What were your thoughts as you travelled to work on 2 January? Were you glad to be back at it after the Christmas break, or dreading the 150 unread emails clogging up your inbox?

Life can be frantic and sometimes stressful – for you and your team. Last year a CIOB survey showed that 68% of construction professionals admitted to suffering from stress. So why not resolve to do something about it this year?

You may think that details such as which shirt to wear and when, how to maintain a happy relationship with your partner, or ways to get your staff healthy are not essential information for your average construction professional. But I would urge you to take the Clive Woodward approach to management, by considering improvements wherever you can if they’re going to impact on overall performance.

We’ve marshalled expert suggestions which range from the straightforward (streamline your meetings) to the taxing (sort out your purpose in life). We hope that you will find at least one little nugget of inspiration in there.

There’s inspiration too, in our Tomorrow’s People article, a theme we plan to continue throughout 2007. We’ve picked out four people who we think, for different reasons, are of the future.

... even when it comes to safety

If you’re sick of head office’s behavioural safety drive and those well-meaning but sometimes hard-to-swallow speeches from board directors who are “committed to safety”, why not try something more down to earth?

Research from Glasgow Caldedonian University has identified the best way to get workers talking about safety issues and making meaningful suggestions on how to do things differently – and more safely.

Continuing the safety theme, there’s a briefing on the main changes in the new CDM regulations, due to take force in April this year, from the HSE.

Source

Construction Manager