Construction Industry Changes: Beyond the Pandemic

This study aimed to identify changes implemented in the construction industry during COVID-19 by exploring three questions:

1. What changes did the pandemic bring about in the construction industry?
2. What impacts did those changes have on companies and individuals with different characteristics?
3. Which of these changes should persist beyond the pandemic?
    

RT-400 converted its findings into recommendations for which practices should become common in the industry, as well as which other practices could be documented for possible use during another potential disruptive events, such as a future pandemic. For each individual change, this research characterized the results according to the following criteria:

• Impact – the effects of each change (e.g., on cost, productivity)
• Implementation – which types of organizations and individuals adopted each change (e.g., owner, contractor)
• Project phases – when the change was implemented during a project (e.g., planning, design, construction)
• Historical use – whether each practice was already in place before COVID-19 or newly implemented during the pandemic
• Future use – the potential for each change to continue long-term (was it permanent or temporary)
   

The report included two-sided Information Cards that summarize the statistical findings for these criteria for all 21 changes