How flexible working on construction sites could be a ‘win-win’

Pandemic restrictions brought working from home to the lives of many, which worked well for office-based roles, but what about those on site? This episode of The Engineers Collective podcast explores a major industry trial of flexible working practices by leading contractors in the UK.

“During the first lockdown many sites shut down for a few weeks but workers soon returned with social distancing precautions in place,” said NCE editor Claire Smith, who hosts the latest episode. “That could have meant back to business as usual for contractors, however, there were a group of businesses – Bam, Skanska and Willmott Dixon – that used the situation as an opportunity to try to do things differently and worked with flexible working consultancy Timewise and Build UK, with the support of the Construction Industry Training Board and Barclays Life Skills, to explore how that might work.”

Claire is joined by Timewise co-founder and development director Emma Stewart and Skanska project director Shaun Sheppard to discuss how the Construction Pioneers Programme came about and what has been learned over the last 12 months.

Emma discusses knowledge her business brought to the project from other sectors, while Shaun talks about the practicalities of applying a more flexible approach to work on site on High Speed 2  and the benefits that has brought.

Both Emma and Shaun use the phrase “win-win” when talking about the outcome of the programme as the research has shown the approach has no negative impact on construction costs or programmes but a huge positive impact on staff wellbeing.

To listen to the podcast click here and then read the Construction Pioneers Programme report to learn how you could bring the same benefits to your sites.