COVID-19 has highlighted the critical role of health, safety, wellbeing and hygiene in the construction industry. At the start of the pandemic, one of the biggest challenges facing construction was remaining operational amidst country-wide lockdowns. The crisis demanded that we provide a united front to ensure not only business survival but also the health, safety and wellbeing of our site workers.
By early April, we reshaped our health and safety framework according to UK government guidelines. We started by communicating with employees, issuing protocols and implementing precautionary measures such as hand sanitising stations, staggered breaks on-site and the introduction of a temperature scanner in our Head Office!
And now, almost seven months later, it is clear that we can take the learnings from COVID-19 and shape not only our business but the whole industry for the better in a post-pandemic world. So, what are the key learnings?
Communication is Important
According to Pexhurst Director Stuart Byles, employee feedback is essential to the development and success of newly introduced health, safety and wellbeing measures: “A lot of the time, companies will identify health and safety risks but not the underlying human factors that work against eliminating them.”
“At Pexhurst, we find that the best way to identify what’s working and what isn’t is through open and honest conversations with all our staff. This has always been important, but particularly throughout COVID-19 as we navigate things like social distancing measures on-site. We also implemented an anonymous survey – for both office and site employees – so that people could express themselves freely. Both methods have helped provide us with a better picture of what needs to be done to continue to improve.”
Improving Welfare Facilities
As employers, we have a legal obligation to provide sufficient, suitable and safe welfare facilities for all our employees. However, the pandemic has highlighted the significance of improving these facilities and raising the standard of hygiene.
In addition to hand sanitiser stations, we have implemented a cleaning roster system – similar to those found in many public restrooms – across all of our sites to ensure that welfare facilities are maintained to the highest level of cleanliness and hygiene at all times. We are also introducing marquees and pop-up gazebos on industrial sites to help overcome social distancing measures as we move into colder months.
Promoting a Health, Safety and Wellbeing Culture
Traditionally, the health and safety focus in construction has been on the more immediately-apparent physical hazards on-site and less so on employee wellbeing. Though the culture of the industry has contributed to this issue, times are changing and the pandemic has highlighted increasing efforts to change long-held attitudes.
At Pexhurst, we are contributing to this change through investment in training and developing a positive health and safety culture. Pexhurst Site Manager, David Palmer explains: “All site and contract managers undergo regular training and we have found that this has helped to develop a health and safety culture where safe and healthy working becomes second nature to everyone. We’re also encouraging everyone to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.”
The way the industry views and manages health, safety and wellbeing for on and off-site workers has changed for the better during the pandemic, and we expect this to continue after the pandemic has gone. A healthy and happy workforce is more productive, so it is in everyone’s interests to make sure people are well looked after, both physically and mentally.
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