Monday, November 2, 2020

Introduction about Employee Motivation and Construction Industry



The construction industry is regarded as one of the most important key factor in the country’s economy (Yong and Mustaffa, 2012). It cooperates with diverse professions including structural engineering, architecture, civil engineering, quantity surveying, building surveying, project management.(Cheng, 2001). However, the poor performance of the construction industry is mentioned by some reports principally. Moreover, due to varying construction economic, innovative machineries, novel talents, government policies the developing countries are facing many challenges. 

All organizations want to achieve success, even in the current highly competitive environment. Because of that companies regardless of size and market, endeavor to retain the best employees, recognizing their significant role and have an effect on organizational success. So, overcome these situations companies should build up strong and positive bond with their employees and direct them to completion of their tasks (Bobre, 2013)

To reach the organizational goals, keep employees motivated should not be enough, helping employees to achieve their individual personal career goals is a significant part of their motivation (Naile and Selesho, 2014). According to Bobre (2013) only few organizations consider the human capital as being their key strength. employees are not satisfied with their roles and not motivated to achieve their tasks and goals; the organizations cannot achieve success.

Motivation can be defined as an emotional procedure for persons that could reason the commencement of certain performance (Pinder, 2008; Arshadi, 2010). Motivation is the word used to discuss the intention why people work and explain how individuals direct their effort over time to achieving a shared, structural objective (Darrington and Howell, 2011). Motivation is an essential factor for managers because it, beside with capability and environmental factors, determines individual enactment (Griffin, 2012). According to Naile and Selesho (2014) motivation is the driving force in pursuing and satisfying one's needs.

Motivation also defined as the process of an individual person’s passion, direction and persistence. The effort toward reaching a goal or task, meaning the outcome of the interaction between an individual and a situation (Robbins, Judge, Odendaal & Roodt, 2009)

Balhaji (2008) classifies the following characteristics of motivation,

  • Motivation is based on human needs and is generated within an individual.
  • Motivation is whole, individual only motivated by fulfilling certain needs completely, not partially.
  • Motivation is a continuous process because if one need is satisfied, new ones arise.
  • Motivation triggers goal-oriented behavior; a person behaves in a way that satisfies his or her goals or needs.
  • Motivation is a complex process, because motivation is different from individual. understand a diversity of needs and have to use variety of rewards to motivate them.

 

Reference

Arshadi, N. (2010) ‘Basic need satisfaction, work motivation, and job performance in an industrial company in Iran’, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences., 5, pp. 1267–1272.

 

Balhaji, J. (2008). Motivation theory. Social Science Research Network, 1-12.

 

Bobre, O.-I. (2013) “Employee motivation and organizational performance,” Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research.

 

Cheng, E. W. L. et al. (2001) ‘Network communication in the construction industry’, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 6(2), pp. 61–70.

Darrington, J. W. and Howell, G. A. (2011) ‘Motivation and incentives in relational contracts’, Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction, 16(1), pp. 42–51.

Griffin, R. W. (2012) Management Fundamentals. 6th edn. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Naile, I. and Selesho, J. M. (2014) “The role of leadership in employee motivation,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences.

Pinder, C. C. (2008) Work motivation in organizational behavior.USA: Prentice Hall. Reich.

Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A., Odendaal, A. & Roodt, G., (2009). Organisational Behaviour: Global and South African Perspectives. 2nded. Cape Town: Pearson Education Inc

Yong, Y. C. and Mustaffa, N. E. (2012) ‘Analysis of factors critical to construction project success in Malaysia’, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management.

 

 

 

 


31 comments:

  1. Agreed, Based on Latham and Pinder’s (2005) definition, for an employee, motivation is a set of internal and external energetic forces. Motivation triggers the effort to perform a task. Motivation also determines the three characteristics of such effort: direction, intensity, and persistence (Latham and Pinder 2005). Campbell (1970) defined motivation as “the extent to which persistent effort is directed toward a goal”. Motivation is a critical factor affecting construction crew performance. An effective job performance often requires high levels of both ability and motivation; therefore, motivation is a critical consideration (Maier 1955).

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    1. Agreed Malithra as you mention, Griffin (2012) describes key elements; (1) Intensity: how hard a person tries (2) Direction: toward beneficial goal (3) Persistence: how long a person tries. The motivation processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward reaching a goal.

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  2. According to Wanous and Zany (1977), conducted a study that supported the integrity of ERG categories. Assessing the relationship between need satisfaction, importance, and fulfillment, they found that need fulfillment moderated satisfaction and importance. In other words, the importance of the need was based on the manner of its fulfillment. In addition, this phenomenon was more likely to exist within the categories of existence, relatedness, and growth, rather than between them.

