Monday August 3, 2020

In just a matter of weeks, our lives changed dramatically, and we have all been challenged on a new level with Productivity, Flexible Working, Fairness, Equality, Safety, Wellbeing and the Climate Emergency. As the resilient demolition sector bounced back to work under the ‘new normal’, the impacts of Coronavirus on our ways of working were, and still are, keenly felt.

Whenever there is adversity there is also an opportunity – and the Coronavirus culture shift has been so great that we can now benefit from an immense learning opportunity that may have otherwise passed us by.

William Crooks, Managing Director, shares three key learnings about the mindset and behaviour changes, brought about by the pandemic, which will have long-term value in our future.

1. Improved time management

William’s first key learning is centred on time – and how much more efficiently Cawarden is operating by embracing the use of technology for team and client meetings. “A massive amount of time is being saved and the use of Zoom, Teams and Face Time and so on is enabling faster decision-making for the company,” says William.

2. Benefits of flexible working

Discussing the benefits of having office teams working from home, William says “Having team members working from home has shown some surprising benefits. Cawarden has seen increased productivity, lower stress levels and more proactivity. It has provoked them to think differently about remote working, or flexible working, in the future.

3. Resilience and speed to adapt

Cawarden’s third key learning has been about human resilience and adaptability. William shares “The Cawarden workforce has embraced the new norm – with temperature checks, social distancing, enhanced cleanliness and space in the welfare areas – and acknowledges how quickly the new measures were accepted and complied with by the vast majority, showing how flexible and adaptable the demolition industry and its workers can be.

William sums up by sharing how he sees these learnings impacting the Cawarden business for the remainder of 2020 and beyond.

He highlights how Cawarden will seek to retain the newfound time efficiencies through virtual meetings as opposed to conducting all business discussions face-to-face and he points out the added benefits of reduced travel time and costs and the lesser impact on carbon footprint.

William also indicates that the culture change to embrace remote and flexible working arrangements for the office teams is likely here to stay, both for the benefit and wellbeing of individual team members and for business productivity.

Lastly, William shares that Cawarden’s increased awareness for the physical health of the workforce will continue – he sees benefits in making enhanced health checks and improved hygiene a long-term practice to keep the workforce fit and active post-Corona, reducing overall sickness and downtime on site.

Article originally published in the NFDC’s Demolition & Dismantling July 2020 issue.