obviously going to bring in substantial changes in the way the people behave and conduct their businesses. It is not going to be business as usual; it is going to be business unusual.

Every business will need a great amount of courage to leave behind the bad memories of COVID 2019 and gear up themselves and the organization to be extremely ‘Agile, Adaptive & Aspirational’ at a speed which ensures your organization as one amongst the top few and one of the great places to work.

For this organizations must stop operating from the perspective of ‘Fear, Friction & Conflict’? Organizations must be more serious about their strategy, people, policies, processes, technology etc., and emerge more stronger, more engaged, more capable than before not only to tackle such kind of eventuality but otherwise also. Preparedness of an organization is not only for business sustainability, progress and growth but also for sudden eventuality such as COVID 2019. The time taken to adapt to sudden scenarios created by COVID 2019 should be as less as possible. The agility with which we can adapt to changed scenarios should be easy and faster.

History has proven time and again that organizations which were agile, adaptive and aspirational whenever such calamity has struck, they have come even more stronger than ever before. Is sustainability different than this?

Is it not high time that organizations especially from the construction sector become more mature enough, be more agile, adaptive in handling concerns involving People, Policies, Processes, Technology? Aspirations at the highest echelons of an organizations must echo even at the last mile of the organization. It is high time playing defensive, organizations must now look at the fillip side rising out of the current scenario, identify the right opportunities, become more aspirational. The only difficulty today is to come out of the mess many construction organizations were into even before this disaster had struck. Well the answer for this is look inwards first, set right things which need to be even if it is at the cost of growth.

First things first

As Jim Collins says in his book ‘Good to Great’, ‘First Who and then What’. Getting the right people on the right seats, knowing who the right person is, first in tackling the ‘what’ is as much important as getting the wrong people off the organizational journey.

Needless to say that, for a business to sustain, sustainability, growth and progress of stakeholders is equally important and imperative in today’s boundary less organizations. Partnering is the only way forward. The first step towards this is ‘Building Mutual Trust’. Remember ‘Trust’ is at the foundation of cooperative and collaborative leadership.

Identify ways that organization can be mutually trustworthy to each of its stakeholders. Understand, facilitate stakeholders mitigate the risks as it is in the organizations interest. Pandemics and other disruptive events will increase in frequency in the times to come, one of which may come with a high. Let us put all our learning from this disaster in place now, let us look at how we can be healthier as an organization and take our preparedness to tackle all future turbulence.

Organizational Level Impact

COVID guidelines from the authorities / clients and adhering to the same indefinitely, restarting the construction sites itself will be an extensive activity for construction companies already hit by regulations, piling inventory, lack of skilled workforce, borrowings, nature & characteristics of the industry besides companies inherent capabilities to manage business effectively and efficiently. If business ownership doesn’t take stalk of the situation now, it is going to be all the more difficult or near to impossible in the future to maneuver the path to progress, growth or sustainability. Sustainability to deliver effective, efficient and targeted results is what the businesses should look up to.

COVID 2019 though has been a disaster which has struck mankind, if we look at its fillip side it gives us an opportunity to re-look, redesign and reset the businesses towards progress, growth and sustainability.

So far, in the construction industry, business of especially family driven companies have been managed more by default than by design. Growth by design perspective though has been tried, there has been hesitation in its implementation, not fully checked methods have been tried which has resulted in increasing the complexity, complications besides adding to costs and made managing business a complex affair.

Even if redesigning organizational working comes at the cost of short-term growth, we should go for the same. This is the only way we could perhaps look at organizational sustainability. Five basic questions the family driven organizational businesses needs to ask themselves:

1.     Why some companies make the leap, become good and the others don’t?

2.     Have we grown by default because there was not enough competition, or was it because we exist since long? Is company’s growth proportionate to the age of the company? Where we should have been and where we are? Where are we headed to?

3.     Does leadership at the company spend more time on daily management or on strategic affairs? Where does an employee spend more time – in managing day to day affairs be it sourcing / sharing / waiting of / for information / decision, or improvising, innovating etc., on the same?

4.     Even when there exist conducive external environment and supportive stakeholders, why does it become so difficult & complex for construction companies (most of the times) to come out successfully on timelines, safety, quality, profits? Why do we do extremely good on select projects and not on majority of other construction projects?

5.     What are the distinct characteristics that make a company grow and become a good company?

Way Forward

While it is obvious, that restarting the construction projects post opening of lockdown will in itself be a big exercise, it is also obvious that this is also going to impact a lot on the bottom line of the company.

In order that we don’t confront a similar situation in the future or even if we face a similar or more disastrous situation than this, we could start working today towards reducing its impact by a greater margins than what we have lost today because of COVID 2019.

Question is ‘Where to Re-Start’?

What you measure is what you get. Traditional measuring practices are not giving the desired results. Be it financial, operations, value, customer or internal perspectives, it is only holistic look at the performance/s will give us the perception of how a business is performing. It is equally important and imperative for the business owners to have a granular view as well as the birds eye view of the business as and when required. Every business needs a competitive position in the market, carry on its businesses effectively and efficiently, please customers and achieve the desired / targeted ends of the businesses.

Understand whether current business strategy equips you with an integrated framework to discover, analyze, exploit beneficial opportunities, sense and meet potential threats, make optimum use of resources and strengths, to counterbalance weakness etc.? If not, then start right from setting the ‘Strategy’ right.

