PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING

CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to identify and investigate the factors linked to employee
motivation and to assess the role of work motivation on employees’ performance. This study
is descriptive, designed to obtain views from clients, consulting firms, regulatory boards and
construction firms in regard to factors affecting employees’ motivation in building
construction projects. Literature review, questionnaires and interviews techniques were used
to collect data for the study. Findings reveal that the most factors affecting employees’
motivation are: increase in salary, achievement, the work itself, promotion, responsibility,
recognition, relation with co-worker (union), company policy and working condition. The
study concludes the most motivation factors which affects employees’ motivation and also
recommended how to motivate the employees in order to accomplish the organizational goals
according to given schedule.

This proposal has three major parts. Chapter one of these proposals presents the background,
objective, scope & limitation of the proposal. While the second part of this study is a
literature review on factors affecting employees’ motivation in TEPPI town building
construction projects. The third part describes the study methodology in writing this proposal.

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Background
Human force is considered the most valuable asset of an organization and different factors
affect its performance and efficiency. In today's world of non-stop change, in which
organizations are competing with all their capabilities, a big portion of organization's energy
is put into the attention given to staff. Relying on their human force inside the organization,
today's organizations can improve their activities as much as possible, and they can have an
active participation in different markets (Foster, 2001). Clearly, to be able to fulfill the duties
and responsibilities, the organization requires staff with some features such as innovation,
good human relations, and commitment to ethics, being interested in the job and service
development, and constant effort (Blannie &Radhakrishna, 1991). Nowadays in developing
countries, the most important organizations' problem is the lack of specialist, and absence of
motivation and job satisfaction among staff; in most countries, there is no precise and clear
definition of human resources management (Babu et al., 1997).
Motivational Factors: Motivation is yield to many elements as salary, promotion, working
environment, training and development, recognition, personal goals, job security, workloads
and administrative practices. At the end of the study, we make some recommendations for the
company to counter this issue. This study will be a great help to managers and Human
Resources professionals to raise the productivity of the company by increasing the motivation
of their employees. The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting employees’
motivation in TEPPI town construction sector.

1.2 Statement of the problem

The motivational factors are one of the problems on each employee performance in
performing the organizational goal in the construction industry. Also these motivational
factors influence the interest and effectiveness of the employee in their daily working
activities. The factors which affect the employees’ motivation in the construction industry
may many things, so in this proposal we are going to study these factors affecting employees’
motivation before they happen in ordered to the employees perform their daily working
activities actively.

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

1.3 Objective of the study

1.3.1 General objective
The aim and objective of this proposal is to analyze the factors affecting employees’
motivation in building construction projects and forward our recommendations for future
action.
1.3.2 Specific objective
 To identify the factors affecting employees motivation
The specific objective of this study is to prepare feasibility for analyzing factors affecting
employees’ motivation in building construction projects. The study focuses on the most
factors which affects employees’ motivation in building construction projects.
1.4 Research questions
1. What are the factors affecting employees’ motivation in building construction project?
1.5 Significance of the study
This study attempts to identify the factors affecting employees’ motivation in building
construction projects. The significance of this study has a main important part in construction
industry by evaluating the factors which affects employees’ motivation that faced during the
work of one project. Therefore this proposal will have a greater value by motivating the
employees to perform the organization goals/activities per a given period of schedule and to
suggest the organizations to motivate employees.
1.6 Scope of the study
The scope of a proposal can be built using four different parameters. These included:
Significance, Delimitations, Definitions and Limitations of the study. This proposal has
therefore used these parameters in determining its scope. Practice shows there is rare
employees’ motivation in construction projects. We believe that most of the factors that
contribute to the above truth are related to the employees’ motivation in many projects. The
significance of this proposal is to enhance the interests and performance of employees by
addressing the factors affecting employees’ motivation are as main issue. The following four
major issues were delimited in this proposal. These delimitations were related to the focus of
the research problem. The three main focuses are:
 The factors affecting employees motivation
 Employee motivation and employee productive
 Employee motivation and satisfaction

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

 building construction projects

1.7 Limitations of study
The following limitations were encountered in this study:
 Limitation of financial resources
1.8 Operational definition key terms
Motivation is defined as “the intention of achieving a goal, leading to goal-directed behavior.

Motivation is “a process which starts or improves organizational behaviors encourages an

ongoing activity and directs activities towards specific targets” (Madsen, p. 46).

Motivation is a process of satisfying employees’ different needs and expectations; therefore,

administrators have to be aware of and analyze those unique, individual needs.

Motivating employees is a way to make them to give their best to the organization for the
achievement of organizational goals.

