NCP 22 Assignment

National Institute of Construction Management and Research, PuneSchool of Distance Education

ASSIGNMENT

ON

CONSTRUCTION PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

NCP 22

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SUBMITTED BY:

PRAMOD PRABHAKAR JADYE,

PGPCM,

REG NO: 212-02-11-10418-2132

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DEPARTMENT OF PGPCM

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH

SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

25/1, BALEWADI, N.I.A. POST OFFICE, PUNE – 411045

Assignment on Construction Personnel Management NCP 22 of 13


CASE

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You are a Project Manager on a site where 3 km long tunnel has been undertaken. The site is

remote and it takes 2 days travel to the nearest town. Supervisors, Technicians and skilled workers

are engaged in dangerous and hazardous works. Absenteeism due to sickness, quarrels and

drinking are leading to less progress at site and chances of accidents are increasing at site.

Management has urged to do something so that time target can be achieved. Discuss how you will

tackle the problem and increase the output of work.

INTRODUCTION

Employee’s relations in an organization may be classified as under,

Personnel Management.

Industrial relations.

Human relations.

Personnel management is that branch of management, which deals with people in as enterprise.

Its activities refer to the development of policies and their implementation pertaining to manpower

planning, employment and non-employment, training and development, salaries, wages,

allowances and compensations, working conditions, communications, grievance handling,

employee’s welfare and industrial relations.

Industrial relations are the collective and formal relations between the workers and the

management and the study of these relations as they pertain to conditions of work and

employment.

Human relations are those relationships in an organization, which come in to being based on

individual interests and considerations other than personnel.



The recognition that any organized enterprise is a social arrangement made up of many

social units within it and with a complex of interacting attitudes, pressures and conflicts has been

both theorists and practicing managers. Many problems in managing human resources stem from

group behavior patterns, attitudes and desires, some of which arise from a company or some group,

but many coming from people’s back grounds.

MANAGEMENT is "the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which

individuals, working together in groups, efficiently accomplish selected aims.”

TASK IDENTIFICATION

The problem relates to absenteeism, quarrel amongst staff, low output and safety hazard on site.

The causes of the problem are inadequate facilities, attitudes and lack of socialization. Out of the

Man, Materials, Machines and Money; the four ingredients of any ongoing organization, the Man

is the only ingredient that has emotions, attitudes, back ground, behavior pattern and need for

socialization. To overcome the given problem, one needs to address these facets in constructive

way.

OBJECTIVE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

A major objective of personnel management is to increase the effectiveness of every work unit in

the organization and to enable the employees to derive a greater sense of personal satisfaction from

their work and work environment.

In today’s society, the economic and technological situation of as enterprise is seldom static.

Organizational relationships are subject to stress and strains all the time. Employees’ attitudes and

feelings keep fluctuating depending upon the socio-political changes in the community. Personnel

management function is sensitive to all these changes, keeps ahead of them and endeavors to

introduce innovations and adaptations to meet every new situation.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT



1) Care and skill should be exercised in the selection of employees.

2) Introduction to the job should be friendly, skillful and adequate.

3) Each employee should be made to feel that his efforts are really appreciated.

4) Careful and thoughtful consideration should be given to the probable effect each rule, each

notice, and each practice will have on the feelings of all concerned.

5) Employees should have a part in planning those things which affect their working

conditions.

6) There should be a sense of security and reasonable freedom from worry

7) There should be a constant a intelligent effort on the part of management to be absolutely

fair in every policy and every practice.

8) Each employee should have a feeling of pride in the woorthwhileness of his work and his

company.

9) The organizational set-up should be such that there is no confusion in anyone’s mind as to

his duties or responsibilities.

10) Conditions should be such that working proves to be a satisfying social experience as well

as a means of making al livelihood.

Our aim in this project was to execute work of a 3.0 KM. long tunnel, which was located in a

remote place. As done for any project, a clear concept of the project goal, so as to plan out

activities and execute them efficiently was placed on the priority, so as to accomplish the goal at

no extra cost and time. A construction project goes through 3 stages as mentioned below:

1) Pre-Construction Planning

2) Construction Stage

3) Post- Construction and Finalization



Introduction to the Main Problem: - Construction of underground works is a challenging task,

especially in a remote area. As mentioned in the assignment production at site is decreasing and

the absenteeism in the workers is further adding to the woes. There may be various reasons for the

decline in progress may be such as tough working conditions, physical obstruction at site, tough

geological conditions, inadequate deployment of resources, hampered cash flow, poor site

planning and coordination etc., but main reason here seems to be the unwillingness of the workers

to deliver their best predominantly due to harsh working conditions and the general problems

associated with a remote area and non fulfillment of other factors affecting the human behavior

and attitude.

