Has Construction Changed?

8th January 2025

"Phaseline has certainly changed over the years, but also, in my opinion, so has construction and the attitudes within construction"

I have now been in business for almost twenty years, time really does fly!  When I first started Phaseline there was just myself and one other, we did a mixture of domestic and small commercial electrical works and these were all within the Sheffield area. 

Times have changed, and we now work solely in the commercial and industrial sector, my ‘one other’ still works with me and is now one of my contracts managers / estimators and our work takes us all over the country.  Phaseline has certainly changed over the years, but also, in my opinion, so has construction and the attitudes within construction.

Only five years ago, before Covid and Brexit, working in construction felt completely different.    Contractors getting labour to work nights, out of town or weekends was never an issue.  The workforce in general was glad for the additional pay/perks that came with each of these requests. There was a hunger to do whatever it took to earn more.  But there seems to have been a shift in attitudes, and this isn’t just something noticed by me, it’s been noticed by most if not all of my clients, suppliers and my peers.  But what’s caused this?

I believe that lockdown had an impact on peoples views on work life balance.  When people were forced to spend time at home during lockdown I feel it changed mindsets about work life balance.  Perhaps spouses that had always known their partners working away Monday through Friday were now used to, and happy for them to be around more.  It became the new norm, not just from a companionship perspective, but in reality the general weekly chores were now being divided by two people as opposed to just one.  Weekday kids drop offs to football and gymnastic practice could be shared or taken in turns.

Then there’s the economic impact of Covid and Brexit.  The backlog of Covid coupled with the  reduced numbers of tradespeople within the UK, and we have an increase in demand and a decrease in supply.  This I feel contributed to a very sharp increase in labour costs.  As an example, within an eighteen month period we saw an increase of around 25% in agency labour.  It got to a point where it was almost a bidding war with labour.  Never before had we seen such transient labour supply that would literally move to another job if they could travel 15 minutes less in a morning or get paid another 25p p/hr.  This was particularly noticeable in the North where labour was getting as much locally post-Covid as they were pre-Covid working around London.  And now they were getting more locally, despite the fact could get even more working away as they always could, they were more open to the prospect of having enough money but a better work life balance.

Overall is this a bad thing?  I don’t think so.  I want our workforce to be happy and I’m certainly a big advocate for finding a solution that everyone is comfortable with.  But what happens when your business model and your clients require working away and being flexible? 

What it meant for Phaseline is that over a period of time engineers that had once been happy working away decided that Phaseline wasn’t for them anymore despite best efforts and we’ve since found new staff that understand that while working away isn’t preferable to working 30 minutes away, it’s about the whole package.  We share all the work evenly so staff aren’t working away all the time, the type of work we do is enjoyable and consistent and our clients are great to work with, we offer training and support, we treat people with respect and we do our best to keep things as relaxed as possible while still delivering a professional service.  I have to say though, it hasn’t been easy to find the level of quality we insist on!

I feel that we’ve certainly evolved as a business and moved with the times.  We’ve always aimed to be a inclusive employer that takes into account all variables including how our workforce feel about things, but now, more than ever, do we take advice and comments from them so we can all push together in the same direction.  Will others think or do the same?  Who knows.