Job satisfaction is a general attitude towards one’s job (Schermerhorn, Hunt & Osborn 1997;
Robbins, 2001).

Motivation Factors: are factors that their existence results in satisfaction and motivation,
while their nonexistence doesn't cause dissatisfaction.

Performance is a function of motivation, ability, and the environment in which you work.

Productivity measures how efficiently resources are employed. It is defined as the ratio of a
specific measure of output to a specific measure of input per unit of labor.

Human Resource Management is defined as a system of activities and strategies that are
focused on managing the success of employees at all levels of the organization and also help
them to achieve the organizational goals (Byars & Rue, 2006).

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

CHAPTER TWO

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION

It is a common belief that motivation factors have moral and direct influences on
relationships to personal productivity. Productivity in the construction industry depends upon
the effort of the performance or effort of construction parties. In an attempt to gain insight
into this subject, Maloney (1981) conducted a review of factors of motivation of factors of
job motivation in the construction industry. Similarly, Maloney and McFillen (1988)
presented a model of construction crews’ motivation, performance and satisfaction, including
results from other studies that support the validity of their model. In the model, motivation
was defined as a function of a worker’s expectancy, which provides a means of
understanding and assessing worker’s level of performance, instrumentality and satisfaction.
Expectancy means a work team can serve to clarify or modify worker’s perceptions of the
objective they are pursuing. A work team can have a significant impact upon worker’s
perceptions that an organization gives reward for specific kinds of performance. Work team
can also constitute their own source of social and extrinsic reward for their team members
and there by create their own instrumentalities between behavior and team administered out
comes. In addressing the subject of motivation in the construction industry, there are a
number of factors considered to be most effective job motivators. Beside monetary reward,
there are other important factors such as challenging work, job recognition, and a sense of
achievement and a feeling of personal growth. Indirectly, all these factors affect moral and
thus have direct relationship to personal productivity. Daniel (1993) comments; “an increase
in motivation and personal productivity is more likely to occur and be derived from the work
environment and the work itself’.

Motivation is operationally defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish
personal and organizational goals.

Motivation can be defined as a “combination of influences that causes the individual to want
to do the job as quickly and/or as good as possible consistent with safety and quality goals
while cooperating, on a larger scale, with his team in execution of the project as a whole”
(Warren, 1989 p. 2). Evidently, motivation drives the employee to perform the task at hand in

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

a timely and efficient manner in unison for a common purpose while preserving quality
standards.

A motivated team can exert a major influence on the success of a project (Anchor 2000).
Conversely, a lack of motivation resulting from low job satisfaction leads to high employee
turnover rates and consequently to a demise of a company’s talented and valuable workforce
(Whyte 1960). Some of the worker demotivators identified in a study by industry advocates
Borcherding and Garnee include: (Nunnally 2001, p.524-5)

 Disrespectful treatment of workers

 Lack of sense of accomplishment
 Non-availability of materials and tools
 Necessity to redo work
 Lack of recognition for accomplishments
 Failure to utilize worker skills
 Incompetent personnel
 Inadequate communication between project elements
 Workers not involved in decision making
2.2 TYPES OF MOTIVATION

Motivation can be classified into two categories. These are non-financial and financial
incentives schemes.
A. Non-financial motivations:- are intangible; it includes advancement, the work itself,
responsibility, recognition, relations with co-workers, company policy and working
institutions.
B. Financial Incentive Scheme:- There are two areas into which financial incentives
scheme fall; those of operatives and those of managers. According to Cole (1997),
incentive scheme for managers include, extra payments or increase in salaries, fringe
benefits covering such items as, car, sickness benefits, free education for managers’
children, and free holidays. Others are free lunches, free travel abroad with wife and
family, access to newspapers and journals, free interest loan and free medical scheme
(Pigors 1981).

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Financial Incentives Schemes to Operatives:- Cole (1997) gave a list of financial incentives
to operatives, which include good holiday pay, extra pay for shift work and uncomfortable,
dirty and unhealthy conditions, profit sharing, long service allowances, overtime availability
when operatives require it, pension fund contribution by the company, death benefits and
dependants, employee’s liability insurance and medical facility to operative’s family.

Motivation is affected by recognition, working environment, responsibility, communication,

and rewards. Job conditions, management actions, and rewards can increase or decrease
individual effort and its incentives. Motivation driven by financial incentives can be
advantageous in that it can lead employees to improve the efficiency of construction methods,
and to encourage other more inexperienced or less hard-working co-workers to excel. On the
other hand, in striving for higher output and efficiency, quality and safety may be neglected.
Likewise, the differences in earnings between employees resulting from incentives or
inaccurate bonus rates, may give rise to bad feeling and employee problems onsite. (Heap
1987) It is important to understand that different incentive implementation strategies may be
required for different organizations or even different employee groups within the same
organization (Boyett 1998). While no single incentive pay strategy is right for everyone,
“skill-based pay plans that tie an individual’s compensation to his or her ability to learn and
to perform specific tasks of value to the organization is a good idea” (Boyett 1998, p.284).
However, incentive programs should be approached with great caution, considering difficulty
of measuring employee performance and the variability in the construction environment,
which can lead to competition conflicts that tend to harm the team setting in a working
environment.

