Innovative Development and Improvement of Existing Practice - Essay Example

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 349175 The labor force in Jordan's construction sector has been facedby motivational problems of the workers which have subsequently resulted to low productivity. The workers have lost confidence, ambitions and inspiration because of the manner in which they are treated. This paper studies the motivational problems faced by these employees, the most appropriate motivational theory and offers a package which can be employed to boost the workers morale and increase workers productivity. It further recommends how these concepts can be integrated into the industry to raise the overall company's productivity. The sector of construction has been playing some significance role in developed as well as undeveloped countries. The workforce in the developing countries such as Jordan is not perceived as a significant input to the industry despite the fact that labour from the construction project contribute the most significant and biggest percentage of the entire costs of project. Thus control of labour costs becomes very crucial for the sake of profitability in this industry. Due to this the managers and contractors considers this labour as high-risk thus any wastage reduction indicates big potential for increase in production efficiency. The Jordanian construction labour force has features of manual, traditional and hard labour. The workers, who have wide range of abilities and social-cultural backgrounds productivity, have their productivity affected by several factors. Research by Kazaz (2008) indicates that there is generally poor productivity of the construction craftsmen which becomes one of the most daunting problems of human resource. There is also poor efficiency of the construction labour. The major reasons for this include the fact that the sector has hardly been employing normal relations and policies related to labour. There has also been ignorance by the managers to perceive the various factors which have impact man power productivity. Productivity risk factor has also been found to create very strong effect on the duration of the construction projects. The poor labour Productivity has led to time overruns in these projects (Kazaz, 2008). Innovative development or improvement of existing practice The workers are the key in every project especially in a construction project. Even amidst the technological advances and innovations happened in the construction sector, the role of the workers cannot be underestimated. They are instrumental in determining the success or the failure of a project; defining the project goal, organization of the project, directing, coordinating and monitoring project activities. They achieve these goals using their interpersonal and organizational skills such as communication, delegation, decision-making and negotiation (Thwala &Monese, n. d, p. 5). Motivation of the workforce is an essential requirement for the growth of an organization irrespective of in which country or region it operates. The needs of the people are changing day by day and traditional motivational techniques may not work in today's work environment. Man, Material, Machine and Money are the four essential resource requirements for an organization. Among these 4M's manpower seems to be the most important one since the manpower controls all the other resources. Man cannot function like a machine since man has physical and mental requirements like food, shelter, happiness etc. In fact man is working only for catering these requirements. Whenever the organization fails to meet the physical and mental requirements of its workforce, the result would be less productivity. The sector of construction has been playing some significance role in undeveloped countries. The workforce in the developing countries such as Jordan is not perceived as a significant input to the industry despite the fact that labour from the construction project contribute the most significant and biggest percentage of the entire costs of project. Thus control of labour costs becomes very crucial for the sake of profitability in this industry. Due to this the managers and contractors considers this labour as high-risk thus any wastage reduction indicates big potential for increase in production efficiency Middle Eastern countries like Jordan, UAE, Syria etc have some similarities in their culture, ethnicity, language, traditions, etc. At the same time these region have lot of differences in the work culture from other regions. It is not possible to manage a project in Middle East or Jordan, same way like it managed in America or England. The project may be the same, but the market or the region of operation is different. It is necessary that even the same project successfully implemented in another part of the world, needs some fine tuning in Middle Eastern region like Jordan for the success. Like many other Middle Easter countries, Jordan is a small country having borders with Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It is not a wealthy country like some of the other counterparts in the Middle East. Based on statistics from the Decent Work Country Programme (ILO Decent Work Country Programme: Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 2006, p.3), the population size is approximately 5.2 million people living in a geographical area consisting of 89,342 km2, and a GDP per capita of $2,106. Jordanian doesn't have much oil resources, but the Jordanian people working in rich oil producing countries are contributing about the one-fifth of the Jordanian GDP. Because of the close proximity with the Palestine, the Israel-Palestine conflicts affect the Jordanian economy also. Moreover, the Iraq war resulted in more than a half a million Iraqi people crossing the border to Jordan for political asylum. The third factor which may affect the Jordanian economy may be the global economic integration, liberalization and reform policies. Jordan is believed to be one of the most liberal countries in the Middle East region. Its culture and lifestyles have more of a western face. Religious fundamentalism is not a problem in Jordan and freedom of worship and freedom to believe in any religion is a long tradition in Jordan. Jordanian media is