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    1. Agreed Malinga, ERG Theory is an amendment of the Maslow’s hierarchy by decreasing quantity of need types. Alderfer originated simply three levels of needs: (1) existence or survival (E); (2) relatedness (R), recognition and status from others; and (3) growth (G), success and autonomy (Wiley, 2008).

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  3. Hi Supun,Employee Motivation, in construction field deserves a probe of much on a larger scale, since the perspiring contribution of the worker community requires that impulse in abundance. The lavish exertion of same in a more strategic manner will stimulate the productivity rates which appears to be low in construction compared to the manufacturing (Barg, Ruparathna, Mendis and Hewage, 2014).

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    1. The construction industry is in an energetic and fragmented situation, with discrete construction project teams regularly comprising of improvised activities of clients, contractors, architects, and quantity surveyors (Smithers and Walker, 2000). As a construction industry nature organizational goals will include increased productivity and efficiency, and it is generally acknowledged that workforce motivation is an influencing factor in these areas (Anna B Parkin, Tutesigensi and Büyükalp, 2009).

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  4. Construction industry is considered a labor-intensive industry and due to the high labor component organizations spend a significant cost on labor. Therefore, controlling the labor cost can make a substantial change in profitability for the organization. One way of reducing labor cost is improving the productivity of the existing workers. Productivity has a direct link with motivation as quality of the human performance at workplace depends largely upon motivation. Higher motivation brings higher productivity (Kazaz, A, Manisali, E & Ulubeyli, S, 2010).

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    1. Moreover, Due to the background of construction process plus exceptionality of any project, both, workers and site administration, improve a pride, contentment, and self-esteem owing to perceiving regular progress transforming into a visible product over their individual struggles. Therefore not like other professions, wherever great career fulfillment tends to better productivity, the fulfillment of project managers and it is resulted to high productivity in project (Darrington and Howell, 2011)

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  5. Hi Supun, agree with you, Motivation can be defined as a force that causes people to engage in a particular behaviour more than any other. More specifically, motivation is represented by three elements: behavioural choice, intensity, and persistence (Stewart and Brown, 2011, 419).

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    1. Yes Ranga, Motivation has a variety of definitions. According to Rose and Manley (2011), motivation is intangible, a supposed construct that is used to explain human behavior. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic.

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  6. Employee Motivation, in construction field which is considered a labor-intensive industry increasing productivity and keeping minimum turn over is challenge.. Motivation can affect both the acquisition of people’s skills and abilities; and also, the extent to which they utilize their skills and abilities” (Locke and Latham, 2004).

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    1. Workers who are highly motivated will input maximum efforts because of self-fulfillment from doing so, and resulting in high productivity. In order to maximize productivity toward the success of the long-term motivation schemes are required to fulfil higher-order needs of esteem and self-realization of employees (Lam and Tang, 2003).

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  7. Hi Supun, Leading employees is about motivating them, motivating them to a higher level of performance and directing their hard work. Managers have a variety of positive motivational tools, such as communicating a vision, rewarding and recognizing benefits, encouraging, and personally thanking employees and also have negative motivational tools such as discipline, pressure and coercion (Kathleen, 2008). Being a manager alone is not enough. Organizations want their managers to be leaders in motivating employees and encouraging them to do their best to achieve goals.

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    1. Hi Eranga, According to Lam and Tang (2003), employees in construction industry are highly motivated if they are permitted to convey their opinions to their supervisors and managers. Communication through for different organizational levels and between levels should be established for the exchange of information and workers’ involvement in decision-making. Rewarding system, employees should be treated fairly and equally by clearly defining and communicating the system to them, making honest evaluations, and rewarding according to effort of participation, performance, skill level and desired behavior of the employees.

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  8. As per Kinicki and Kreitner (2001), Motivation correlate to such emotional processes that cause the inspiration and determination of voluntary actions that helps to attain the goals. The main focus of organization is to invest on their employees in the form of rewards in search of development, motivation and increase in the performance of human resource and the most commonly used motivation tool was the reward management system which has impact on to motivation to retain the employees to perceive high level of performance (Barber and Bretz, 2000).

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    1. Agreed Chamila, Addition to that, The employees should be able to realize the rewarding system and the rewards they will receive upon various levels of their performance and in direct proportion to their increased productivity. In construction projects, team unit rather than individual is normally approved for incentive evaluation (Lam and Tang,2003).

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  9. I agree with you; the construction industry is regarded as one of the most important key factors in the country's economy. All organizations want to achieve success, even in the current highly competitive environment. To reach the organizational goals, keep employees motivated should not be enough. Helping employees to achieve their individual personal career goals is a significant part of their motivation (Yong and Mustaffa, 2012).

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    1. Agreed Malinga, The construction industry is in an energetic and fragmented situation, with discrete construction project teams regularly comprising of improvised activities of clients, contractors, architects, and quantity surveyors. The building process is complicated, vigorous and ambiguous and it is mainly a people supervision business (Smithers and Walker, 2000).

