Well, it has been a strange start to 2020 and one that has taken the whole world by surprise. At the end of March, the construction industry was left a little unsettled as to how they would be able to continue to work safely with the COVID-19 pandemic which had hit the UK hard. As a result of the unknown on 24th March Ash decided to close all sites to protect the health and safety and wellbeing of our staff, clients and sub-contractors. We sent letters and emails to our clients and supply chain to advise them of the steps we had taken and contact details for anyone who had questions or concerns.
We furloughed a number of our staff, and the office went from being fully manned to a skeleton staff. As a business, we have always had the facilities to be able to work from home when needed, which enabled the staff still working, to continue as normal.
Payments to our sub-contractors continued, apart from our sites being shut, it remained business as usual - with more teams and zoom calls than you could shake a stick at.
With the sites closed, it was time for the team to concentrate on how we could get our sites back up and running with improved safety procedures. Out of this - COVID 19 site procedures policy was developed. For all sites the following is now addressed:
Management and site resource (reduce numbers on site)
Travel to the site (avoid public transport)
Arrival and leaving the site (staggered times)
Temperature checks at sign-in
Changes to the use of welfare facilities
Visitors and meetings (no meetings to take place on-site)
Cleaning (enhanced on all communal and touchpoint areas)
Masks are available to all site operatives and hand sanitising stations are set up throughout the sites
Daily Toolbox talks
COVID outbreak site closure plans
We have also added more visual aids to our sites to highlight the 2m distancing rule at all times including, wall signs, high-viz branding and COVID symptom signage.
We have continued to keep all the ash team who have been furloughed up-to-date with our progression through this period - with regular email updates and phone calls.
We can now confidently and safely say that we are engaged and prepared to deliver our projects safely in accordance with Government Guidelines.
Since opening all sites, we have had them all inspected by an independent safety advisor. These inspections have provided extremely positive feedback on our new procedures. We are proud of all the Ash team, our suppliers and sub-contractors and how everyone has adapted to the change and continue to push onwards to deliver quality construction safely and efficiently.