With the work from home guidance being relaxed in the UK following the latest wave of Covid, many civil engineers are now starting to return to some office-based working or more site-based activities. But after two years of working through a pandemic and embracing new ways of working, has the industry’s approach to how work is undertaken changed forever?

To talk through the learnings since March 2020 and the opportunities and challenges a new approach presents, NCE editor Claire Smith is joined by Aecom chief operating officer for Europe and India Andy Barker and Ferrovial strategy and preconstruction director Grant Mobbs to discuss the changing dynamic from the consultants’ and contractors’ perspective.

All three are agreed that the end of working from home guidance does not mean that the industry will revert to exactly how it was two years ago and that hybrid working is here to stay.

Andy and Grant started by talking about the policies and approaches their firms had in place in early 2020 before discussing how their approach to work changed dramatically in March 2020. While the changes were challenging both employees and employers learned a lot along the way and both Grant and Andy add some detail to the positives and negatives the change brought.

The trio acknowledge that the change to home working, and now hybrid working, is not felt in the same way for everyone and they look at the impact it has had for early career engineers. Grant and Andy talk about the strategies that their firms have put in place to support this part of the workforce.

The greater focus on wellbeing that emerged during the last two years of working from home is a theme throughout, along with the potential for the change in working patterns to be more inclusive and welcome a more diverse workforce in the long term.

The group conclude that there is no one size fits all approach to hybrid working but the move to more trust and grown up conversations about the topic means the industry has come a long way in two years.

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