Recognizing and Retaining Beneficial Changes from the Pandemic on the Workforce

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about sudden and significant changes in the way construction companies operate and how their employees work. Companies were compelled to implement numerous innovations and improvements to maintain operations at their offices and construction sites and to reduce project delays. As they put in place new safety precautions, virtual meetings became routine, and technological advances were expedited.

Many observers now see these pandemic changes as beneficial, because they sped up digitization and imposed new standards and workflows that have the potential to save time and cost. Their value is not uniform. While some changes are likely to persist (e.g., remote meetings), others are more likely to be phased out (e.g., face masks or staggered workforce shifts). It is important to compile the advantages of these breakthroughs brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to advance the construction industry moving forward, as well as prepare it for future disruptive events such as other pandemics.

CII commissioned Research Team 400 (RT-400) to identify the beneficial changes brought on by the pandemic in the construction industry. RT-400 began this study with three questions:

1. What changes did the pandemic bring about in the construction industry?
2. What impacts did those changes have on the industry?
3. Which of these changes should persist beyond the pandemic?

To address these questions, RT-400 conducted a thorough investigation, reviewed existing research, interviewed 40 subject matter experts, and conducted a broad survey. The team collected 245 survey responses from diverse participants, who provided information on the characteristics and applications of the pandemic-driven changes.

By analyzing the results of these efforts, RT-400 identified and defined 21 changes spanning six functional categories. While the construction industry rapidly adopted many changes during the pandemic and benefited significantly from implementing them, the team found three pandemic-driven changes to be most widespread and potentially long-lasting:

• Workforce management (e.g., remote work, employee benefits)
• Technological advancements (e.g., use of design review platform, visualization tools)
• Managerial processes and practices (e.g., milestone adjustment, contingency increases)

RT-400 converted the lessons learned from this study into recommendations for the construction industry, suggesting which changes should endure for companies’ long-term benefit, and which other changes should be documented for future reference. The team’s final report provides thorough documentation of pandemic-driven changes and serves as a guideline for organizational change adaptation.