Nothing could have prepared us for the last year: almost overnight, how we work and what safety means changed. And for those of us in the construction industry, the impact will surely be felt for years to come.

But with every challenge, there is opportunity. And while it will be a long time before we really understand the legacy of the pandemic, there is already so much we can learn from COVID-19 about worksite safety and how to develop more employee-friendly, productive sites. 

In this article, we’re going to explore three ways we believe the pandemic could produce meaningful change in the industry.

1. The power of space

During the pandemic, space has become a serious challenge for construction projects. Social distancing – combined with labour shortages – has caused a 7% decrease in productivity on site. 

Many businesses are looking to solve these problems with innovative mobile welfare units that can provide employees with the space they need. Products like our Eco14 unit provide not just extra space, but separate rooms to ensure distancing can be maintained. And this is a trend which we believe should continue long after the pandemic is over.
Ultimately, worksites of the future will be safer, happier and more productive places if they embrace wellbeing and space not just as benefits but necessary elements of a secure working environment.

2. Hygiene is about ease

Good hygiene may well be the single most important weapon against coronavirus and more generally against illness spreading onsite. During the pandemic, a new emphasis has been made to ensure sites stay clean and employees hygienic. 

Behavioural scientists have demonstrated that the best way to ensure people wash their hands and maintain good hygiene is to make doing so easy. And that means we need to ensure hygiene facilities are hospitable and simple to use. 

In our innovative welfare units, we ensure the hygiene facilities are state-of-the-art. They all feature additional WCs and handwashing basins to ensure hygiene is not just required – it is easy for employees to maintain. 

3. The importance of process

Maintaining social distancing and all the other vital elements of fighting a pandemic can be difficult. What we’ve learned is the only way to truly ensure necessary measures are followed at all times is to put clear, detailed processes in place – and follow them. 

When hiring welfare units and access vehicles, the handover process is an easy-to-overlook opportunity for germs to spread and protocols to be breached. And that’s why we’ve put in place clear processes to ensure every single unit, including VMAPs and pole erection units, are handed over in a safely-distanced manner and every vehicle and all welfare units are cleaned and sanitised as soon as they are returned. 

Ultimately, hiring welfare units and access vehicles throughout the pandemic has given us a new perspective on worksite safety that will carry forward with us. We believe, in the end, it will make the service we provide even safer, even more secure and even higher-quality than ever before.

For over twenty-five years, the UN’s annual World Water Day has been raising awareness of the importance of water. With over 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water, and growing anxieties about the sustainability of our current water supplies, there could hardly be a more important topic to bring light to. 

The construction sector is not exempt from these concerns: from cleaning facilities to concrete batching, sites use water in a variety of ways. And, while it’s easy to take that for granted, at Kelling Group, we believe it’s time to seriously consider how we could make our water usage more sustainable on site.

LET’S BE SMARTER ABOUT WATER

There are countless brilliant minds at work across the world, developing technology that will help improve the ways we use and distribute water. And fortunately, the same is true of construction. 

The facilities in onsite welfare units are a great example. While traditional welfare units have relatively small water tanks and chemical toilets, the unique Smart Water systems in our welfare units utilise extra-large water tanks. 

This enables a unique water flush system, which recycles grey water from the washbasins, ensuring that water wastage is drastically reduced, along with the service frequency, whilst delivering even greater handwashing and WC facilities.

But the impact of innovation can go much further than just this.

Sustainable Water Usage On Site – THE BIG PICTURE

As the pressure to make sites more eco-friendly increases, it’s important to consider how Sustainable Water Usage on site impacts our overall environmental footprint. Many seemingly negligible factors, such as servicing transport, actually produce very high carbon emissions over time, especially on large sites.

The efficiency and extra-large capacity of our Smart water systems in our welfare units therefore also positively impacts your site’s overall carbon footprint. And innovation once again provides the best solution to the problem.

By improving capacity by at least 50%, our Smart Water systems lessen environmental externalities. Standard welfare units require weekly servicing, whereas our ECO units only need servicing every 2-3 weeks on a like-for-like basis. This radically reduces the carbon footprint incurred from the servicing transportation, as well as saving man-hours and operational costs.

Ultimately, we believe this goes to show how relatively small innovations can have a far-reaching impact. By simply introducing innovative smart water systems, we’re able to use water more efficiently and reduce carbon emissions, as well as improve onsite hygiene and wellbeing.

Want to find out more about how you can be more environmentally friendly in our construction site and save water? Compare our welfare unit products or speak to our team who will be happy to advise you.

