New Modes of Operating for Construction Organizations during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges, Actions, and Future Best Practices

Abstract

Construction organizations have been implementing different actions to control and mitigate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their workers and operations. Although some of these actions allowed construction organizations to remain productive during the pandemic, many organizations still struggle to cope with these effects. The construction industry has a need to identify the most effective actions that construction organizations can take to effectively control and mitigate the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents results of two surveys conducted with construction organizations, primarily in North America, and identifies the most effective mitigation actions to help construction organizations operate during this pandemic and develop evidence-based operational strategies to use during the current pandemic and any future pandemics. The contributions of this paper are (1) identifying an extensive list of possible actions to control and mitigate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on construction organizations, (2) providing a categorization and methodology for assessing and ranking these actions, (3) identifying the most effective mitigation actions for construction organizations during the current COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics, and (4) developing a comparative analysis of action prioritization for different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide insight into the management of the adverse effects of pandemics on construction organizations. Data analysis of the survey results showed that construction organizations have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of their operational capacity, productivity, and workforce practices, and many organizations expect to have higher percentages of employees working remotely postpandemic they did prepandemic. Comparative analysis also showed an increasing trend in the importance of using technology to control and mitigate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in construction organizations.