one of the most liberal and uncensored medias in the Middle East region. Moreover, Jordanian people don't have any restrictions in their dressings unlike many other neighboring countries like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Even the female community enjoys lot of freedom in Jordan and they have almost similar status with their male counterparts. The Unfortunate events the Middle East region has been suffering from the last 130 years of occupation and western dominance have developed innovation-less unproductive work environment. The damned Sykes-Picot Agreement which targeted the heart of the region and dissolved all fundamentals of the unity concept that governed the region and instead, producing small irrelevant countries and economies. A region that was victim to political agendas/ conspiracies, military campaigns and either economical sanctions or agreements that brought nothing but chaos to the region, has become a fertile environment for un-productivity, limitation of innovation and lack of ambitions'. Feelings of devastation, lack of confidence, a dark future perspective and insecurity financially are being a major component of the personality of individuals in the region. All of this has lead to a pool of labors that lack qualifications and their main goal is the paycheck regardless of the amount as long as it's providing shelter and food for him and his family. Furthermore, the inheritance of dictatorship roles from the occupation to government and private levels had lead to significant practices of oppression and complete control of the labor. Information like this would overshadow the backbone of inspiration and ambition for the individual. This is considered one of the major de-motivational factors in the business. Recently some large companies involved in construction have indicated their interest in long term construction projects in the country. Some of these include Emaar and Saudi Ojeh among others. One of the major challenges facing these companies is the lack of quality labor which is conspicuously experienced in the country. There has been no option but to employ the services of the local laborers but this have sometimes produced some chaotic results. Most of the long delays and losses experienced came as a result of lack of motivation, discipline as well as loyalty. For instance, the construction of Adbdoom bridge that was ran by a construction company from Canada was late for more than a year because of the failure of the laborers to complete the project in stipulated duration. In addition to this some of the construction materials were stolen thus putting the project under no productive operation. The Jordan tower is another instance where the project has remained incomplete and late for two years now. Also this has been as a result of labor problems. The Jordanian construction labour force has features of manual, traditional and hard labour. The workers, who have wide range of abilities and social-cultural backgrounds productivity, have their productivity affected by several factors. Research by Kazaz (2008) indicates that there is generally poor productivity of the construction craftsmen which becomes one of the most daunting problems of human resource. There is also poor efficiency of the construction labour. The major reasons for this include the fact that the sector has hardly been employing normal relations and policies related to labour. There has also been ignorance by the managers to perceive the various factors which have impact man power productivity. Productivity risk factor has also been found to create very strong effect on the duration of the construction projects. The poor labour Productivity has led to time overruns in these projects (Kazaz, 2008). In order to adopt a right motivational strategy for the diverse workforce in the Jordanian construction sector, it is necessary to find right "match between a given human resource management approach and the Jordanian country circumstances Al-Yahya et al, 2009, p.16). The motivation efforts must be directed towards the improvement of the company operations and also it should be designed in such a way that the employees also should get some benefits out of it (Thwala &Monese, n. d.,p. 3). Motivational concepts are always connected with the rewards, recognitions and complements. In some cases, the managers might be forced to adopt the punishment methods for motivating the workforce. Different people have defined the motivation theory in different ways. For Campbell and Pritchard (1976), motivation is a set of independent and dependant relationships that explains the direction, amplitude and persistence of an individual's behavior holding constant the effects of aptitude, skills, understanding of a task and the constraints operating in the work environment. Thomas et al. (1990) have established the existence of a linkage between an employees' motivational level and their individual performances (Thwala &Monese, n. d.,p.3). The project form of organizations makes use of project teams to deal with the continuous flow of problems (Morgan, 1997, p.46). Problems are part of every organization and the efficiency of an organization lies in how quickly and effectively it solves the problems. Normally organizations formulate different teams for the sharing of problems and project management teams are one such entity in an organization. A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. (Burke, 2003, p.2)Project management is all about motivating the project team, middle management and the workforce (CIOB, 2002, p.7). It is difficult to yield the desired results if the project team was not motivated properly. The outstanding achievements of a worker in a project team usually considered as the achievement of the team as a whole and the worker will get only the partial benefits out of his outstanding performances. Under such circumstances, it is difficult for a worker to get proper rewards for outstanding performances and the project team leader should find suitable strategies for motivating the workers. According to academia-research.com (2009), the country's construction industry labor force is dominated by the Muslim community and some foreign expatriate. It has also people coming from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Philippines. These