Could coronavirus improve construction productivity?

I’ve had some interesting conversations with industry executives about their experiences in shifting to remote working in the age of coronavirus.

Surprisingly, they were mostly positive about this.

A common theme was that meetings held online had the potential to be more productive.

“For traditional meetings, people travel for hours to get there and maybe subconsciously prolong the meeting to make the travel worthwhile,” said Tony Blanch, Costain Group Business Improvement Director. “In the online meeting there is no travel and, in my experience, we get to the point faster so the meeting is shorter and more productive.”

Cutting down on “presenteeism”

Dave Hollingsworth, executive director of the engineering consultant, BWB, told me he thought the industry should have moved toward remote working years ago, to minimise unproductive meetings that are often held, and prolonged, for the sake of it.

It also cuts down on “presenteeism”, the attitude that mere time in the office somehow justifies itself.

“We are really encouraging management by outcome rather than by time,” Dave said. “At home people can come and go as they need as long as they get the outcome delivered, whereas traditionally it has been about time in the office.”

I love that. Focussing on outcomes, as opposed to process and routine, is a great goal to aim for in terms of getting results.

What about the buzz?

There are drawbacks. Not everyone relishes working from home. People can feel cut off from the buzz of the office and the easy, informal transmission of information as you pass colleagues on the stairs or chat from desk to desk.

To help that, Dave said BWB encourages three, 10-minute “huddles” a day, using MS Teams software, to check in on what everyone’s doing, remind them of deliverables, and raise any difficulties.

Reverse mentoring

Another unexpected positive is a surge in what Dave called “reverse mentoring”, where younger and more tech savvy colleagues help the “oldies” with the video conferencing tools, and other tech needed for remote working.

I see this as a good shake-up, culturally, allowing younger people to shine and older people to experience the excitement of learning new things.

Remote working shouldn’t mean a distancing of the heart, however.

“The biggest bit I am worried about online is how to get the hearts and minds, buy in, enthusiasm from our people and sustain it,” said Dave.

That’s a good observation, but if it’s any consolation, from my experience, it’s just as big a challenge for teams who are not working remotely.

“Better than a normal meeting”

I’d been thinking about moving online for years, but did nothing about it because I’ve been too busy travelling and delivering in person!

In fact, for every hour I spend coaching teams in person, I spend two hours on the road.

That means a seven-hour coaching session entails 14 hours travelling and sleeping in a strange, uncomfortable and expensive bed, and getting by on food that isn’t ideal for me.

Some of the train time is productive, but not as productive as I kid myself it is and, let’s face it, it’s pretty uncomfortable and miserable.

So I have been pushed to go online, and it’s working great. Already I’ve done a few team sessions and the feedback has been tremendous: “better than a normal meeting”, said one participant.

With zero travel time, it’s a 100% productivity leap for me.

A more sophisticated mode of interaction?

Another surprise is that, in terms of human contact, online is better in some ways.

In a physical room I have ten people in front of me, and it is difficult to maintain eye contact or read people’s faces.

In a Zoom room, I’m looking directly into all the faces and noticing their reactions, as well as my own.

Compare that to directors sitting around a big boardroom table – the worst arrangement for human contact because you can see only half the people in the room, and gain eye contact with fewer.

This is new territory, but I’m wondering if online is not potentially a more sophisticated mode of interaction.

Hope for the future

There are teething troubles, like when people haven’t tested their mic and speakers, or when ill-judged backlighting turns them into mysterious silhouettes, but these are minor things, and easily sorted.

So, I’m looking to the future with massive hope, in terms of my productivity, the quality of my work and impact as a coach. And for construction industry execs and their life balance.

Meantime, we have to get through this, and I believe we will.

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