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The study aims to investigate the barriers in implementing social distancing at the workplace as an aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic period.

Study design consists of a review of literature, data collection and analysis. It encompasses identification, verification and analysis of the relationships among the barriers. Data have been collected from a panel of experts on matrix-type questionnaires from workplaces. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) augmented with “Matrice d' Impacts Croise's Multiplication Appliquée a UN Classement (Cross Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification)” (MICMAC) for structural analysis.

The literature has identified twenty major barriers to implementing social distancing at the workplace. The research findings reveal/show that the barrier “matter of disrespect” occupies the bottom level in the ISM model. Therefore, it is the most critical barrier; whereas, employees with disabilities and “herding culture” are crucial as they occupy the next lowest level, therefore, are crucial. Moreover, there are ten barriers positioned in the middle of the model having moderate-severe effects, and seven falls on the top level of the model having relatively less severe effects. Results of MICMAC affirm and avow the results of ISM.

The study will have profound theoretical and practical implications for stakeholders since it provides lot of new useful and valuable information, gives relational insights and determines priorities subject to usual limitations of survey research.

It is an original attempt to make some sense of practicability of social distancing for stakeholders including policymakers, frontline health workers and public at large.

This study aims to help quality professionals in following a precise framework that maintains a company’s performance during health pandemics. In many companies, all quality methods seem to produce performance improvement at different levels, but lean management and kaizen were superior in preparing manufacturing companies to have high readiness levels when faced with a health pandemic.

Which quality method can help businesses in performing well during a health pandemic? In order to answer this question and be able to provide specific recommendations toward performing well in all future health pandemics, 500 manufacturing companies were selected and surveyed. The selected companies are known to use at least one quality method such as lean management, ISO 9001, European foundation for quality management (EFQM) and Six Sigma.

EFQM comes second, then Six Sigma and ISO 9001. Lean creates a healthy workplace and enhances worker's health and well-being. This research helps quality professionals in following a precise framework that maintains performance during health pandemics. Whether the company uses lean or other quality methods, the framework helps in achieving pandemic readiness status. The framework is implemented in a company that does not currently use lean. Implementation resulted in significant improvement in pandemic preparedness, corporate performance and employee well-being.

After the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, all companies should start thinking of creating a workplace that functions well during pandemics. To do that, companies should start including sanitation and health pandemic preparedness as part of their performance measurements. Using lean management and kaizen helps organizations to create a healthy workplace; clean and equipped with smaller number of workers. If organizations choose to use other quality methods, it is okay, but they should enhance these methods with lean tools such as elimination of the seven wastes, gemba, 5S and visual management.

COVID-19 was officially declared as a worldwide pandemic by the World Health Organisation on 11th March 2020, before the UK was put into lockdown on the 23rd March 2020. Organisations had to reconsider their policies and procedures to allow their businesses to continue. This paper aims to focus on the effects of COVID-19 that the UK construction sector has had to undertake to enable businesses while employees had to adhere to COVID-19 lockdown rules. In addition, how the sector can positively continue once normality has returned within the industry. In doing so, this paper understands the historical issues within the construction sector and has had an effect during COVID-19.

A qualitative research methodology approach was taken to help obtain live information. In total, 19 semi-structured interviews from 15 organisations related to the construction sector were conducted to collect data. This information was evaluated using thematic analysis to arrive at the results, inferences and recommendations to the sector.

This research has revealed that companies have had to adopt a three-stage process to overcome a new dimensional challenge of COVID-19. These include: 1. Making quick decisions during the first stage of the pandemic. 2. Producing new policies and procedures to restart businesses enabling staff to return to the workplace safely. 3. Implementing methods to future-proof organisations against any potential pandemics. To help organisations future-proof their business five C’s are recommended.

This paper provides a rich insight into the understanding and awareness of the effects of COVID-19 and the changes that the construction sector has had to undertake to adhere to the lockdown rules while remaining productive. This research contributes towards informing policymakers on some of the lessons learned during the management of the COVID-19 pandemic from a construction sector perspective.

This paper aims to examine new housekeeping procedures introduced in response to COVID-19. The pandemic has required hotels to reassess their standard operating procedures, especially in housekeeping to retain the confidence of guests in the hotel/brand via high standards of sanitization, hygiene and the maintenance of social distancing.

The article draws on publications and announcements made by major brands and associations about their updated standards of cleaning, hygiene and sanitisation, social distancing and workplace protocols arising from the pandemic. Further, a survey was used to determine the impact of new processes on housekeeping teams and their perceptions of its effect on service quality, guests and employee safety.

Some key new processes are: keeping the hotel room vacant for several hours after departure, the sanitisation of every room, cleaning and sanitisation of high touch points, linen and waste management and low frequency or complete avoidance of the cleaning of occupied rooms. The survey questionnaire establishes that housekeepers value their new standard operating procedures (SOPs) and agree that “clinically clean” is the new normal and essential to avoid cross-contamination and keep guests and employees safe.

As the pandemic is a current phenomenon, the guidelines and protocols are rapidly evolving. Hotels are innovating and looking for new processes to manage infection control. This study has mainly focused on cleanliness and hygiene protocols and procedures prevalent in the industry. Currently, future work could be useful to evaluate the long-term impact of COVID-19 on the new processes and procedures that have been deployed.

