Author: Alex Peel

Industry experts have told Scotland’s construction industry it should prepare for a “resurgence” in activity in the coming months – and what better way to prepare than learn about innovative strategic equipment?

To further support our dedicated Scottish depot, Welfare Hire is thrilled to announce our attendance at ScotPlant 2024. Held across 26-27th April at the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, the event brings together thousands of industry professionals and over 200 exhibitors – making it the biggest event of the year for Scotland’s construction industry.

Discover Our Innovative Welfare Products at stand D14

Our exhibition stand will feature our advanced welfare products, including:

• ECOXi
• ECOXLi
• ECO7
• EcoWC2
• Welfare Van
• X-Eco HYBRID LITHIUM

Each product embodies our five pillars:

Quality

Scotland’s construction industry is rightly proud of its high standards. But top-quality welfare units are still widely unavailable across many areas in the countries.

Welfare Hire established our Scottish depot to solve this problem. Our innovative range is now easier to deliver to firms working in more remote regions – helping everyone of our partners access the quality equipment you deserve.

Service

Research suggests that a third of project failures are the result of poor communication, while maintenance activity can run to 30% of a vehicle’s total costs. But with Welfare Hire, Scottish construction companies get a true partner throughout their projects.

While all of our products feature inclusive maintenance and support, our dedicated Scottish depot has made this service even more effective for our Scottish partners. Our engineers and support can reach your site quickly and minimise downtime.

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Environment

According to recent studies, demand for sustainability in construction may be slightly higher in Scotland than England. But many firms still struggle to manage the emissions from their strategic equipment.

Welfare Hire’s product range provides the perfect solution. We are so confident in our products’ ability to deliver measurable reductions to your carbon emissions that we create a tool to help you calculate the expected savings each mobile welfare unit and tower light will produce:

WellbeinG

Scottish construction has faced staffing issues for several years now, and just a quarter of people would recommend a career in the industry to young people. But much of this is down to the perceived physical difficulties and mental health challenges workers face.

Our welfare units are designed to combat this problem. With extra space, high-quality facilities and comfortable seating, they help construction workers rest and bond – ultimately improving the wellbeing of the workforce.

Value

With rising costs and staffing shortages, Scottish construction firms need more from their suppliers – and Welfare Hire is the partner to achieve that. Through the combination of improved quality and service, environmental savings and enhanced wellbeing, our mobile welfare units and tower lights deliver unparalleled value for firms across the country.

Want to learn more about the pillars at ScotPlant 2024?

After a decline in project starts this year, experts predict the UK’s construction sector will see a 12% recovery in 2024. This will create huge opportunities for successful firms, but there will also be an increase in competition over contracts.

How can firms remain competitive, and what should they do today to win more contracts in 2024?

In this article, we explore three ways mobile welfare units can help firms in the new year:

1. Focus on ESG

The challenge:

Pressure to decarbonise construction supply chains and create a more sustainable way of working is nothing new. But 2024 will see Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores go from a growing concern to a crucial competitive advantage. 

Firms must already show their net zero commitments to bid on contracts worth £5 million or more, and the new year will only see this trend towards ESG-focused tenders grow, especially as the Government seeks to regulate ESG ratings agencies in January and produce more reliable, consistent measurements.

What you can do today:

ESG is inherently complex, but factors like adopting eco-friendly mobile welfare units and tower lights can only have a positive impact on your score. The EcoXLi is a perfect example: it runs on 100% solar power and uses next generation lithium battery cells to negate the need for a generator. But it also features a smart telemetry system to guarantee optimal usage of power, as well as rainwater harvesting to minimise water waste.

2. Invest in staff wellbeing

The challenge:

Two factors will converge to make staff wellbeing a priority in 2024: the ongoing mental health crisis in construction and talent shortages. A recent study found that over 50% of construction workers suffer with mental health issues, while 63% of trades are struggling to find new staff in the UK.

As a result, there will be an even greater premium on employee retention. Firms that attract and retain workers will be better equipped to deliver projects on time, and face fewer issues around shortages, absenteeism and low morale.