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  10. Hi Supun,Interesting to read about motivation in Constriction industry and adding more to your references per the view of Ganta (2014)Inspiring employee motivation requires much more than the old-fashioned carrot- and-stick approach. Today’s manager needs to understand the reasons why employees work and offer the rewards they hope to receive. Motivated employees have a drive to succeed no matter what the project. Managers cannot “motivate” employees, but they can create an environment that inspires and supports strong employee motivation. Every individual in an organization is motivated by some different way. When talking in term of employee motivation, it can be simply defined as “Employee motivation is a reflection of the level of energy, commitment, and creativity that a company's workers bring to their jobs.” The job of a manager in the workplace is to get things done through employees (Shahzadi 2014).

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    1. Hi Madura, Thank you for yor valable comment. Lam and Tang (2003) states that Managers should implement the motivation program progressively and monitor the outcome at regular intervals to see if the program is having the desired effect. Prior to implementation, workers or their representatives should be consulted for opinions and participation towards the success of the program. In construction projects, direct methods to evaluate the rewarding system and the level of performance are work measurement techniques and learning curve method (Oshagbemi,2003).

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  11. Adding onto your valuable post, motivation is a main factor that drives productivity and performance and a motivated employee will have the desire to achieve a certain performance level, leading to goal-directed behavior and a role model to subordinates (Mitchell 1982). To motivate employees, the organization leaders must focus on identifying the drives and necessities of the employee seeking to satisfy in terms of personal and working environment. The core factor, which will inspire employees to, to achieve corporate goals, provide better service, innovation, or to increases productivity is to keep the subordinates happy and motivated and it will boost the company performance in overall aspects (Varma 2017).

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    1. Yes Dimuthu, Moreover, productivity is normally used to definite relationship among a arrangement’s output and input (Yi and Chan, 2013). Productivity is a crucial factor in the construction projects and also its stakeholder consideration is consistently dedicated on better resource consumption and productivity (Dolage and Chan, 2013). Productivity of construction project is improved by decreasing budget and period, and then it escalates the profitability of project and participate to better financial position totally (Dolage and Chan, 2013).

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  12. Agree with you, If employees are not satisfied with their work and are not willing to accomplish their work the organization cannot achieve the goal. Companies must build strong and positive relationships with employees and turn to solution fulfillment (Dobre,2013).The most successful motivation is self motivation therefore, Employee can apply this for personal life or organization to achieve objects and targets (Diamond and Diamond, 2010)

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  13. Alignment of aims, purpose and values between staff, teams and organization is the most fundamental aspect of motivation and the better the alignment and personal association with organizational aims, the better the platform for motivation(Azis, et al., 2018).

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    1. Agreed Kelum, Teams are the beginning for lot of tasks, which are completed, and also they develop equally inside and outside restrictions of the organization or project (Griffin, 2012). There should be a collaborative and supportive working environment among people as per a team, for that guidelines are the significant aspects they have to follow, when working in the construction projects (Limsila and Ogunlana, 2007). Griffin (2012) states motivators common to construction projects are good craft relationship, good orientation program, good safety program, work itself, overtime, pay, recognition, goals defined, open house and project tours, projects well-planned and suggestions solicited.

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  14. Adding something more to your content, the role of management is to apply organizational resources to achieve organizational objectives. Industry in general, including the construction industry, is aware of the importance of human resources in the achievement of such objectives (Yankov and Kleiner 2001). As a result of the nature of commercial enterprise organizational goals will include increased productivity and efficiency, and it is generally acknowledged that workforce motivation is an influencing factor in these areas.

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    1. Agreed Kanishhka, The manager’s leadership styles are the important reason to increase project productivity. It is the capability of the executive to inspire his juniors by making them more contented, devoted and in return rises productivity (Khan et al., 2012).

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  15. Employee motivation means how devoted an employee is to his job, how engaged he feels with company’s goals and how empowered he feels in his daily work (Ashley Donohoe 2018). Motivation is the method which reflect employee’s determination, direction and passion (Pinder,2008).

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    1. Agreed Thilini, According to Shurrab, Abbasi and Khazaleh (2017) motivation can demarcate by means of an emotional practice for persons which could reason for the implementation of confident performance.

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  16. Researchers have recommended that employee’s commitment toward their organizations will enhance their satisfaction and which will benefit the firm (Morris & Sherma, 1981). Moreover, researchers have stressed that satisfied and encouraged employees are crucial to the organization effectiveness (Rachel, Yee, Yeung, Edwin, 2010). Also, business and company’s succession depends on motivated employee; they can make all the difference in the company’s ability not to just survive but also to succeed (Hislop, 2003).

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