Culture is central to construction's productivity challenge

The right culture is critical to tackling construction’s productivity challenge, said Jim Neill, AOS EMEA regional director from Bentley Systems, at GIRI’s summer members’ meeting, but technology innovations and the responsible use of AI also have an important part to play.  

The construction industry has a productivity challenge, said Jim Neill, but what does this mean? “There are a number of different definitions of ‘productivity’. While the economic definition focuses on how much output can be produced with a given set of inputs, construction definitions tend to be more focused on earned value over actual cost. But there is a common thread, and that is optimising inputs and outputs.”

Productivity challenges

Varied factors influence construction productivity, said Jim. “The majority of contractors cite that one of the biggest challenges with quality and timeline are adequate and upskilled resources. Ineffective project management also leads to challenges, such as poor or incomplete briefings, miscoordination, scope creep, scheduling, and decision-making that is reactive rather than proactive. Likewise, inefficiencies from fragmented workflows, delayed communication, resource misallocation, and a lack of real-time data all contribute to poor scheduling. Safety is also a factor. Safety incidents not only pose human health risks, but they can also lead to expensive stoppages on site, regulatory fines and increased insurance premiums.”

While complex project variables play a part in construction productivity lagging behind other sectors, Jim argued that the lack of commitment to longer term pipelines and partnerships is also to blame. Challenging contractual arrangements also result in low profits across the industry and limited investment in innovation.

“The challenges of productivity are not new, but technology could change how we tackle them. Many reports have been published, and it seems that every year there is another drive to enhance productivity, which begs the question: Why do we struggle as an industry to transform our output?”

Lessons from London 2012

Jim shared some insights from the project to deliver the London 2012 Olympic Stadium as an example of ‘construction productivity at its best’. 

The brief was to design and construct an 80,000-seat stadium, demountable to 25,000 seats for legacy use, to be delivered one month ahead of the opening ceremony. In addition to this design challenge, the site was remediated contaminated land, constrained by two rivers and the Greenway trunk sewer, with a nature reserve in the southwest corner. There were also multiple stakeholders, security and logistical challenges, multiple planning applications, an immovable deadline, and the need to support the Olympic Delivery Authority’s priorities on climate change, waste, biodiversity, inclusion and healthy living.

Despite these challenges, the project was delivered three months ahead of schedule, under budget, and with an exemplar safety record. Among the critical factors in this success, said Jim, was a strong and committed leadership and maximisation of standardisation and prefabrication. However, he believes that culture was the biggest factor. “The culture was focused on safety and the aim of delivering the first Olympic stadium without the loss of a single life. This filtered through the heartbeat of the entire project. Creating the right culture is, in my opinion, one of the single biggest factors in meeting our productivity challenges.”

The role of technology

Jim pointed to the RICS Construction Productivity Report 2026, which highlighted a number of technology-focused interventions to boost productivity, such as investment in digitisation, increased emphasis on data management, and greater investment in site automation. He also referenced the updated edition of the GIRI best-practice casebook and the report launch webinar, both of which shared insights into the technology solutions currently in use in the sector to reduce error and improve productivity. However, he pointed out that challenges remain here too.

“These solutions are a catalyst to improve productivity and should be welcomed, but let’s put our feet back on the ground. Digital adoption among SMEs remains limited. 83% of UK construction firms say digital transformation is a priority, with 81% actively engaged in it. Yet 73% report that digital solutions are only used on 30% of their projects. And these SMEs are a critical part of our industry.”

Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems supports the sector’s productivity challenges via various software solutions, said Jim. These include products that support asset operators to monitor, de-risk, maximise the performance of their assets by predicting intervention requirements and potential failures, and optimising planned asset interventions and maintenance strategies. Or products for 4D scheduling and progress capture, digital twin technologies for real-time site monitoring, a design-and-build project collaboration platform, design solutions such as MicroStation, and OpenSite+, an AI-powered site engineering software.

As an illustration of how these products can improve productivity, Jim said that the use of 4D construction software Synchro on a project to deliver a £1.3 billion nuclear waste treatment facility saved £80 million and 500 days of work by avoiding potential clashes and saving future rework.

In closing he said: “At the end of the day, it's not about the technology, it's about the outcomes that technology can help businesses achieve. Similarly, it’s not about the data itself, which is valuable, but using this data to help enable the right decisions, and that's where the real value is realised. And we must never underestimate the power of cultural alignment in achieving extraordinary productivity results. With the advancement of innovation technology and the integration of AI in a controlled way, the opportunity for industry to achieve greater productivity remains massive.” 

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