Having soldiered on through a year under the yoke of Covid-19, the nation is anxious to get vaccinated and for life to return to normal again.
But life might already be more normal than you think. Although people have lost jobs and businesses have failed due to Covid, the UK construction industry overall has proved amazingly resilient.
People have learned to adapt; social distancing, working from home, wearing face-masks – they’ve all become second nature. Venturing out in public once more without a face-mask seems almost unthinkable.
But some of these enforced measures have proved to have unexpected benefits and could be here to stay. One example, outlined in this issue, shows how social media and on-site training have been used to improve teaching and learning for construction apprentices. The company concerned is now planning to create its own training academy using these methods.Although not in response to Covid-19, we have also made a few changes to the magazine format this month, most notably a new two-page section designed to give readers a quick-hit briefing on the sort of ‘need-to-know’ topics that we don’t normally cover.
To make space, we have condensed our contracts news to a single page which has also made way for a new section looking at legal issues affecting the industry. Further tweaks might follow, but in the meantime I’d welcome any feedback from readers.