Common problems that are associated with the remote areas are listed below.

1) Accessibility: - working sites located in the remote areas are less accessible as compared to

other sites. Generally these sites are connected with Kacha roads of inadequate width or even mule

path operating with foot bridges or small culverts over the nallahs. Further hostile topographical

conditions viz. steep slopes, landslides and involvement of forest, private land may delay the

construction /widening of new/existing roads, making it difficult for the

transportation/mobilization of heavy construction equipments for the commencement of the work.

Thus mobilization of man and machinery remains an area of concern in the early stages and

optimum deployment of resources is not easily achieved. In case of natural calamities/disasters

(viz. flash floods, earthquakes) life become very miserable as these areas remain cut off from the

rest of the world for considerable time.

2) Basic facilities: - Remote areas are generally underdeveloped with bare minimum basic

facilities in the areas like housing, transportation, communication, medical, commodities,

entertainment etc.

a) Shelter and food: - To start and to continue work at a remote site it is obvious that the first

priority is to provide work facilities (accommodation, food etc) to the staff at site, generally



these areas are sparsely populated so the possibility of hired accommodation remains

negligible and to provide hired accommodation to all of its staff in the nearest town may

put substantial financial burden to the management and may also affect the routine working

hours. Due to limited allocation of funds for the work facilities/shorter duration of the

work/non availability of affordable construction material in the vicinity, shared temporary

housing facilities i.e. by constructing sheds/ dormitories (corrugated sheets and angles)

with common W/c, bathrooms are provided to the workers at site and continued till the

completion of the project. Quality of food provided may not be up to the standards

throughout the year as it would not be viable daily to go the nearest market and fetch fresh

vegetables/ other edibles , workers has to content with the seasonally available local stuff

and constant supply of potable water also remains in question.

b) Medical and Health care: - Generally in the remote areas health care and medical

facilities are provided at a public health centre run by the Government or NGOs or at some

places by the quacks. Medical care is limited to the general dieses or the first aid in case of

injury or minor accident, In case of emergency (fatal injury or accident) workers have to

rush to the nearest town and sometimes delay in the treatment may cause life.

c) Communication and entertainment: -In the remote areas communication (telephone,

Internet, electronic and printed media) and entertainment (theater, cinema, cable network,

recreational centers, clubs etc.) sectors has very limited or negligible presence. Due to lack

of various communication systems, it is difficult to remain in contact with the families and

well wishers, keeping them cutoff from the society. Further the non availability of

informative means (newspapers, magazines, television etc) makes their life miserable as

they remain uninformed about the social, economic, political and other activities happening

in and around and without entertainment facilities it is hard for the workers to come out of



their monotonous routine keeping their mind filled with trivial issues, site related problems

and other anxieties.

It is evident that for the want of decent living conditions, healthy food and staying away from

the family, lack of medical facilities, lack of communication and entertainment means put

derogatory affect on the workers.

Feelings like insecurity, aloofness, homesickness, depression lead them to the bad habits of

drinking, quarrelling etc. and distract them from their routine site related work and affecting the

overall progress.

REMEDY FOR LACK OF SOCIALIZATION

It is natural that in such a remote location the workers are far removed from their families and

societies. Even the avenues of socialization like shopping complex, Cinemas, temples, school, etc

are in a nearest town, journey to which takes two days. Almost same situation prevails in the

cantonment of army also. Army has found out solution by long experience in providing sports

facilities on the camp, providing entertainment equipments like TV, music systems, open theatres,

and communication facilities to converse with their family members, fixed vacation after service

of particular period on the camp etc. Same things can be implemented here also with necessary

improvisations.

REMEDY FOR SAFETY CONCERN

By the very nature of project it is hazardous. The terrain is unknown, the sub surface uncertainties,

specialized custom made giant machineries etc add to the feeling of being unsafe. It is well known

that the work force is a bit apprehensive about the bosses issuing orders from the air conditioned

cabins. If the Project Manager or the supervising staff lead the work force from front, their safety

concern would ease to a great extent. Training in safe work practices, introduction of latest safety



tools, on job medical facilities, Compensation package for post accident events go a great deal in

easing the safety concern.