What you can do today:

There are many factors that influence staff wellbeing, from site safety to schedule flexibility. However, one of the most decisive is the quality, size and comfort of your on-site welfare units. 

Welfare Hire’s ECO XLi mobile welfare unit supports employee wellbeing and retention in several ways:

• The XL internal space enables more staff to use units at the same time. This encourages team bonding and ensures important conversations around mental health can be conducted in a safe, comfortable environment.
• Improved non-chemical XL wash facilities improve hygiene for smarter, safer working and cater for more dynamic workforces.
• The investment in higher quality, technologically advanced welfare units signal to employees that you value their wellbeing.

3. Build stronger supplier relations

The challenge:

With a large dip in output and an increase in project delays across 2023, the new year will see many firms racing to make up for lost time. The challenge then will be staying on schedule and keeping costs under control – both of which put firms at the mercy of their volatile supply chains.

The solution is to build more robust relationships with your suppliers, including everything from raw materials to strategic equipment like mobile welfare units. But how can firms achieve this?

What you can do today:

The key is to select suppliers that provide comprehensive support and treat the relationship as a partnership, collaborating to add further value.

At Welfare Hire, we take pride in the strength and durability of our customer relationships. From specialist support and dedicated services to strategic collaboration on how to deploy our mobile welfare units and tower lights most effectively on projects, we offer the kind of reliable, added value service our partners need.

Prepare for 2024 with Welfare Hire

Build a robust partnership with Welfare Hire to improve ESG and employee wellbeing – and support your tendering process in the new year.

With chronic labour shortages and declining productivity, UK construction firms need to deliver better employee experience. But research suggests things are trending in the opposite direction. 

A recent poll found that 37% of workers feel their employee experience is worse than it was before the pandemic, with 53% feeling less motivated. This puts extra pressure on leaders to find novel solutions to their employees’ problems – one of which is improving on-site facilities.

In this article, we explore three ways our new EcoWC2 towable toilet block solves problems that harm employee experience on construction sites:

1. Increased comfort

Cramped, uncomfortable hygiene facilities are the norm on construction sites. In fact, one study found that 1 in 5 sites fail to meet legal requirements with their welfare facilities. This sends a clear message that employees’ safety and comfort is not a priority.

The EcoWC2 reverses this narrative. It provides separate XL, non-chemical, water system wash and changing facilities that not only ensure optimal hygiene, but provide a more comfortable experience for users. From coat hooks and air fresheners to non-slip chequer plate flooring.

2. Easy access and setup

Bringing most toilets onto your site requires Heavy Goods Vehicles or site access plans. This creates additional stress for site managers, but the EcoWC2 removes that stress.

The facilities are easily towable, making access and setup seamless on every construction site. Facilities can be placed wherever will be most convenient for workers, ultimately creating a more positive daily experience.

3. Minimised servicing time

The frequency of toilet service intervals – i.e., how often facilities require emptying of waste and refilling with water – is usually framed as a cost-saving factor. The less often you have to empty and clean the waste tank, the less you spend on things like transport. But there is another element to consider here: access to the facilities. 

Even relatively short periods where toilets are unavailable can have a negative impact on your staff, and the EcoWC2 ensures this is not an issue. It minimises service intervals through a combination of XL waste tanks and smart telemetry to monitor tank levels – delivering cost savings, carbon reductions and a better experience for employees.

Small Changes Make a Big Difference to Employees

At Welfare Hire, we believe improved equipment is one of the simplest and most effective ways of improving employee experience. Getting fundamentals like welfare units or on-site WC facilities right can have an outsized impact on everything from your carbon footprint to employee engagement and retention.

Want to learn about our full range of innovative welfare products?

In 2019, the construction industry was declared to be suffering from a ‘silent epidemic’ of mental health problems. Men working in the industry were 3x more likely to commit suicide than the average population¹, while 64% of employees said they wanted better mental health support from their boss².

Since then, there has been a huge effort to raise awareness and create more open on-site cultures. And in this article, we explore how the most recent research suggests leaders can keep moving things forward – and why mobile welfare units could be a key part of the answer.

Construction workers are still suffering

Mental health is still a major problem within construction. A survey conducted earlier this year found that 73% of UK builders experience mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression, every month, while nearly half (45%) experience symptoms on a weekly basis³.

