Well, it has certainly been an interesting past four weeks. Like the rest of the nation, our business has been in alert level four lockdown, which has meant adapting to working from home (while simultaneously home-schooling the kids).

There are always positives to take out of adverse situations. Like many businesses, we now realise that you do not necessarily need to be physically in the office to operate as an effective business. A fair proportion of the work we do as engineers can be done quite efficiently at home. On a personal note, I have had a good opportunity to spend more time with the kids and to check their progress in schooling (the maths needs a bit of work – which is concerning given that both parents are engineers).

Life Under Alert Level 3

As I am writing this article, the Government has announced that alert level three will commence Tuesday April 28. This is positive news, although it probably should have come a week earlier. It is important that the Government allows the economy to kick back into action, as soon as practicable.

‘I encourage us all to be brave and to be confident, and to push on with any development works that we were planning’

The key to working under levels two and three conditions, is to operate businesses in such a way, so as to mitigate the risk of community spread of any virus. Like most businesses, we have been busy preparing our Health and Safety protocols to achieve this goal. There are practical measures, which can be easily introduced, which can significantly reduce the risk of any virus transfer. As such, our business will be opening on Tuesday April 28, ready to resume offering consultancy services to existing and new clients (albeit with appropriate health and safety measures in place).

Avoid Paralysis By Analysis

I think it is important that businesses and clients do not get lost in the details of the level three requirements, and get “paralysis by analysis”. You need to be cognitive of the risks, but also be prepared to re-commence working, where practicable, implementing appropriate health and safety protocols. Collectively, we need to have confidence in our ability to manage this risk, so that society can re-commence trading, so that we can all start to get the economy moving again.

My advice to any developers, property traders, and investors is that the construction industry is open for business. Recently, there have been many useful guidelines produced for the construction industry, so that they can operate in a “safe” manner under levels two and three. Clients should therefore have confidence that the construction industry can operate safely, and that projects can recommence. I therefore encourage us all to be brave and to be confident, and to push on with any development works that we were planning to do prior to lockdown, because finance has never been cheaper and, more than likely, your tradies have never been more motivated to work.