In terms of gender equality, construction has a long way to go: just 13% of construction workers are female, and only 1% of those work onsite.

The benefits of increasing diversity are clear, from increasing the talent pool we can draw from to broader perspectives on strategic and creative problems. Overall, research suggests organisations with greater gender equality are 15% more likely to earn more than competitors, and are 6 times more likely to innovate.

But that doesn’t mean increasing female representation is straightforward: it will take time and effort to make construction truly inclusive. And it all starts with the kind of culture you build onsite.

What kind of environment is your site? 

It can be difficult to detect a lack of inclusivity – in many cases, it is just considered the norm. But organisations and contractors who wish to increase the diversity of their teams should scrutinise the way their teams interact onsite.

Simple factors like building team morale and ensuring onsite comfort can have a dramatic impact on the kind of workplace culture that emerges. And that can be heavily influenced by things as simple as the equipment you hire.

Choosing the right mobile welfare units can totally change the attitudes you find onsite, putting an emphasis on wellbeing and changing how employees feel about their work.

Take our ECO14 welfare unit: with 2 separate smart water WCs, 3 hot water basins, a supersized separate drying and changing room, and an extra-large welfare room, there’s enough space for 14 workers. This enables teams to spend time together in comfort, with our large, dynamic design and layout providing market-leading welfare, hygiene and break facilities.  

The net result is that workers feel more at home onsite, and more valued by their employer. They also become more comfortable in their work environment, creating a more inclusive, productive and safe culture.

With our 360 degree virtual tour, you can see inside our welfare units for yourself:

Small decisions, big impact

Introducing more innovative welfare units to your site might seem like a relatively small step, especially considering the scale of the gender gap in construction. But it’s exactly these kinds of small, practical steps which will gradually build our industry’s ability to attract and retain more diverse talent.

Rather than worrying about the big picture and feeling powerless, we need to start looking at the decisions we do control and figuring out ways to ensure we’re doing the most we can to foster the kind of culture and workforce we want in the future.

Mobile welfare units are often simply considered a matter of Health and Safety compliance. But the truth is, the facilities you hire can be a defining factor of your project, setting the tone from the get-go and determining what kind of environment your site will become. 

The best mobile welfare units provide a comfortable space for workers, making them feel safe and valued – and that directly impacts staff wellbeing, motivation and productivity. So choosing the right welfare pod is not merely a case of reading about the unit’s capacity or ecological efficiency – it’s about understanding how the units add value. 

This is exactly why we pride ourselves on providing a fully immersive 360° virtual tour that allows you to step inside our welfare units. Because while our range is designed to cover all needs, and you can pick and choose depending on your site requirements, it’s still vital that you understand the kind of environment you’ll be creating.   

Why we created the immersive 360° virtual tour 

In an ideal world, we’d let every customer come and test out our welfare unit in person – that direct experience has always been a big part of our customer service. 

But let’s be honest: we don’t live in an ideal world right now, and that means we need to find new ways of showing our customers exactly what it is they’re hiring. 

We pride ourselves on having the largest, most modern and innovative fleet of mobile welfare units in the UK, so it’s only fitting that we solve the problems COVID has presented in an equally innovative way. 

How does the virtual tour work?

We’ve designed the virtual tour to give you as much control as possible: you can click on the ground to ‘walk’ through our showroom, and you can control the view of the camera so it really feels like you’re moving around inside the range of welfare hire products. 

We’ve ensured you can get an inside look at the ECO7, ECO10 and ECO14 mobile welfare units. That means you can see the various innovative features – like the smart water WCs, separate offices and XL spaces – up close and personal. And as you explore, you’ll notice various information icons: you can click on the info points to read in more detail about the feature you’re looking at.  

We want you to see what makes our ECO units unique

There are lots of things we want our customers to know about the unique benefits our mobile welfare units offer – in particular their positive ecological impact. But there’s only so much you can read before it starts to feel abstract. 

We hope being able to actually immerse yourself in our welfare units will help you truly understand how they can positively impact your site. 

So step inside our innovative welfare units for hire, and see how it feels: 

Do you ever feel like you’re living the same day on repeat? Like it’s Groundhog day, all over again?

Well, you’re not alone: recent data shows that UK construction sites are not making nearly enough effort to innovate or introduce cutting-edge tech into their processes. And the result is sites that feel like they’ve barely evolved in the last twenty years.

At Kelling Group, we’re dedicated to changing this: our fleet of mobile ECO welfare units are the most innovative on the market, and we continually invest in incorporating the most exciting new features, so that they remain best-in-class. Changing Groundhog Units for the better.

