Temporary Works Are Changing. Is Your Workflow Ready?
Temporary works may be temporary, but the decisions, responsibilities and risks behind them are anything but simple. As construction becomes more connected, could digital technology change the way temporary works are managed?
Brendan Attewell, Co Founder of Working Load, has spent years working at the intersection of temporary works safety, risk management and construction technology. Founded in New Zealand in 2021, Working Load combines industry recognised training, governance consulting and a customised technology platform to help construction teams improve compliance, communication, visibility and accountability.
We asked Brendan three questions about what needs to change, where technology can make a difference and what the future of temporary works could look like.
Temporary works remain one of the most critical areas of construction risk management. What challenges did you identify in traditional processes that led to the creation of Working Load’s technology platform?
BRENDAN ATTEWELL:
Every person in construction has their own story of temporary works that have gone wrong, frustrated site activities or blown budgets. Over my career I have worked in roles that have covered the full lifecycle of temporary works design and management, not just in New Zealand and the South Pacific, but also in the UK under BS5975 and CDM regulations, processes that standardise expectations for contractors towards temporary works management and safety by design.
Working Load was developed based on my experience of returning to New Zealand in 2017 and having to then navigate an industry that had pockets of excellence, but was generally without consistency between sites, even inside the same organisation.
Traditional processes such as BS5975 have been refined over decades of implementation, feedback and revision. The New Zealand and Australian Good Practice Guidelines are rightly aligned to those same expectations of BS5975.
However, the challenge to successful implementation has largely remained the same, where execution of the process and current status of compliance is reliant on and entrusted to one key individual, the Temporary Works Coordinator. Temporary works is too great of a risk to rely on the diligence and performance of one person, generally in addition to much wider project responsibilities.
Working Load was developed to enable organisations to achieve consistent, effective and operationally sustainable procedural control, through a tool that supports all users not just with a hard coded compliance driven workflow, but with tailored training and technical libraries to support their decision making.
Many construction companies struggle with fragmented systems and disconnected project information. How can connected workflows improve communication, accountability and decision making on site?
BRENDAN ATTEWELL:
With Working Load, we set out from the beginning with the goal to make sure that information presented to users was always correct and broadly available to all team members.
If we use multiple systems to host, transfer, communicate and report on temporary works information, then the true and live status of the temporary works register is rarely, if ever, consistently achievable. By creating a platform that puts a live temporary works register at the centre of the workflow, confidence in compliance is directly aligned to the real time status reported in the system and the resulting performance metrics.
In developing a standalone solution for a workflow that required adoption by multiple users from multiple organisations to be successful, we knew a project based subscription model for use was a minimum requirement. This meant opening the platform to all project users who may otherwise be used to accessing communication tools through various means.
Working Load was developed with an open API, meaning integrations and automations for client organisations to connect to is not just achievable, but expected. We have already connected Working Load to several clients project and enterprise construction management platforms.
Temporary Works is a bit of a dirty word in construction as it is a regular source of frustration for all contractors. We believe a standalone solution to support project governance and drive compliance with confidence is warranted, but it will never be the centre of the contractors project environment. Workflows do need to be connected, but they need to be effective first.
As AI, automation and digital platforms become more embedded in construction, where do you see the biggest opportunities to improve safety and productivity across the industry?
BRENDAN ATTEWELL:
One of the things that we found with digitising a traditionally paper based workflow was how much double handling of information was previously required, largely driven by the constraints of what tools are common between organisations. While there have been updates and revisions to BS5975 since 1982, the key principles to effective procedural control of temporary works is still underpinned by competency.
Faxes have become emails, drawings have become CAD files, hand calculations have become extracts from design software, but the need for a competent person to take ownership of tasks and put their name against Designs, Checks and Permits to Load, fundamentally remains.
We need to enable the user through these digital platforms to develop their knowledge and grow their competency while solving the task at hand.
It’s one thing to automate the process and reporting metrics, but decisions inside those processes need to be made by an informed and competent person, not a user relying on AI to provide solutions to unique construction challenges that regularly carry high consequences of failure.
The biggest opportunity for improved safety and productivity is in how we can use new technology to support the competency of the user to make the right decision, with the right information at the right time.
There is no doubt that digitised workflows will save our projects administrative time, but the use of these platforms to support critical thinking is where Working Load’s value is primarily realised.
Join Brendan Attewell at the Construction Technology Leaders Summit 2026 as he explores how technology and data can support better outcomes across construction. View the brochure to discover more about his session and the full two day agenda.