Start with making some proactive actions revisiting Vision, Mission, Values, Core Ideology (come what may which will never be compromised), Strategy involving finance, operations, values, customer satisfaction or internal perspectives. Evolve Strategy at Corporate level involving the management, Concrete business level strategies which evolve from company’s vision and mission, functional level strategies which predominantly focus on operations of the company.

In addition to these, it equally imperative to focus on People, Policies, Processes and Procedures. Policies give direction, ensures consistency and compliance, serves as a guideline for procedures. Processes follow company’s policies, explains how to produce / deliver a product or service. Processes should be a high-level view of how something should work. Procedures are a more detailed, step by step instructions on how to perform part of a process or a specific task.

First level discussions on these could happen during the lock-down period. Remember great time management implies being effective and efficient. 

Construction Sites

Precautions before restarting the Construction Works – Define what works need to be carried out before restarting the sites, form teams etc. Plan for what materials are required for sanitization, in case if required for resetting the site layout. Involve right people at the right time. This could be planned during the lock down periods.

Sanitization (Work on these during Lock-down)

·        Set COVID Standards / Requirements covering entire Construction Site

o  Set the criteria for Temperature Checks, Social Distancing, Hand Wash, Respiratory care such as when to wear Masks and above all standard forms and format for record keeping etc.

o  Evolve Precautionary / Implementation / Supervision / Data Recording Guidelines for implementation: Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Regular / Emergency basis etc.

o  Evolve Plan for Sanitizing Complete Site before re-starting Construction Works

·        Sanitize Site Offices, Time Office, Attendance registering tools, Locker Rooms, Computer Stations, Laptops, Printers, Office Tools, Furnitures, Stores, Workshop Yards, Fabrication Yards, Walkways, Internal Roads, All Work Fronts, Construction Vehicles, Equipment, Machinery, Tools & Tackles, Air-Conditioners, Canteen Facilities, Rest Rooms, Shower facilities, Personal Protective Equipment / Gears etc.

o  Plan, Form Teams, Define Sanitizing Methods, Materials, Timelines etc.

o  Evolve SOP for daily upkeep of PPE

·        Wastage & Scrap identification and removal / disposal as they are not only a hurdle in daily activities but also a hazardous place.

o  Plan, Form Team, Identify, Remove or Dispose

·        Site Layouts – Redesign & Reset if required as it will go a long way in facilitating site works

o  Plan for an effective and efficiently manageable site

o  For example: Install multiple hands wash points, have sanitizers handy across all such points, In site office, re-arrange the seating from the perspective social distancing, look at increased ventilation, try and keep air-conditioners preset at temperatures of 24 degrees etc.

·        Communication / Notice Board / Sign Boards: Across Sites involve educating messages on Social Distancing, Hand Wash, Wearing Masks, Self-health Check-ups etc.

o  Create Standard Messages to be adopted across all sites

·        Attendance System – Evolve SOP for registering attendance, do not involve in bio-metric in the given circumstances, have card swipe with SOP etc.

o  Work on the same during lock-down period if the systems are different than what is mentioned above.

·        Visiting Guidelines – Evolve the SOPs for the same during the Lock-down Period

·        Over Crowding – Identify areas which are prone to get crowded on daily basis, Evolve SOPs for the same. Have staggered timings for operations, canteens, meetings etc.

o  Plan for Site Work Timings, Go for Staggered timings to de-crowd, Schedule all meetings, its participants, specific agenda and evolve SOP for the same.

Camping, Local Travel & Travel withing Construction Sites (Work on this during Lock-down Work)

·        Camping Facilities – Evolve SOPs and Guidelines including Emergency Contact Details

o  Plan daily and regular interval hygiene activities; Adopt to structured and robust control over implementation

o  Ensure health status of each worker at defined intervals

o  Display sign boards as regards to Social Distancing, Hand Wash, Temperatures, Wearing Masks at Camping facilities also.

·        Travel

o  If staying at distant place, evolve guidelines during pick-up / entry / exit points, seating capacities keeping mind social distancing, when entering the sites, use of hand wash, sanitizers etc.

o  Define mobility guidelines inside the site as well

o  Define non-negotiable checks

·        Job Front Guidelines – Evolve SOP for ease of working, work during cold, monsoon seasons etc.

·        Canteen Facility – Have staggered timings, involve and adopt to health diets such as avoid those items which aggravate cold, cough, outsources items etc. Ensure hygiene by avoiding commonly touched items etc.

·        Workers Education – Preferably go for creating standard videos being played on specific times through-out the day. Teaching construction workers on how to do a self-health checkup. This will ease the burden of over loading of few administrative and safety personnel.

·        Mock Drills – All mock drill to include COVID specific requirements

·        Communication matrix – For all eventualities should be available handy such Doctor’s / Hospital’s Contact details; First Aid from COVID perspective etc.

It is extremely critical that organizations involve themselves in aggressively educating, monitoring and ensuring robust control over people ensuring self-health check-ups, social distancing, temperature checks, respiratory hygiene by wearing masks, regular hand wash etc. This is perhaps the only way to ease the administrative efforts falling on select few people only. Unless every individual is educated on the above lines, things will not be as easy as perceived to be. Another critical impact of ensuring all such measures is that good amount of productive time will be lost.

Nevertheless, anytime is always a good time to start changing for the good. It is also time for the construction industry players to first move themselves from being descriptive to predictive. From ‘What happened’ to ‘What could happen’ and then ‘What should be done’ i.e. being ‘Prescriptive’ is the journey every organization would need to cover before getting to achieve ‘Business Excellence’.