Most companies find that innovation pays for itself many times over. Yet investment in state-of-the-art equipment appears to be falling. 

The proportion of UK construction companies actively involved in innovating has fallen by 11% in the past couple of years, according to the ONS.

And that’s at a time when we’re seeing unprecedented pressure being put on firms to improve their environmental efforts and become more economically efficient.

Innovation should be instrumental in making this happen: innovative mobile welfare units and lighting can actually reduce carbon emissions, lower service costs and boost firms’ bottom-line.

But that’s not all they do: they also help revitalise your site, improving staff wellbeing with improved facilities and internal space, ultimately creating a more positive working environment in the process.

And what could be more welcome in 2021 than a significant refresh?

Take a look at Kelling’s truly innovative mobile welfare hire facilities

Not only is Kelling’s fleet of ECO mobile welfare facilities the UK’s largest – it’s also the youngest. With over a decade of experience, we’ve developed specialist expertise in innovative welfare products with our own proprietary design and unique look and feel. And that means we continually source the best and most exciting new features available, to ensure our clients never have to settle for second best.

Take our ECO7 Mobile Welfare Unit: it has been designed specially to increase both employee wellbeing and eco-efficiency. It offers 20% more internal space, and runs on hybrid power that dramatically reduces fuel consumption. The smart water system further reduces site operational costs and carbon footprints with fewer services required.

You can see for yourself here, with our fully immersive 360° virtual tour.

So if you’re looking for a fresh start, let’s move on from Groundhog Day and try something genuinely new and innovative this year with an ECO friendly mobile site cabin from Kelling group,

2020 was the toughest year most of us have lived through; one of the few silver linings was an increase in mental health awareness, with more people opening up about their struggles and more support being offered to vulnerable individuals.

Mental health is a particular concern for the construction industry, often referred to as a ‘silent epidemic’ amongst workers. According to the Office for National Statistics, suicide is three times more common for men in construction than the population average, and 90% of construction bosses report experiencing mental health issues because of work. 

Ultimately, businesses lose at least £33 billion each year to mental health-related issues, according to a 2018 report. 

LAURA BURKE – Wokplace Mental Health in the Construction Industry

Putting 2020 behind us can only be a good thing, but we must not allow moving on to mean forgetting what the year has taught us. There are still huge challenges to overcome for the construction industry, and more must be done to ensure the onsite environment is as positive and conducive to worker welfare as possible. 

In this article, we’re going to look at a few central aspects of onsite welfare, and how we can develop more positive ways of working. 

1.   Open discussions will break the stigma 

Perhaps the most fundamental challenge we face is the stigma that surrounds mental health. There are a number of negative associations and assumptions which have caused many vulnerable individuals to feel unable to discuss their experiences and emotions. 

The traditional culture of construction sites tends to exacerbate this. Rather than sincerely discussing the challenges workers face, many in the industry take a stoic attitude towards emotional struggles, assuming that talking openly about their feelings will be taken as a sign of weakness. 

This stigma contributes to the sense of hopelessness and isolation many feel at work, and if we want things to improve, we need to find ways to weaken that stigma and encourage more honest conversations in and around the workplace. 

Persistence is the key to change. It may be difficult to change onsite culture, but it’s important that we don’t allow setbacks to get in the way. Ultimately, improving welfare and mental health awareness is not a short-term task, and we shouldn’t expect a single conversation to break the stigma completely. 

2.   Education is essential to make conversations happen 

The best way to start more open conversations is through education: both employers and employees need to be given information to help them understand and process the challenges mental health presents. 

Some have suggested larger sites should employ mental health professionals and counsellors, making education and support available whenever workers need it; others have championed specialised initiatives, educational courses and campaigns to get the message across. 

There are tons of great resources available, from Mental Health At Work’s Toolkits to the Home Builders Federation’s construction specific content. The task for employers is simply providing the time and space for employees to make use of these resources. 

3.   Sites need to facilitate conversations 

With long hours and extremely tiring physical labour, construction sites often exacerbate feelings of burnout in workers. While this leads us to a broad question about workplace culture and the kinds of conversations that occur onsite, it is also a practical challenge: how can managers make their site a more positive environment for workers? 

64% of construction workers say they want their employers to provide more mental health support, and this can be achieved in a number of ways. Education is great, as are policies to reduce late payments and improve access to professional support. 

Another factor is the space and comfort of a site’s facilities: traditional facilities are often poorly maintained or lacking the space and comfort to allow workers to take a proper breather onsite, contributing to the lack of security many feel at work. 

