How to save $8b dollars a year in construction

Another major change was accommodating the needs of individual workers – even those on site – for flexibility to meet other demands such as caring responsibilities, the Construction Industry Culture Taskforce report says.

Australia’s productivity rates have not improved in decades, and any changes that can be made in construction, the country’s third-largest industry, which employs 1.2 million people, would be a major boost.

The findings from the five projects – three in NSW and two in Victoria – show construction could curb costs that in 2018 cost an estimated $6.1 billion in work-related fatalities, injuries and illness, and up to $8 billion with the added costs of lost productivity from workers consistently doing overtime and struggling with higher rates of mental ill-health and suicide than other industries.

“There’s no reason the industry cannot achieve a productivity dividend of $8 billion per year and much more,” taskforce chair Gabrielle Trainor told The Australian Financial Review.

“On quantifiable savings in turnover alone, we found avoided costs would be up to $800 million in two states.”

In a sector that struggles to recruit and retain women, the effect of following the guidelines of the so-called culture standard was also significant.

Dean Riha, a manager for contractor Fulton Hogan, which undertook the Brunt Road Level Crossing Removal Project in Victoria, said typically 12 per cent of a project delivery workforce would be women, with just 2 per cent to 3 per cent women on site.

“We had 8 per cent female participation at ground level and 21 per cent at project level,” Riha said.

The three pilot projects in NSW were Wentworth Point High School by contractor Roberts Co, the Mulgoa Road Upgrade Project Stage One (Seymour Whyte) and Sydney Children’s Hospital Stage One and Minderoo Children’s Comprehensive Cancer Centre (John Holland Group).

In Victoria, the other project was the Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road Upgrade (McConnell Dowell).

On the $60 million Brunt Road project – which built a road bridge over the Pakenham railway line in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, a job with about 60 people on site per day for two years – workers worked fewer hours but longer days on a Friday.

The standard 54-hour working week of 10 hours Monday to Thursday, eight hours on a Friday and six hours on Saturdays was replaced by a standard 50-hour week, of 10-hour shifts Monday to Friday.

They stuck to a five-day week while maintaining a rostered day off each fortnight by working every second Saturday – when the preceding Monday was a rostered day off – but with weekday overtime rates the same as Saturday rates, there was no extra cost for the contractor, Riha said

“There were no additional overheads,” Riha said.

Contained within the calculations was a week’s worth of night shift to allow for catch-up work and to mitigate the difference in total working hours per year. There was a slight net loss in hours – 68 hours from a year of 2900 paid hours – resulting from having 21 fewer Saturdays in a yearly roster, Riha said.

“It’s a very minor impact,” he said.

Both salaried staff and waged workers on an hourly rate across the five projects preferred the roster that gave them more time, although about 30 per cent of waged workers favoured the traditional six-day pattern.

RMIT distinguished professor Helen Lingard, who led the project, said resistance to the new schedule weakened as workers experienced it.

“Over the life of the pilot projects, we actually saw quite a lot of those wage workers who were originally sceptical about it, and supervisors who were sceptical about it, changing their minds,” Lingard said.

“There did seem to be a changing of mind once people had experienced it,” she said.

Better planning was crucial for the shorter week and to give workers flexibility. Some projects let supervisors swap with each other if one had to leave the site; others scheduled no critical works after 3pm on Fridays.

Tayla Stahl started working for Fulton Hogan five years ago as an onsite labourer, a role that includes driving forklifts and excavators.

The then-AFLW player needed two days a week to train with Victorian club Richmond. The contractor gave her the two days off and allowed her to leave early on the three days she worked.

Fulton Hogan, which started a partnership with the club as a way to get more women in the industry, offered players jobs.

“In construction you work until 5-5:30,” Stahl said. “We would leave at 3:30 so we could get to Melbourne and get to training. They managed it with the way they had people on jobs for those days. If I had to leave [other people] could cover what I was doing.”

Her male colleagues could also get away early when needed, Stahl said.

“There are ways around it,” she said. “If you talk to bosses, they’re understanding.”

Stahl said she never faced sexualised comments or harassment on site.

“It was different, going into a male-dominated industry, not know what the older guys were thinking,” she said. “They were used to having just men on site. Now, it’s different. They don’t care if you’re a woman or a man. As long as you do the job, everybody’s all good.”

Fulton Hogan has kept the five-day roster since the pilot project ended.