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A year into the pandemic, we take a reflective look back at how we navigated challenges, strengthened our relationships and adapted to delivering projects in a new way.
Communications
The pandemic brought about a shift in how we communicate almost overnight. With COVID restrictions in place and team members working on-site and from home meant quickly getting to grips with technology to keep in contact with one another. Video conferencing and mobile apps were vital for hosting design workshops, team meetings and resolving on-site issues. In fact, individuals working from home found that project meetings increased in place of the time spent travelling to site meetings.
H&S and Site Setup
We put the safety of our people first. The weight of this enormous, unprecedented task fell on the broad shoulders of our H&S team, who went about reviewing immediate threats to our working environments both at Parkeray HQ and on-site. This involved risk-assessing and amending our safety protocols in line with government advice whilst introducing a range of new procedures and changes to our site set up such as social distancing, face coverings and temperature checks. By working with our in-house marketing team, we developed a suite of new social distancing signage and logistics plans for our sites – which was imperative for reopening our sites safely.
Collaborative working
Collaborative working was key to navigating a sea of challenges, as no one had experienced or could have predicted what was unfolding. Sticking together helped us buy into a new way of working to maintain and recover the programme across our projects. Mobile and video communications also enabled us to communicate more frequently.
Social distancing
Introducing social distancing on-site required a change in mentality. Simple everyday tasks such as going on breaks, using changing facilities and signing in involved a shift in thinking. Fast forward to today, social distancing has become a seamless part of everyday work life and subject to constant review.
Flexible Working
Flexibility was key as we worked through the pandemic, not knowing what challenge could present itself on any given day, we all had to give and take a little in the spirit of compromise. Having a flexible approach meant accommodating different start and finish times on-site to ensure team members avoided peak travel times, as well as coordinating breaks to enable social distancing.
The last 12 months have been challenging times as we all navigated unchartered territory. Parkeray has been fortunate to maintain business operations and successfully delivered X projects in 2020, without the need to furlough staff or make redundancies, this would not have been possible without the support of the fab people that make up our teams, clients, associates and supply chain. We look forward to brighter days ahead and would like to thank everyone for their support.