diverse workforces are entirely different socially, culturally and linguistically. Jordan is a country in which lot of construction works are going on. The major construction labor force in Jordan consists mainly of Egyptian labor with minimum qualifications and education coming from severe poverty status. Egyptian labor force is cheap compared to other labor forces. Moreover, Syrians and people from other Arab countries are also working in the agriculture and construction sectors of Jordan. The private sector contributes around 98% of the total contributions of the firms in Jordan consists of mainly people from expatriate workforce. Even the public firms have only 37% of the Jordanian workforce (ILO Decent Work Country Programme: Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 2006, p.5).Countries in the Middle East region or Arab world varies in their culture and administration. Highly centralized hierarchical administrations are mostly prevalent in Gulf countries (Al-Yahya et al, 2009, p.12 & 13). For example, UAE is a country consisting of seven emirates each ruled by some wealthy and influential sheikh families. People may not have any freedom to select their administrators. It is a kind of autocratic administration prevalent in most of the gulf countries. The Jordan construction sector's labor force has been characterized by lack of confidence, feelings of devastation, financial insecurity and a dark future perspective. The individuals' personality has lost inspiration and ambition due to practices of oppression and complete labor control (academia-research.com, 2009). This has overshadowed the inspiration, motivation and ambition backbone in the country's construction industry hence its overall performance. In Jordan's Construction industry, there is a general believe that the workers don't just like their jobs. Therefore most companies believe that giving of punishment threats and having proper control of the employees is essential for good productivity. This has not changed the situation as more workers have been expressing their discontentment with these working environments and jobs. Also, the construction companies have not been employing and method of improving productivity. Coming up with best motivational strategy regarding the workforce in Jordan's construction industry, by applying integration of appropriate motivational theory and new concept such as Work and Activity sampling that are linked with some recognitions, rewards and complements considering the circumstances in the country would make it easy for the construction companies to increase output without raising the number of employees. The actual productivity engine would be for the firms to leverage the knowledge, skills and technology they have accrued coupled with these integrated motivational concepts and sampling of workers and activity in order to increase productivity. Motivating the workers for their operation would make them develop pride with what they do. Creating some pride in the employees' job would make the workers to be faster and efficient (CBS Interactive, 2009). Sampling the employees' production level and efficiencies would give chance for greater improvements. McGregor (2009) asserts two theories; theory X and theory Y are used in motivation of workers for better productivity. Theory X asserts that the organizational management assumes that workers are inherently lazy thus likely to avoid work if possible and that the workers inherently dislike job. Subsequently, the management believes that the employees have to be monitored closely and put under a comprehensive control system. According to Theory Y, the management believes that the employees can be self-motivated and ambitious hence practice self-control if they get benefits and a good working environment. The theory further indicates that only the intrinsic commitment motivates the employees well rather than employing financial rewards and punishment threats. The workers, through self-control, and self motivation are believed to enjoy mental and physical duties pertaining their job (McGregor, 2009). A project refers to a temporary endeavor which ahs been established produce a unique product or service for the organization (Maylor, 2009). According to Handley (2009), motivation of the project team and the work force is a significant factor to success of the project and overall productivity of the business. Lack of this motivation would result to the organization experiencing a lot of difficulties in achieving the results it desires. It is the responsibility of the team leader to look out for strategies for motivating these workers for better productivity. Repeated project are simpler to handle as the workers are accustomed to them hence more efficient and motivation (Burke, 2009). The proper implementation of Y theory would help the organization to bring the workers into the mainstreams of the organization which will increase the motivation and the productivity. The will be combination of the motivational theory and a work study as a package in order to obtain some more appropriate results in achieving better productivity. Bassaiouny (2009) holds that work study involves systematically examining the operation or process in order to ensure that the most appropriate material and human resources are available. This would include study of the work measurement and method study employed in human labor measurement in all contexts on the construction sites. The result of this would be systematic investigation of various factors that are affecting the economy as well as efficiency of the work for improvements. The main aim of using work study would be to get optimum utilization of both material and human resources what would be accessed to it. The benefits would include: to find out if there would be: increased productivity and overall production, reduced materials, labor costs and overheads, conditions improvements including excessive fatigue or danger elements, costs control in a more appropriate approach and improvement of quality of work produced (Burke, 2009). The techniques of work study Comprises of two major parts: 1). Method study: This refers to recording systematically and examining critically the proposed and current approaches of currying out operations as a way of establishing and making use of easier and more appropriate approaches which lowers costs. Steps to be employed in Method study would include: i). Selection of work to be studied ii). Recording of all relevant facts iii) Critically examining the facts iv) Developing the most appropriate approach v) Put the approach in use vi). Keep regular checks. This would be done often to ensure reliability of the results recorded. 