In order to recover from the pandemic, the Indian hotel industry faces a colossal task. Even when the virus peaks have passed and hotels can safely reopen, the fear of infection will continue and so guest trust and confidence is essential. Given this, the paper should be of interest to hoteliers and policymakers seeking to implement the best possible post COVID-19 housekeeping practices.

This paper identifies and analyses best practice in hotel housekeeping in response to COVID-19. The new standards that are being adopted aim to assure hotel guests and employees about the hygiene and safety measures and standards that have been adopted.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant societal changes and altered how much of the construction industry operates. This study investigates the impacts of pandemic-related changes, how these changes may apply to different companies, and which changes should continue post-pandemic.

We aim to identify pandemic-driven changes that have affected the construction workplace and the advantages and challenges associated with them. We then make recommendations for what could and should endure through the pandemic and beyond, and under what circumstances. To achieve this objective, we conducted both qualitative and quantitative analyses of 40 semi-structured interviews with US-based construction professionals.

Identified through these interviews were 21 pandemic-driven changes across six categories: management and planning, technology, workforce, health and safety, supply chain, and contracts. This study noted both positive and negative impacts of the changes on cost, schedule, productivity, collaboration, employee retention, flexibility, quality, and risk mitigation. Participants indicated that some changes should remain after the pandemic and others (e.g. select safety measures, schedule adjustments) should be temporary.

By incorporating these lessons learned into recommendations, the findings of this study will help businesses identify and implement the most appropriate improvements for their organizations. The findings also provide policymakers with valuable insights on how to promote innovation in the construction industry and potentially enact more effective policies during crises to drive long-term improvements.

This study uncovers how government interventions, in terms of stringency and support, shape coronavirus disease 2019's (COVID-19) detrimental impact on organizations' performance. Specifically, this paper studies whether stringency and support play complementary or substitutive roles in lowering COVID-19's impact on organizations' performance.

The authors gathered primary data from USA manufacturing companies and combined this with secondary data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) to test the proposed model with structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results show that the stringency approach increases the detrimental impact on both operational and financial performance, while economic support (to households) and fiscal spending (to organizations) work differently on lowering the impacts of COVID-19. Further, these combinative effects only influence the firm's operational performance, albeit in opposite directions.

This study advances the knowledge of government interventions by examining stringency and support's direct and interaction effects on firm performance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings contribute to the literature by uncovering the unique roles of both supportive policies, thus differentiating economic support (to individuals/households) from fiscal spending (to organizations) and providing important academic, managerial and policy insights into how government should best initiate and blend stringency and support policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to explore the influence of perceived hope, intrinsic spirituality and supervisor support on job involvement at the time of work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sample included 263 employees working from home (WFH) for the first time in their careers due to COVID-19. The authors applied structural equation model and multigroup analysis (MGA) in SmartPLS3 to examine the hypothesized relationships, and artificial neural network (ANN) analysis to determine the relative influence of the antecedents.

Results indicate that both personal (such as perceived hope and intrinsic spirituality) and job (supervisor support) resources determine job involvement during remote working, with a moderating impact of age on the relationship between intrinsic spirituality and job involvement. The ANN analysis shows that perceived hope is the most influential determinant of job involvement when employees work from home.

This study suggests that when employees work remotely, organizations can generate higher job involvement by conveying a higher perception of hope and spirituality and providing supervisor support through planned hope interventions, promoting prosocial behavior and making changes in leadership style (check on instead of check-in).

This study extends the job demands-resources (JD-R) model with new insights into the impact of personal and job resources on job involvement during the new normal remote working era.

Infrastructure projects are complex, task-based endeavours; the reliability of project schedules is often low, as delays occur. As a result, the infrastructure sector is constantly searching for innovative practices that might improve project performance. This study aims to pursue one research question: what are the benefits and challenges to last planner system (LPS) implementation in Australia’s infrastructure industry? It addresses this question through an examination of two rail infrastructure projects in Victoria, Australia.

The state of Victoria in Australia provides an excellent context for this study. The study was set in one of the programme alliances which was contracted to carry out five level-crossing removal projects. This study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research techniques, including surveys, interviews and site visits. The authors collected 43 valid survey responses. Additionally, 19 participants from the alliance programme’s two projects (Projects A and B) took part in the interviews. Extensive empirical evidence has been triangulated to achieve the research goals.

The findings show through the questionnaire survey that the greatest benefits that digital LPS brings are primarily associated with process improvement and social benefits. The interview results acknowledged that the roll-out of digital LPS had a positive impact on schedules, cost, occupational health and safety (OHS) and quality performance. The research also noted a few challenges in the introduction of digital LPS. Overall, the finding presents strong evidence that the introduction of digital LPS has been a clear success in the case company.

This is the first piece of research to fill this major gap in the LPS literature by exploring the issue of digital LPS adoption in Australia’s infrastructure sector. This study has thus laid the foundation for future work on LPS research in the Australian context. The authors are optimistic that this exploratory work will generate interest across other alliances, and perhaps extend into Australia’s construction sector.