If increased employee motivation results in increased productivity, and vice-versa, since a

motivated employee will seek efficiency solely from the personal satisfaction of being able to
perform his job without delays and other interference (Warren 1989). People further attain
job satisfaction when their efforts are reflected on the permanent structures they placed their
efforts in to produce. Thus, work facilitation is a strong motivator for individuals, and is
easily achieved by management through the implementation of construction motivation
programs. When it comes to productivity, motivation is of the essence. Motivation is affected
by recognition, working environment, responsibility, communication, and rewards. Job
conditions, management actions, and rewards can increase or decrease individual effort and
its incentives.

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Generally the most used employee motivating factors in the building construction
industry/projects are listed as follows.

 Increase in salary
 Achievement
 The work itself
 Promotion
 Responsibility
 Recognition
 Relation with co-worker (union)
 Company Policy
 Working condition
 Holiday abroad with pay
 Health Care Services
 Provision of transportation facility, e.g. Official car
 Telephone Services
 Sharing Profit
 Overtime (Fieldwork, 2005)

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

CHAPTER THREE
3. Research design and Methodology
3.1. Study area
This proposal study will be focus on factors affecting employees’ motivation in building
construction projects of south western of Ethiopia in TEPPI town.
3.2. Research design
The methodology will follows in this proposal is descriptive. It explores relevant factors,
which are affecting employees’ motivation in building construction projects using
questionnaires.
3.3. Sample of study and sampling techniques
The study strategies will follows in this study is carry out after the identification of the factors
as a case to be studied. The three major steps that will use in this case study is:
 Literature review on the trends and practices will use in the construction industry with
respect to employee motivation is assessed as theoretical background.
 Questionnaires will be design and distribute to those who take part in the industry
(clients, consultants, contactors and other respondents).
 Identification and Analysis of case study projects; these projects will be recognize and
analyze while processing the questionnaires with clients, contractors, consultants and
other respondents.
3.4. Data sources
To get more information or data for this proposal study we will use two data source. These
two data sources are primary data sources and secondary data sources. Primary data sources
are: using questionnaires, observation and interviews. Secondary data sources are: using
different documents, books, internet searches and etc.
3.5. Data collection instrument
3.5.1. Questionnaires
To get the result that will obtain through content analysis to questionnaires will be used in
obtaining data from construction project and people of surrounding.
3.5.2. Observation
In addition to the above mentioned instrument to make the data more reliable we will observe
the area we selected.

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
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3.5.3. Interview
To strength all sources which we will obtained from the above data collection instrument or
Proposal also we will use interview from construction industries.
3.6. Data analysis techniques
The questionnaires will specific and adapted for an assessment on the factors affecting
employees’ motivation in TEPPI town building construction projects. The questionnaires will
detail ones and classifies into two sections, and include the following areas:
Section I: - General information (profile, experience in human resource management,
motivation and employee motivation in construction industry) of the construction firms and
clients.
Section II: -factors affecting employees’ motivation in building construction projects.
3.7. Research design schedule
Time break down
Table 1.the break down of work schedule for thesis
Number Month Activities
1 March 01/2007 E.C Submission of the proposal
2 March 02/2007 E.C Start first draft literature review
3 March 16/2007 E.C Starting to revise literature review
4 March 29/2007 E.C Starting data collection and data analysis
5 April 22/2007 E.C Starting first draft thesis
6 April 26/2007 E.C Starting to revise the first draft thesis
7 May 16/2007 E.C Final thesis submission
8 May 19/2007 E.C Submission of presentation power point

Budget break down human expense

Human expense
Table 2 Budget of human expense
Activities Work day Expected cost in ETB Work day * cost
For researcher 90 day 100 9000
For advisor 30 day 200 6000
Sub total 15000

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 PROPOSAL ON FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION IN BUILDING
CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Transport expense
Table3. Budget of transport expense
Activities Travel day Expected cost in Travel day*cost
ETB
For researcher 30 day 50 1500
For advisor 10 day 100 1000
Sub total 2500

TOTAL COST
Table4. Budget for total cost expense
Activity Total cost in ETB
Human expense 15000
Transport expense 2500
Sub total 17500

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CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

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