Construction's New 5-Day Work Week

For a large majority of the workforce, when Friday afternoon rolls around they can eagerly look forward to a full weekend off to wind down and reboot before the onslaught of another working week. For construction workers however, until recently, a 6-7 day working week was the norm - and it’s been taking its toll on workers worldwide. 

A New Way Forward 

We’re all too familiar with the heavy toll being overworked can take on not just our physical health, but our mental health too. Unfortunately, the stats in the construction industry are there to prove it.  

Every second day in Australia a construction worker takes their own life, and Mates in Construction tell us that a young construction worker is 10 times more likely to die by suicide than die from a workplace accident on a construction site. 

Finally after a long toll, both NSW and Victoria have decided enough is enough, and have paved a new way forward. NSW and Victoria now require tenderers on infrastructure projects to sign up to five-day work weeks, with the aim of promoting work-life balance and cutting the $8 billion in costs each year due to injury, mental health, suicide and higher-than-average death rates. 

There will now be a culture standard applied to contracts that requires employers not to schedule work on Saturdays and limit working weeks to 55 hours. The culture standard also prioritises on-site mental health support, as well as providing amenities for women and enforcing that offensive material be removed from sites.

The new legislation is also aiming to promote diversity and to overcome the industry's increasing skills shortage. Research commissioned and cited by the state governments and industry leaders pushing the reforms show that just 12 percent of employees in 2018 were female – which is the lowest of any industry in Australia.  

It’s obvious that urgent change is needed to prevent losses within the construction industry, but also to secure a new pipeline of workers by tapping into women workers who have avoided the industry because of it’s macho and sexist reputation. Taskforce Chairwoman and Infrastructure Australia Director Gabrielle Trainor has said, “We’ve got a massive skills shortage. By 2023, we’ll have 105,000 jobs that can’t be filled if things keep going the way they are, with the massive infrastructure pipeline that Australia has.”

The culture standard is set to be finalised by the end of this year, with the aim for it to be included in pilot projects from early 2022. 

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Streamlining Your Processes Has Never Been More Important  

With shorter working weeks now rapidly coming into play, efficiency has never been more important. Now more than ever, it’s essential to streamline your processes to save you time and money, and to be able to get the job done with happier, healthier employees. Here’s a few ways the Veyor system can speed up your processes below:

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- Booking + approval system without phone calls

- Connect all parties and collaborate on one central platform

- Provide supply chain visibility

- Customise the booking process for any site assets, like cranes, hoists, loading areas, forklifts etc

- Coordinate with all parties in real-time with instant notifications

- Drag and drop bookings or bump the schedule with ease

- Record actual arrival and departure times

- Maintain proof of delivery inclusive of docket attachments

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Reach out to Veyor today to speak to one of our team members about a free trial and how we can help you make work happen!