The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge negative impact on the construction sector. But we are now starting to see that restrictions are being lifted in some countries and over the coming weeks more and more sites are likely to reopen. As part of this gradual recovery, the digital control of on-site presence and training could be one of the keys to ensuring future compliance with regulations.
At the time of writing, it is clear that some countries are either reopening or considering reopening certain critical construction sites that were previously closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic – for example, in Spain some workers are being allowed back on-site and there is a similar story in the UK.
But the path back to business as usual is not going to be a straightforward one. According to Cécile Gruat-Laforme, president of the Drôme Ardèche construction and public works federation, by the middle of April 2020, 70% of companies in the federation wished to reopen building sites, but despite this, 50% had not reopened any sites at all, 12% had restarted between 20% and 25% of activity, and only 2% of companies were fully operational.
Challenges ahead
There are many different challenges to be faced by the construction sector during the return to work, including but not limited to:
- Arranging a phased reintroduction of workers to site so that they don’t all return at the same time, which could lead to problems.
- Ensuring site compliance with any and all new internal and external regulations, particularly around safety and security.
- Coordinating workers better than ever to avoid virus propagation.
- Helping site managers to run their sites remotely.
- Addressing difficulties in applying and enforcing new instructions.
- Allowing the quick reporting of any cases of COVID-19 on-site in order to be able to act quickly.
Reopening these sites while we are still experiencing the virus is loaded with many significant issues for immediate concern. But rather than only considering problems such as ensuring safe working distances, the provision of (sometimes scarce) facemasks, or the recovery of priority regions and developments, it is also important to plan ahead to uncover novel ways of working with the new regulations that are likely to be imposed.
Therefore, it is a great time to organise and adapt your workforce to start operating even smarter than before and to have full transparency on what is actually happening on your sites. Digital presence controls can be a valuable tool to help with this for worksite management and also for the head office.
Presence control app
Here at TRAXXEO we firmly believe that there is enormous scope for the digitisation of construction sites to revolutionise established ways of working – for example, see How to use digitisation to optimise your worksite resources, Using digital tech to improve safety and security of construction workers, and New digital trends for managing on-site productivity in construction.
With TRAXXEO’s presence control app, you will be able to manage the accreditations, health and safety training, and all the necessary documentation of employees and subcontractors to ensure administrative compliance. This allows you to:
- check the attendance and compliance of workers and subcontractors,
- perform bi-directional synchronisation of the necessary data with your social security organisation,
- make data available via a smartphone or tablet for managers on-site,
- ensure 100%-compatibility with all existing badging systems and checkin@work solutions,
- control the site access on the basis of updated data, thus ensuring optimal safety on the site.
The use of this sort of technology represents a major opportunity that is starting to be utilised by an increasing number of companies in all sectors of the economy. The digitisation of previously time-consuming and inefficient processes is advancing into almost every aspect of home and work life, and the construction sector is certainly no exception to this.
Technology is having an undeniable impact on the security and compliance of construction sites, with ever more effective presence or access control systems.
Working together to succeed
Recent months have been very hard indeed for the construction sector and the same is likely to be true in the immediate future. But it can also be viewed as a great time to innovate and develop new ways to work together.
“We alone cannot initiate the resumption of our worksites insofar as we are dependent on many other actors: project owners, suppliers, safety and health coordinators, offices studies and engineering…Coordination at the level of department prefects is therefore essential.”
Bruno Cavagné, President of the National Federation of Public Works in France
Since the beginning of this crisis, there have been – and will continue to be – many new challenges to recovering the economic and social activities of our sector and society.
But at TRAXXEO we have the strong belief that the crisis needs to be fought together. By integrating existing systems better with the help of digital solutions like presence control, we will succeed in not falling back into ineffective or inefficient habits again and instead we will come out the other side even stronger in the long run.
