No business is ever free from risk. But if the onset of COVID-19 and its impact on the construction industry is making you rethink your risk mitigation strategies, you’re not alone. Though you may have already had procedures in place dedicated to protecting your projects from unforeseen circumstances prior to this outbreak, now may be a good time to reevaluate and prepare for whatever lies ahead.
No doubt you’ve made adjustments to your workflow in the last few weeks, but what should you be thinking about to protect your projects in the future? Here are some questions we suggest you ask yourself to help minimize risk on your jobsites:
- What processes do your projects teams have in place to cover your assets? Though putting risk management practices to test is never something you want to encounter in real-life, this pandemic has brought to surface the types of things that are working, and which things aren't. Assess what best practices you will continue to keep in place to cover your assets in the event of future site shutdowns or delays that occur for any reason.
- What is the decision-making process to implement new risk management procedures at your company? The ability to make critical, time-sensitive decisions quickly is essential for business survival. Whatever measures went into effect for your different project locations during COVID-19, your project teams surely had to act quickly to make some changes to the current workflow. How was that decision-making process handled for those changes to come into effect? Is that a process you would like to see happen in the future, or do you have some best practices to put in place to make company decisions quickly and effectively?
- How do you quickly get your teams to implement those procedures in the field? Once a decision has been made from above, how quickly can those things get executed in the field? Establish which people on-site will receive clear communication about the new procedures, and give them the tools to succeed.
- What will change for your company in the future, post-pandemic, when it comes to protecting your projects from risk? While the changes you quickly enacted in order to comply with recent safety guidelines will not be around forever, there may be some things that need to stay in order to protect your projects from risk in the future. What are those things? And which things can go? Do you need to allocate your budgets to align with these changes, whether it’s an investment in technology or other solutions?
Interested in learning what one top ENR company is doing to minimize risk? Listen in on our conversation with Barton Malow during our next webinar on May 6, 2020 to get insight on how their project teams are protecting themselves from risk. Click the link below to register and learn more.
Register for: Covering Your Assets: Mitigating Risk During COVID-19 and Beyond.
