Tuesday 28 April 2020 marks the beginning of the staged approach to returning to work under the Government’s Alert Level programme.
With the Alert Level dropping to Level 3, we can now begin to integrate our people back into the workforce under strict new health and safety procedures recommended by the Government.
At McKenzie & Co. we’re preparing a select group of our people to return to work in the field. This includes our survey teams in Auckland, Taupo and Rotorua, as well as some of our engineers and development managers. The rest of our people will continue to working from home until further notice.
We’ve put the health and safety of our people first from the beginning. We sent them to work from home before lockdown was announced and we will continue to uphold a proactive and high standard of health and safety going forward.
We have adopted the recommended health and safety practices for the construction industry including the COVID-19 Standard for New Zealand Construction Operations (Construction Sector Accord, 2020b) and the New Zealand COVID-19 Construction Protocols (Construction Sector Accord, 2020a), along side our own company policies.
Of significance are four key principles:
1. Maintaining a physical distance of at least 2 metres
2. Continuing good oral hygiene (e.g. washing hands regularly, coughing or sneezing into elbows or tissues and disposing of these immediately)
3. Twice daily cleaning of equipment and vehicles
4. Location and contract tracing
This approach will go far beyond looking after our people. They will protect all players in our industry from clients to contractors and suppliers.
We are very proud of all of our staff who stepped up big time under Level 4 and sustained the workloads to ensure that there was zero loss of productivity. This has provided both us and your projects with an excellent springboard to go into Level 3 with real confidence and the best chance to re-gain any lost momentum on the site works front.
We’re looking forward to getting back out there and progressing with our projects. We appreciate things are going to be a little different for some time. We ask for your patience as we navigate what lies ahead, and likewise you will receive this from us in return.
See you out there and stay safe.
Clayton McKenzie, James Kitchen and Andrew Hunter
McKenzie & Co. Directors
