It’s Time to Change Construction’s Working Hours

The blog explores the excessive work culture in the Australian construction industry. We answer the following questions:

• The Live to Work Culture of the Construction Industry
• Why Does This Culture Exist?
• Why Do Things Need to Change?
• Are the Winds of Change a-Blowing?
• What Can Project Leaders Actually Do to Drive Change?
• What Practical Steps Can You Take?

The Live to Work Culture of the Construction Industry

The construction industry in Australia has a culture of excessive work hours. 7am to 5pm Monday to Friday is the bare minimum expected, with most building sites also operating from 8am to 1pm Saturday. That is a 50-56hr work week as a minimum. Add 2hrs travel each day to get a total of 60-68hrs of work per week.

There is a culture of pride in working these long hours, of thinking that people who work 9-5 don’t work hard enough. Even people who turn up right on 7am and leave right on 5pm are seen as uncommitted. Accruing huge balances of annual leave is seen as something to be proud of.

The consequences of all this are many. Fatalities, injuries and accidents due to fatigue. Suicides rates in the construction industry are among highest across any employment sector. Divorce rates are also well above the average. Poorer health outcomes with no time for exercise and inadequate sleep. The list goes on.

WHS legislation has gone some way to overcome issues around fatigue for blue-collar workers. For white-collar workers it’s a different story. When you are so invested in the team, the planning, the outcome, your reputation – it’s almost impossible to not check your emails and take phone calls on your days off.

Why Does This Culture Exist?

The fundamental issue at play is that there is too much work to do in time available for the team.

1. Construction contract periods are getting shorter, while at the same-time project delays are becoming more prevalent. This puts the project team on the back foot from the start. There is always an expectation by clients to run for the maximum allowable hours to meet production targets.
2. Project management (particularly on government projects) has an ever-increasing number of processes and forms to implement, on top of an exponential rise in stakeholders and interfaces to manage.

Project leaders’ ability to hire their way out of this problem is constrained on two sides – Industry wide skills shortage and – Tight budgets for staff. Often there doesn’t appear to be enough excess work to justify hiring an additional engineer or manager either.

Why Do Things Need to Change?

Well for one because productivity suffers. Research from Stanford University showed that productivity peaked at 50hrs per week and sharply declined from 50-55hrs per week. Notably any hours worked beyond 55hrs provided no additional productivity. In my experience there is no awareness in the construction industry of productivity research. Understanding the implications of these findings makes reducing working hours for construction workers are smart business decision.

The second reason for change is simply improving the work-life balance of the construction workforce. Overworked people are stressed and fatigued, which makes them more prone to errors and less open to change.

Increasing productivity, reducing stress and fatigue should be enough to motivate industry leaders to force a change. But unfortunately, those in leadership positions have come up through and been moulded by this culture. They are the ones who survived the long hours, sacrificed their health, their marriages, time with their children to get to where they are now. From the perspective of these leaders there is nothing more important than work, viewing any desire to prioritise other areas of life as a lack of commitment to the business.

Are the Winds of Change a-Blowing?

I don’t think so. Sure, there has been greater acknowledgement of work-life balance and now psycho-social hazards in the workplace. But the “initiatives” offered by business are window dressing. Rostering for weekend work, offering early finishes one day per week (at 3:30pm instead of 5 or 6pm), time-in-lieu (with use it or lose it provisions) – whilst all better for the workforce, do nothing to address the culture of overwork in the industry. In my experience top-down organisation led initiatives to drive change are not sincere, and the workforce sees straight through them.

What can Project Leaders Actually Do to Drive Change?

Project Leaders are somewhat limited with what they can do without the support of business senior management. Wholesale culture change is out of the question, but project leaders can change their behaviour to show their teams another way.

In fact, I have seen some project-based improvements where project leaders took the initiative. Project leaders who – actively chased their staff out the door at 5pm; encouraged and celebrated team-members scheduling holidays; avoided time-wasting with excessive meetings; didn’t call team members out-of-hours unless a genuine emergency; pushed-back against unrealistic demands from clients, stakeholders, and senior management. Project teams on these sites, whilst still working 50hr weeks were some of the happiest and most productive I have observed.

Imagine what could be achieved if this approach was supported by client and head office? Something drastic such as a 45hr workweek perhaps. I expect that a construction company offering 45hr standard workweeks could have a significant competitive advantage both recruitment and retention of staff.

What Practical Steps Can You Take?

Unfortunately, most of this change will need to come from the bottom up. Meaning that it requires individuals to stop putting up with working conditions they do not like, instead of waiting for industry, business, and government to do something. It is your life after all, you only get one so why waste it doing something that isn’t fulfilling you. Here are my thoughts on how to take charge and make a change:

1. Get clear on what weighing you down. How is the current situation not serving you? Is it the work hours? The constant state of stress? Your commute? Is working some much after your health? Get crystal clear on top issues at play. Do not just say everything.
2. Stop accepting that these hours are needed to succeed in construction. It is time to stop conflating busy with productive. Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. So, if the industry expects 55hrs per week from its employees, then 55hrs of work is created and gets done. You know this is true – no matter how efficient you become, there will always be another process invented to fill any spare time you have.
3. Undertake an audit of all the activities you do in 55hrs per week. How much of it is productive work? How much of it is just paper-shuffling busy work? Are there areas where you are being inefficient? Be intentional with how you spend your work hours. Check out our previous articles for more tips Busy not productive and 7 tips for improving meetings.
4. Take your findings to your manager to discuss the changes you’d like to make. Check out our Mastering the art of communication blog for tips. How will you feel if your proposal for reducing working hours (but not output) is rejected by your manager? Will you resign, shut-up and continue-on, or just implement your proposal anyway? The saying goes it is better to “ask for forgiveness, than to ask for permission”.
5. Be the change you want to see. Be the example for your colleagues and peers to follow. You don’t need to be an activist to affect change. Actions truly speak louder than words. Show them that you can be productive, a star-performing, whilst still having a life beyond work. You will get funny looks and criticism by not conforming to current culture norms. Tough it out.

I appreciate that this advice might be unsatisfying, but that’s life. The universe seems to reward those who help themselves. Stop giving your power away to others and take command of your own life. The worst thing that could happen is that you leave work-obsessed industry. Is that such a bad thing?