Workforce management during the COVID-19 pandemic

Workforce management during the COVID-19 pandemic


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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted not only the construction labour force, but the processes around tracking and managing every contractor’s most valuable asset – their people.

Contractors across the US and Canada are putting company policies in place based on government rules and regulations, ensuring compliance with new policies, managing communications with their teams, and shifting processes to be by-and-large, remote.

Here are some of the impacts COVID-19 has had on workforce management, and the processes behind managing resources in this quickly changing landscape.

COVID-19’s impact on construction workforce management

We’ve seen the following impacts by COVID-19 on workforce management processes across both the US and Canada (since the end of February): 

  • People added to projects has increased by 40.71%

  • Updating employee profiles has increased by 220.25%

  • Shifting project dates has increased by 76.93%

  • Deleting allocations has increased by 33.54%

  • Updating project dates has decreased by 15.86%

Contractors are increasingly finding the need to reallocate their workforce as projects are deemed non-essential, shifting project dates to account for COVID-19 impacts (whether projects are deemed essential or not), and updating existing employee profiles with custom COVID-19 data (see below for a list of examples of what different contractors are tracking).

COVID-19 specific construction workforce management tracking

Not only has COVID-19 impacted the construction labour force, but it’s also impacted the way in which contractors track their workforce. We’ve seen contractors begin tracking the following data (since the end of February, up until the end of April):

  • Employees that are under quarantine or require sick leave

  • Travel history in the last 2 weeks

  • Employees that are COVID-19 positive, or presumptive positive

  • Projects that are deemed as non-essential

  • Job sites that are COVID-19 positive

Needless to say, custom project and people fields are being used in ways nobody could have predicted last year. However, this type of employee data can certainly help when adapting to sudden changes in the construction industry.

It’ll be interesting to see the long-term impact COVID-19 has on the processes behind workforce management and resource planning in the construction industry. For more information about workforce management, check out our guide to construction workforce management.

 


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Lauren Lake

Lauren Lake is the COO and co-founder at Bridgit. She holds a degree in Civil Structural Engineering and is well-versed in construction workforce management and resource planning processes. Lauren has been named to the Forbes Manufacturing & Industry 30 Under 30 and Best Of Canada Forbes Under 30 Innovators lists. Lauren has presented at industry events and conferences, including BuiltWorlds, Canadian Construction Association, Procore Groundbreak, and more. Follow Lauren on LinkedIn and Instagram.

  

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