New Normal in the Construction Industry a Covid-19 Effect

Construction is one of the oldest and major industries in the world that makes substantial contribution to the national economy and provides employment to a great number of individuals. In the early part of year 2020, COVID-19 pandemic arises that has turned into a worldwide catastrophe, evolving at high speed and scale. The impacts on the construction industry have been sudden and wide-ranging. This outbreak changes the usual daily activity and ‘The New Normal’ is introduced. Construction companies are moving forward, with strict regulations that end up as the new normal for the industry. This study explored the adaption to this new normal in Nueva Ecija, Philippines and seeks out if there’s a relationship between adaption to new safety protocols and the category also the number of workers in a company. Survey was done for data collection. SPSS 25 software was used for data analysis. Result reveals that although the percentage of adaption to new normal is great, still there are areas that needs improvement. In addition, the company’s category and the number manpower does indeed has correlation on the adaption to new normal. This study is essential to ensure responsible, healthy, safe operations, and serve as protection of workers.


I. INTRODUCTION
Construction is one of the oldest and one of the major industries in the world that makes a substantial contribution to the national economy and provides employment to a great number of individuals.
In the early part of the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic arises that has turned into a worldwide catastrophe, evolving at high speed and scale. No industry is immune to this crisis. The impacts on the construction industry have been sudden and wide-ranging. This outbreak changes the usual daily activity of people and what we know now as 'The New Normal'. Construction companies are moving forward now, with strict regulations enforced by the government and local authorities, to ensure responsible, healthy, and safe operations under COVID-19 and safeguard the survival of the business as well as the protection of workers. These new regulatory standards end up sticking around as the new normal for the industry.
The study explored the new normal in the construction industry in the province of Nueva Ecija. Furthermore, the study seeks out if there is a significant relationship between the adaption of new safety protocols and the category of the company also the number of workers.

A. General Objective
The objective of this study is to explore the new normal in the construction industry in the province of Nueva Ecija.

B. Specific Objective
1. Determine the percentage of construction companies that adapt the safety protocols implemented by the Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines in terms of material deliveries, manpower, machinery, and money. 2. Determine if there is a significant relationship in the adaption of safety protocols and the category of the construction company (Quadruple A, Triple A, Double A, etc.). 3. Determine if there is a significant relationship between the adaption of safety protocols and the number of their manpower.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The data fetched from the survey is from the respondents across the province of Nueva Ecija. It was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Figure 4-1 presents the distribution of these respondents based on their district. The highest number of participants is from District 3 with 43.33%, followed by District 2 with 23.33%, District 4 and District 1 with 16.67%.

Figure 4-1. Respondents Location
The distribution of respondents in Table IV-1 shows that the participants are skilled professionals considering their designation in their company. Over 90% of the participants are, directly working at site projects as such their responses regarding the study context are deemed essential and valid. Moreover, their company's category and the number of manpower are of the study interest. The respondents are highly experienced in the industry, with over 70% of them having more than 5 to 10 years of industry experience. On the other hand, the respondents are generally from Triple A to DTI Registered only there are no Quadruple A company registered at Nueva Ecija. A reliability test is conducted to discover an internal consistency of the items and the scale used. In this way, Cronbach's alpha is used for examining the reliability, and relates with George and Mallery's (2003) adequacy. Any coefficient of Cronbach's alpha that is greater than 0.6 is considered acceptable. The Cronbach's alpha result of the 47 significant variables of this study (presented in Table IV-2) demonstrates a true and acceptable reliability of the inter-item and the scale of measurement. Manpower, 3.
Money. About 99% of contractors already adapt the new normal in terms of Money, followed by machinery with 97%, then manpower with 94%, and lastly the material deliveries, which is only 93%.   This statistical test ranges from -1 to +1, where a result of -1 means that there is a negative correlation and a result of +1 means that there is a positive correlation. The correlation between two variables can be determined by the formula: Based on the results of the study, the company's category has a very strong and positive relation to the adaption of safety protocol r = .979, p < .01.
In addition, based on the participants' responses, test scores are grouped per company's number of manpower as presented in figure 4.4 for the purpose of analysing if there is a significant relationship with the company's number of manpower and adaption to safety protocols using Pearson' Correlation.

Figure 4-4 -Percentage of Adaption to New Normal Based on
Company's Number of Manpower. Based on the results of the study, the company's number of manpower has a very strong and positive relation to the adaption of safety protocol r = .995, p < .01.

CONCLUSION
Till date the whole world is suffering from COVID-19. Construction industry must keep moving forward with the new normal guided by the strict regulations enforced by the government and local authorities, to ensure responsible, healthy and safe operations for construction-related operations under COVID-19 and safeguard the survival of business as well as the protection of workers. In this study it shows that 95% of the construction companies in the province of Nueva Ecija already adapt the new normal which is beneficial to the manpower, the construction companies, the society and the government since it shows that safety protocols are adhered and this may prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the province. However, results discovered that there are still areas needs to be improved in adapting the new normal especially in dealing with material deliveries. By testing the adaption of new normal in Nueva Ecija, this study established that the category of the company as well as the number of the manpower does indeed have a significant relation on the adaption of new safety protocols. Large companies (Triple A to Single A) even small companies (B to DTI Registered Only) are able to adapt. Furthermore, the companies with smaller number of workers are able to follow the guidelines more since there are lesser manpower to monitor. Though, a 100% compliance is still needed for a safer workplace.