beable Webinar
3 September 2020:
Productivity & Safety in the Built Environment
With Su Butcher, Paul Wilkinson & Andrew Lambert, hosted by Stuart Young of COMIT Projects
On Thursday 3 September the panel presented online to an audience of health and safety and operations professionals in the construction & built environment industries.
Stuart introduced COMIT Project, a membership organization for the Construction industry specifically focusing on technology, introduced the background of the event & purpose. The webinar was produced to launch beable, a wearable device to monitor COVID in the Construction industry. A joint project between EMS & COMIT, beable won a funding grant from Innovate UK to solve the business problem of COVID monitoring & management in the Construction industry.
Su Butcher – Director of Comms, Just Practising
‘If it involves human beings, technology is only a small part of the solution’.
Su talked about the behavioural impact of productivity, especially in the crisis. An influencer in the Construction industry especially behaviour, in her signature humorous style gave an 8 minute whistlestop tour on the behavioural effects of change, specific to the current times. Su talked about adjustment, changing client relationships & needs, and how people and companies are dealing with the crisis. Su gave helpful tips to employers on how to deal with the new normal including understanding different emotional responses, stress & anxiety, how to best deal with different types of emotional disorders including social interaction, rebuilding & recreating existing routines, processing grief, working from home coping mechanisms & overcoming practical challenges, and loss of income. Flexibility is an important element of a healthy work-life balance, Su said. Some organisations are organising company transport & increased PPE.
Su also talked about the importance of active listening for people’s emotions and giving people space to say what they’re feeling. Su quoted this article that explains how high performing teams have psychological safety! A lot of information & useful tips in 9 minutes, well done and thank you Su!
Paul Wilkinson, Technology Consultant and Founder, pwcom.co.uk
‘Never waste a good crisis’
Paul during his talk covered recurring themes on waste, inefficiency and disputes on low productivity. Productivity has flatlined since 1994 – contrasted with manufacturing which is 50% more! – for an industry that is 7% of GDP, we can see the importance of improvement.
Globally $15t industry, Construction is an outlier that spends only 1% of revenue on Tech, whereas manufacturing spends 10 times this amount. See any correlation?! The numbers speak for themselves. Effect of digitsation on daily productivity tends to affect other areas of our lives & economy, but Construction is still mostly paper-based.
Paul talked about some aspects of digital transformation in the Construction industry including combining aerial imagery from drones, BIM data and mobile captured information.
Andrew Lambert, Managing Director EMS beable
Andrew introduced the beable project part funded by Innovate UK grant to counter the effects of COVID-19 on societal and business challenges, as a safe managed return to site, aligning with the industrial strategy that Paul mentioned. Andrew explained the thinking behind the management dashboard with heatmap, tracking workers with symptoms, alerts and reporting. He went on to cover the responsibilities of the user – simple daily user declaration (2 questions only), how it checks other workers and approves the worker with a green tick response.
The event was a huge hit with attendees, with the hashtag #beableWebinar reaching over 200k people!
The presentations concluded with an insightful and energizing discussion on all things productivity and behaviour – where is the balance? Is optimum productivity really great for worker health? Lots of interesting discussion post-presentations, and enthusiasm for more! Stay tuned for the next event – we look forward to seeing you soon!
Thanks & best,
beable & Team : )
Just to mention, we are currently looking for trial partners for the beable wearable.
What’s in it for you? Worker safety + be part of the launch of an amazing new idea + gain an understanding of productivity from evidence-based data
Cost to you? No cost
Time? Around 10 seconds per worker each morning + checking management dashboard, on demand. 6 week trial program
Interested in getting involved and pioneering this exciting new invention?