The Courier has run a series of 'Our Hidden Heroes' stories over the past week, recognising those who keep our city moving during tough COVID times.
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Construction manager Chris Allen said he's thankful he's able to work through the pandemic, but his heart went out to the people who couldn't.
"I knew a lot of people out of work, especially in the entertainment and hospitality industries,who weren't able to do what they do," he said.
"Anyone who was able to get to work was very fortunate to be able to do that."
Through the last 18 months, Mr Allen has been in charge of the redevelopment at Mount Clear Secondary College, and has just moved onto his next project at Ballarat High School.
He and his employer, Nicholson Construction, have had just a handful of days where work had to be completely stopped, but the pandemic has still been chaotic at times.
"Initially, when it all first came in, there were a lot of challenges just getting a clear direction on what we were supposed to be doing," Mr Allen said.
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"We were lucky our health and safety team and directors were just across it at all times - the hands-free sign-in tablets, signage around the site like how many people per square metre, posting the hotspots in the sites.
"In the last couple of months, we've taken it in our stride now, we're very much used to it."
Construction sites are complex places, with deliveries and contractors coming and going constantly, but leaving a job unfinished, for whatever reason, could make it unsafe.
That meant Mr Allen and his team had to learn how to navigate restrictions as they popped up to keep projects moving, and ultimately, lead to improvements.
"I think it's made us more flexible, and it's made us more of an evolved company in the same sense - we're doing things like hands-free sign-ins, and it's changed how we induct people and control safety with the guys on-site," he said.
"We can manage everything from the palm of our hands, just pick up a phone and send reminder messages to workers on-site saying they need to update induction, and they can do it where they're standing instead of having to find a computer.
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"It's made our day-to-day a little more streamlined in how we operate."
That said, having to ask sub-contractors to hold on a bit longer was hard, particularly given the personal relationships that had built up over several projects.
"It's been challenging in the work we can do, and at the capacity we can get it operating - you're knocking off half your workforce, or dropping down to a pilot-light workforce," Mr Allen said.
"It comes down from the directive of having essential workers and trades on-site - we might not have people coming to install whiteboards, for example, but we'll have our electricians make things safe and finish their jobs, same with open excavations, we'd want them to make it safe when we go into lockdown and when we come out again.
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"The biggest negative, or adjustment, was trying to evaluate what the most important part of the project to complete next was without having the project suffer overall.
"Our sub-trades suffered considerably - we were able to open the site, we were aware we weren't able to have all the subbies on-site, and whilst they were locked down, that affected all their income as well.
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"As much as we can, we try to use as many local trades as we can, so we develop a really personal relationship with all of the trades we have here too, so we tried to make sure all of those guys were in work and had somewhere to go across all of our sites - it's a bit of a juggling act."
One aspect Mr Allen hopes will be a long-term improvement is the emphasis on safety, and for new apprentices entering the industry, perhaps they'll understand this focus better than most.
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"They're coming to work and thinking about why they should be, how they're doing things, and we try to instill a good, positive safety culture with everyone here, so I think it's been easier to get that through to the younger guys, to explain why they can and can't do things, just getting them across all our safety protocols," he said.
"We're introducing them into new COVID-safe environments but also running them through safety expectations they may have overlooked, so it's building a strong safety culture for the younger generation too."
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