2) Time study Definition: This would include applying techniques for recording time taken by qualified employees to complete a certain operation at a certain performance level. It would involve recording of time durations as well as work rates for particular operations under some conditions. Time study would be employed in analyzing the data for getting the necessary duration for conducting that operation at that given level of performance. Alongside with Work study, Activity sampling would be used in the package to examine the operations production inefficiencies in the construction site frequently. This would enable the researcher to examine the subsequent applicability of techniques for measurement of work as well as description of effective approaches of manual recording of observations related to activity sampling (Frey, 2009). It will include application of personal work studies recording in several charts together with their advantages and identification of interrelationship between the facts observed and the differentiation between skilled and unskilled workers. Production efficiency rating would also be incorporated also (Peer, 2010). A form that might be sed is showed in appendix A. Since the management creates the assumption that the workers are usually inherently lazy and are likely to avoid work if possible, it is expected that the use of the Y-theory in the most appropriate manner would enable the workers to gain the morale hence have self drive. Motivating the workers would make them establish some pride would make them to be faster and efficient (CBS Interactive, 2009). It is also expected that sampling the employees' production level and inefficiencies would make greater improvements and create higher productivity. This step is the first key milestone in improving productivity. More researches studies and understanding of workers mentality and characteristics must be done to improve productivity and motivate labour. Governments in Jordan and the Middle East must join their people party, adopt laws, policies and steps to ensure and enhance the working environment and increase living standards. There is need for the construction project managers to properly communicate with the workers while elaborating to them the kind as well as the significance of their responsibilities rather than issuing threats and commands in order to motivate well for better productivity (academia-research.com). The managers also need to provide the workers with motivation approaches with intrinsic commitment in order to raise their morale. The companies have to carry out work and activity sampling to increase overall productivity of the companies (Schaefer, 2009).There has been low motivation of workers in Jordan construction industry due to oppression by the management. This has made the employees loose their confidence, inspiration, ambitions and innovation and feelings of devastation. There has not been any approach of increasing productivity in the sites. Subsequently, the industry has been experiencing low productivity due to this (CBS Interactive, 2009). Application of motivational theory Y coupled with Work and activity sampling technique can make the workers gain the desired motivation and increase productivity of the organization. References 1. Al-Yahya Khalid, Lubatkin Michael, and Vengroff Richard (2009), The Impact of Culture on Management and Development: A Comparative Review, Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.dsg.ae/LinkClick.aspxlink=WP09-01.pdf&tabid=308&mid=826 2. Burke, Rory, (2003) Project Management Planning and Control Techniques. Publisher: Halsted Pr; 4th edition Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-Planning-Control-Techniques/dp/0470851244/ref=sr_1_1ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262084936&sr=8-1#noop 3. CIOB (2002) Code of Practice for Project Management for Construction and Development. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell publishing, Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Project-Management-Construction-Development/dp/1405194200/ref=sr_1_1ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262105793&sr=8-1#reader_1405194200 4. ILO Decent Work Country Programme: Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, (2006), Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/program/dwcp/download/jordan.pdf 5. McGregor Douglas (2009), Human relations contributors, Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.accel-team.com/human_relations/hrels_03_mcgregor.html 6. Maylor, H. (2003) Project Management. 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-Harvey-Maylor/dp/0273704311/ref=sr_1_1ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262105006&sr=8-1#reader_0273704311 7. Meredith, J. R. and Mantel, S. J. (1996) Project Management: A managerial approach. Chichester: Wiley, Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.amazon.com/Project-Management-Managerial-Jack-Meredith/dp/0470226218/ref=sr_1_1ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262105329&sr=8-1#reader_0470226218 8. Morgan, G. (1997) Images of Organisation. London: Sage Publications. Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from, http://www.amazon.com/Images-Organization-Gareth-Morgan/dp/1412939798/ref=sr_1_1ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262106347&sr=8-1#reader_1412939798 9. Kazaz, A. (2008). Effect of basic motivational factors on construction workforce productivity in Turkey/Pagrindiniu motyvacijos veiksniu itaka statybos produktyvumui turkijoje, Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1AIT 10. Thwala Wellington Didibhuku & Monese Lydia Nthabiseng, (n. d.), MOTIVATION AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY ON THE CONSTRUCTION SITE Retrieved on 29 December 2009 from http://www.cib2007.com/papers/CIDB2008%20Final%20paper%20No%2024a.pdf Read More