Mobile welfare units and welfare vans, on the other hand, are a great way of improving the overall atmosphere and mood on site. Being up to 20% larger inside, with a roomier and more comfortable design, the modern ECO units provide a space where workers can have the conversations they need to have and ensure that workers know their employers truly value wellbeing. 

Welfare Hire Nationwide, part of the Kelling Group: 

Welfare Hire is the UK’s leading provider of eco-friendly Mobile Welfare Units. Here is some feedback from a Mobile Welfare Hire client relating to staff wellbeing on-site.  

“The quality of the Welfare Hire units we have enables our teams to work smarter and deliver a much higher standard of work in a modern, comfortable environment. The fast and easy service means we can focus on the job at hand” 

Welfare units are a vital element of any construction site, but not all welfare units are created equal. 

Sourcing the right welfare vans and mobile welfare units can actually have a dramatic impact across a number of areas, and in this article we’re going to look at five key ways switching to eco-friendly welfare units will improve your site in 2021.

1.  Reduced emissions 

Sustainability is a defining challenge for the construction industry, and mobile welfare units and welfare vans are a key piece of the puzzle. 

With the UK’s hugely ambitious new target of reducing emissions by nearly 70% in the coming decade, leaders are feeling a new pressure to implement innovative, eco-friendly strategies and find ways to improve the energy efficiency of their sites. 

Mobile welfare units are an ‘easy win’ in this context: they offer clear ecological benefits from the moment they are introduced to the site. Products like our ECO10 Smart Welfare Unit run on hybrid power, have a unique water WC system and are transported by ULEZ towing vehicles, all of which radically reduces both the transport and running fuel emissions.   

By comparing the performance of our eco-friendly welfare units with the industry standards, we’ve been able to put some exact numbers on the ecological impact of switching away from traditional units onsite. 

The EC010 uses over 90% less fuel on a daily basis than a standard static unit. If we assume a large contractor uses 100 units, switching to eco-friendly welfare units could reduce their annual onsite CO₂ emissions by 47 tonnes – the equivalent of planting over 2.2 million trees. 

2.  Employee experience 

Employee wellbeing is paramount on construction sites, with mental health and employee burnout an important consideration. 

Larger, better designed welfare units create a more positive, more inclusive and safer environment for workers on site. Our ECO10 welfare units, for example, fit up to 10 workers at a time, as well as providing vastly improved hygiene and break facilities. 

These may seem like relatively small factors, but the combined improvements to employee experience can be massive. And this in turn creates ripple effects, leading to improvements in productivity, employee retention and overall staff morale accruing over time. 

3.  Lower service costs 

Maintaining your equipment on site is vital but often costly, both in terms of the price of regular servicing and the emissions produced transporting service vehicles to and from the site. 

Eco-friendly mobile welfare units reduce these costs considerably: our ECO units feature non-chemical, extra-large smart water systems, for example, which run so efficiently that they negate the traditional requirement for weekly servicing; instead, their average service interval is a full 18 days without compromising on facilities.

The net result is reduced transport risk, fewer man hours required to manage services, and lower service vehicle emissions from this unique, extra-large smart water system. And this is all achieved whilst reducing the Health and Safety vehicle risk onsite by up to 60%. 

4.  Easier access 

Moving vehicles and equipment to and around your site can be a big challenge. But our mobile welfare units allow lower cost, easier access and delivery. 

All of our ECO mobile welfare units are towable, with hydraulic setdown in just six seconds, as well as being more economical and easier to transport and locate onsite, requiring no access or lifting plans. Plus, with our own skilled drivers and fleet of modern ULEZ pick-ups, we produce far lower emissions than standard HGVs, helping to reduce substantially the welfare net carbon footprint for projects. 

Ultimately, this unparalleled flexibility allows for more dynamic project management with far fewer logistical headaches and a much greener footprint. 

5.  Bottom line performance 

Sustainability is essential. But too often, the movement towards eco-friendly technology is seen as a challenge, when it ought to be seen as an opportunity. 

Eco-friendly facilities are often not only environmentally efficient but financially too: by reducing operational and service costs, facilities which are generally marketed towards environmentally conscious users can also radically improve a business’s bottom line. 

Because the Smart water WC system requires far fewer services, our ECO Welfare Units can produce a 60% reduction in operational and labour costs. Add to that the savings on fuel mentioned above, and the right mobile welfare units could see a huge saving in overall costs that amounts to a significant increase in bottom line profitability.

Kelling Group is the UK market leader in mobile welfare hire. Browse and compare our range of eco-friendly mobile welfare units and welfare vans on our website to establish which product best suits your needs.