Worse still, the stigma around mental health doesn’t appear to have faded. In 2021, just 5% of workers said they reported their mental health symptoms. Today, 92% say they feel uncomfortable discussing their symptoms with others. This suggests efforts to destigmatize mental health have led to just 3% more workers opening up about their struggles – and 27% still feel they can’t request time off work for mental health-related reasons⁴.

However, there are also signs that things are moving in the right direction. One study found that 53% of construction SMEs had increased mental health provisions for workers⁵. But perhaps most encouraging is work from researchers at the University of Warwick, who found that instantiating ‘Health Hubs’ had a marked positive impact.With a specialised space to have open conversations and rest, construction workers’ self-reported stress levels drop. “The Health Hub offered workers the space to have such conversations, in a more suitable environment than on a construction site,” one researcher explained. And while the data is preliminary, those that use the facilities more appear to have a greater reduction in stress, suggesting a causal relationship between the two⁶.

So how can we move things forward?

Construction leaders should look to the Warick researchers’ ‘Health Hub’ as a model for their sites. While specialised facilities like this may be out of budget, the study demonstrates that better on-site welfare spaces are effective for reducing stress and improving workers’ mental health.

At Welfare Hire, we know this from first hand experience. Our state-of-the-art mobile welfare units are designed specifically to create this kind of comfortable, safe space for employees to rest, recover and open up between gruelling shifts. With 20% more internal space, silent running from hybrid solar/battery, and improved hygiene facilities with a Smart Water system that ensures hot water is always available, they create a far more positive on-site dynamic than standard mobile welfare units. From taking essential breaks to opening up to your colleagues, many of the challenges construction workers face are really about making the right facilities available to them. And with our range of mobile welfare units, leaders can make a dramatic difference to their employees’ daily lives.

Want to learn how innovative mobile welfare units could change your site?

More than 2 million people in the UK suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – a form of depression caused by the darker months¹. As a result, construction sites often see a slump in morale as the days get shorter.

However, this dip in morale is not inevitable if you have the right tower lights. Here are three ways they can keep employee morale up during the winter months:

1. Keep sites safe

Employee morale often suffers due to a perceived increase to physical risk. With reduced visibility and wetter conditions, including ice and snow creating new trip hazards, workers are liable to feel their site becomes less safe during the darker months. And given that construction-related fatalities already increased 55% in the last reporting year², safety will be a particular concern this Autumn and Winter.

Tower lights help mitigate these risks and keep workers safe. The increased visibility site lighting unlocks helps assure that trip hazards are seen, collisions are avoided and workers feel confident that they are safe at all times.

2. Improve productivity

Just as extreme heat can delay construction projects, the harsher winter days can make it very difficult to get much done on a construction site. In fact, some estimates suggest that extreme cold can reduce productivity by 50%³. Lower productivity can lead to missed targets or delays to the projects – both of which take their toll on employee morale. 

That’s why LED tower lights are an essential tool for employee morale. By enabling work to continue when the sun has gone down, projects are able to recapture the losses they make on days when the weather is prohibitively cold. As a result, workers don’t feel the strain of stressed managers or tighter deadlines that would otherwise come with a productivity drop.

3. Create flexibility onsite

The single best way to boost employee morale is by giving them flexibility. And with daylight hours reducing, the window to deliver work outside in natural light becomes limited.

The solution is enabling work to be delivered safely and practically during darker hours, providing illumination from lighting towers for flexibility in working hours and schedules. Portable tower lights enable extended work hours and, subsequently, give employees the opportunity to fit work around their schedules – rather than the other way around. 

We believe this is a key factor in employee morale through the year, but it may be felt most during the darker months. And as a result, this Autumn and Winter are the perfect time for firms that don’t currently use LED tower lights to enable employee flexibility to start.

Never Settle For Second Best

At Welfare Hire, we believe innovative technology should serve every aspect of a construction project. That’s why we are dedicated to providing not only eco-friendly tower lights, but helping our partners use them to unlock a range of for their site – including boosting employee morale in the Winter.

Want to explore our full range of tower lights?