In highly-collaborative professions such as construction, social distancing is disrupting how things have always been done. One construction worker in Salt Lake City told NPR that social distancing in construction comes with a unique set of challenges. He shared an anecdote about recruiting several other workers to help him push a concrete machine. This is an example of how business as usual has to shift given the new normal.
“They want us to maintain our six feet, not congregate in the break area,” he told NPR. “They have bottles of bleach that we can spray down our trucks before and after with clean rags. That was about as much as they can do.”
In the above example, the employer may believe “that’s all they can do,” but actually no — so much more can be done to social distance on the job with the right technology. How can construction projects maintain adequate productivity in the wake of COVID-19? Some answers include technology solutions such as video monitoring, automated access control, and remote collaboration tools.
