Stanford School of Engineering & Doerr School of Sustainability
ENGINEERING Civil & Environmental Engineering
Center for Integrated Facility Engineering

AEC and Pandemic - June 2020 Trend Analysis

Return to June 2020 Update

Trend analysis

June 2020 Highlights

  1. The industry accepted open communication and collaboration as a new normal during the pandemic, although we estimate that the industry is communicating less openly in June than in May due to reported challenges such as competition, cashflow and potential litigations. A mention of Open communication and collaboration increased 42% since May highlighting the importance of “working together to survive”. The global civil rights movement might have influenced this increase. The talk about silver lining has substantially decreased since May (65%); because the industry is less talking about silver lining and more “doing”, i.e., taking the opportunity of the situation. Service providers in digital and virtual technologies are currently leading in this effort.
  2. The category of (Advance) planning – short- & long-term strategies continues to increase its presence over the past three months; from 10% in April, 31.8% in May to the highest category representation of 45.5% in June. The industry realizes that successfully solving temporary challenges will not be enough for the future. Businesses are searching for smart long-term strategies; including reassessment, reimagination and reinvention of all business aspects.
  3. The interest in Procedures of shifting workflows continues to increase (from 41.2% in May to 45.1% in June). The challenges reported in May continue to exist as the economies start to reopen: fluctuating guidance and restrictions, market conditions; issues with cashflow and contracting. Although many projects will continue ($8 trillion in capital delivery is expected to continue throughout 2020); the managers will have to simultaneously protect people, the project, and performance. Furthermore, June is characterized by workplace reimagination and countless strategies and guidelines for workspace re-entry.
  4. Health and safety have been discussed more in June than in May (27.9% vs. 21.8%). This increase in June is due to open-for-interpretation official guidelines; the contractors report self-certification and self-policing and hiring medical professionals for COVID-19 guidance. Mental health crisis is following the pandemic. Consequently, the interest in Management of employees in crisis remained approximately on the same level as in May.
  5. The interest in Adoption of (new) technologies has increased 66% from May. Digitization is a mandatory long-term strategy. The industry is going digital and virtual. The focus in digital tech in June is on smart “healthy” buildings, big data and cybersecurity. 
  6. The interest in Buildings and cities for a next normal seems to slightly decrease in June (from 30% in May to 25.8% in June), partially due to the introduction of two new categories stemming from this category; namely “Official Strategies / Guidelines // Rules / Regulations” and “Building operations”. On June 29, 2020 International WELL Building Institute launched the WELL Health-Safety Rating for all building and facility types; this is the first-ever “evidence-based, third-party verified rating focusing on operational policies, maintenance protocols and design strategies to address a post COVID-19 environment.” We are never going back to pre-corona times. The favorite topics of discussion are the future of work and workplace, healthy smart buildings, the future of living, “smart” cities with infrastructure, and the resiliency and sustainability. All accompanied by countless official and unofficial strategies and guidelines.
  7. The data shows that the discussion about future with predictions dropped 55% in June from May (almost back to the April levels). Industry’s focus is on long-term strategies (for the future) and not on predictions and speculations. Another possible explanation is unprecedented acceleration of events making the predictions from previous month a reality in the current month. The future is here.

May 2020 Highlights

  1.  In comparison to the April results, the industry’s interest in (Advance) planning – short- & long-term strategies has increased almost 400% in May, showing the importance of strategies to “survive and thrive”. Although the communication and collaboration were open in almost 100% of references as in April, this category was mentioned in 7.1% of the references only – as if the industry accepted this type of communication as a new normal.
  2.  The category of Procedures of shifting workflows has the highest total representation of 51.8% in the references in comparison to other categories. This shows that the industry continues to provide its service no matter the cancellations and delays, reported shortage of labor, tensions on construction site, reported decrease of backlogs, and reported slowdowns in design / engineering teams due to WFH and virtual communications.
  3. The Health and safety (H&S) issues have been discussed less in May (27.4% vs. 66% in April) because the organizations have implemented the H&S guidelines as they were rolled out in March/ April. May is marked by the increase of mental health issues due to quarantines and economic downturn. Hence, the interest in Management of employees in crisis has increased 60%.
  4. The discussion about the Adoption of new technologies seems to decrease in May due to emergence of two new categories with high interest: Buildings & cities design for the next normal and  Global socio-economic, geo-political developments affecting AEC (indirectly). The adoption of new technologies was only mentioned as a mandatory step forward in April, while May has brought specialized publications and webinars showing that the industry is starting to learn how to implement “new” technologies. Topic-specific publications allowed us to add subcategories listed above.
  5. The discussion about Buildings and cities design in the pandemic and for a next normal was in more than a third of the references. “Silver lining” dropped from 80% in April to 21.4% in May showing that in May the AEC community is still optimistic about the future but cautious and focused on short- and long-term strategies to survive. The discussion about future with predictions increased almost 300%.

April 2020 Highlights

  1. All selected references are publicly available and free showing that the industry understands the importance of working together to survive the crisis. The expression “We are all in this together” came up in almost all webinars/ interviews. All participants openly communicate (100%) challenges, methods, success stories, and opportunities, mostly filled with optimism and empathy showing the understanding of “silver lining” in the crisis (80%).
  2. The majority (2/3) of the references addresses procedures of shifting workflows in pandemic and health and safety of employees, because the industry is focused on current projects; continuing business while keeping the workforce safe.
  3.  40% of references highlights the impact of adoption of online communication and collaboration technologies, and all agree that the future lies in high-tech (automation, robotics, virtual workflows, new hands-free sensor technologies especially in healthcare).
  4. Advance planning and management of employees in crisis were mentioned in 10% of references only, leaving some questions open such as how many businesses were ready for the pandemic (i.e., had a business continuity plan (BCP) before the crisis) and how the managers are keeping the workforce engaged in a new environment after the initial shock and the transition period. After this crisis, certainly every AEC business will have a BCP.
  5. Future predictions came up in approx. 15% of the documents, mostly specialized articles, showing that in the first phase of the pandemic everybody was busy with the transition/ survival.