COVID pandemic has created opportunities as well as challenges
Adapting business practices—and harnessing new opportunities—will be the key to success in the new normal, both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
That was the message delivered by panelists during a webinar on the state of the design and construction industry hosted by Buildings Canada on June 9.
Derek Goring, the executive vice-president of development with Northcrest Developments, explained that the pandemic caught most in the development and construction industries unaware. Their financial and performance models were not built to sustain the interruptions and challenges caused by the pandemic.
Yet as Ontario continues to re-start its economy and relax restrictions, he says he sees business taking the steps they need to change their processes to respond.
“Although we’re now at close to the capacity we were, pre-COVID, and on-site activities are coming back online, we’re not in a business-as-usual situation,” he said. “People are adapting to make their businesses work. The question is, what opportunities will this new world of work create, and who will take advantage?”
Productivity has taken a hit across the construction industry, in part due to physical distancing requirements, and the increased need for site sanitation and additional personal protective equipment. For Goring, this new reality is creating opportunities for developers, designers and contractors to introduce technology such as artificial intelligence, building information modeling and modular construction. Doing so, he suggested, can bolster efficiency and help close any productivity gaps.
“From a development point of view, I see an opportunity to create mass customization of office buildings that includes pandemic resilience,” he said. “Whoever can take seize that opportunity will have a significant market advantage.”
Marcus Gillam, president and CEO of Gillam Group Inc., was equally optimistic about the potential of the pandemic to improve the way in which construction works. One of the positives coming out of the pandemic, he said, was the degree to which industry players worked with one another to create and share health and safety best practices.
“We saw huge weaknesses in preparedness across the industry when the pandemic hit,” he said. “Our own revenues fell by 70 percent. We took the opportunity to look closely at our operations and our costs to see how we could make things more efficient.”
Now fully back to work, Gillam Group is running at about 95 percent of the capacity it had pre-COVID. For the time being, Gillam said he hasn’t seen costs changing much on projects out for bid, and he has been advising purchasers to get projects out for bid now to lock in pricing. What concerns him now, he said, is how the industry will manage COVID-related productivity issues.
“Costing for COVID was a novelty for us all when the pandemic hit,” he said. “Now it has to be costed into bidding, and we have to consider how to handle the risk associated with these new measures.”
Part of the answer, he said, might be to consider modular construction.
Craig Applegath, a founding principal of Toronto-based architects Dialog, reported that his firm realized a number of significant achievements during the pandemic. The company was able to move nearly all of its activities from its five Canadian offices into the more than 600 homes of its employees—with almost no productivity losses.
Using tools like Revit, BlueBean, Matterport and Zoom, its teams have completed nearly 50 percent of the contract documents for a complex design-build project for Centennial College that it was awarded in January. In addition, the teams developed a prototype for a 100-plus storey hybrid wood tower working alongside partners at EllisDon.
“I don’t see us using any part of our studios before July 1, and that’s a tentative date,” he said. “We’ve learned that we simply don’t need to use our studios in the same way again. A few tasks like visualizations and charettes may require people working in the same room, but our people are just as productive working apart. In fact, many have said they want to continue working from home for three or four days a week even after this pandemic ends.”
Goring said he wasn’t so sure working from home will be optimal for many as the pandemic lifts. He pointed to the difference between company decision-makers, who tend to be wealthier people with older children, and those lower down the corporate latter who tend to earn less and may well have young children at home.
“It’s difficult for those younger people to have good, quiet places to work in their homes,” he said. “They may well want to come back to the office to bring back a sense of normalcy.”
Applegath agreed that the question of space at home may be an issue for some, but others who commute for an hour or two a day are seeing far more positive outcomes from working from home than travelling to the office daily.
“I think the focus always needs to be on being compassionate and focusing on the right outcomes for people,” Gillam added.