REMEDY FOR INGRAINED WRONG HABITS AND ATTITUDES

Work force is drawn from the society. When a man comes to work, he brings with him his belief

system, prejudices, habits, attitudes etc. Every workman is different due to his social background,

upbringing, social ties, skills, education, attributes, culture and ethnicity. Out of these entire

entities attitude is the concern of every Project Manager. They need to be brought to a common

platform by suitable training programs.

A temple at site, spiritual recourses by saints, live entertainment programs by mimicry artists,

screening of movies etc also helps a great deal in breaking the monotony of work and life.

JOB DESIGN AS A TOOL FOR PERSONAL MANAGEMENT

Job design has emerged as an important application area for work motivation. Job design concerns

and approaches are considered to have begun with the scientific management movement at the turn

of the century. Frederick Taylor suggested that task design might be the most prominent single

element in scientific management whose goal was to maximize human efficiency in jobs. The

scientific management approach evolved into what is now generally called job engineering. This

industrial engineering approach is concerned with product, process and tool design; plan layout;

standard operating procedures; work measurement and standards; worker methods; and human-

machine interactions.

JOB ENRICHMENT AS A TOOL FOR PERSONAL MANAGEMENT

As opposed to job enlargement, which horizontally loads the job, job enrichment vertically loads

the job; there are not necessarily more tasks to perform, but more responsibility and autonomy.

Thus workers job may be enriched by:

Giving workers more altitude in deciding about such things as work methods, sequence and

pace or by letting them make decisions about accepting or rejecting materials.



Encouraging participation of subordinates and interaction between workers.

Giving workers a feeling of personal responsibility to their tasks.

Giving feedback on job performance.

Involving workers in analysis and change; physical aspects of the work environment such

as layout of office or plant, temperature, lighting and cleanliness.

Though this method has its limitation of success when it comes to deal with workman with low

level of skills.

MONEY AS A TOOL FOR PERSONAL MANAGEMENT

Money can never be overlooked as a motivator. Attractive salary structure, career planning, perks,

canteen facility, health benefits, production incentives, behavior incentive, education incentive for

children, loan facilities for house construction in native, insurance cover etc makes employment

precious for the worker to loose.

PARTICIPATION AS A TOOL FOR PERSONAL MANAGEMENT

There is no doubt that most people in the center of an operation have knowledge both of problems

and solutions. As a consequence, the right kind of participation yields both motivation and

knowledge valuable for enterprise success.

Need and their fulfillment at site:-

Above are the some of the reasons discussed, affecting the progress at site. Some reasons are site

specific, while others are common to every place and are related with human resource

management. Problems that are associated with the remote area cannot be rectified completely, but

these can be mitigated to a certain extent to have a congenial environment to live and to work at

site for the workers. Once the basic needs of the workers are addressed and are fulfilled at site,

they start contributing towards achieving the organizational goals with their full potential. Here are

the measures suggested, that can be implemented to improve the progress at site.



1. To Provide better basic facilities: - Living conditions can be improved at site by

constructing a staff camp having masonry type quarters with proper ventilation and civic

facilities to accommodate all the staff and workers. Proper fencing of the camp shall be

done in order to keep the check on trespassing and for the security of the staff members.

Each staff member or worker shall be issued at least a wooden cot with mattress, a table, a

chair and a steel almirah to keep their belongings. Sufficient number of water tankers shall

be deployed to meet the daily requirements of drinking water and water for other use. DG

sets of required capacity shall be installed within the camp as an alternate arrangement for

the electric supply. Subsidized Mess facilities shall be provided to the workers. Mess shall

be managed by the workers itself on contributory basis, where as the management shall

ensure that health and hygiene standards are followed and maintained.

2. To Provide Medical facilities and ensure safety measures at site: - basic medical

facilities shall be provided to the workers by opening a dispensary with 5 to 6 beds with in

the camp area. The management shall depute a full time resident doctor along with other

trained paramedical staff. Sufficient stock of medicine for common ailments shall be made

available all the time. First aid boxes shall be provided at site also An ambulance with life

saving equipments shall be kept ready in case of emergency (fatal accident, serious illness),

in order to shift the patient to the nearest hospital.

A separate safety department shall be established to ensure the strict implementation of

safety policies to provide best practicable safe working conditions at site. All the workers

shall be provided with the personal protective equipments. By constituting site safety

committees and by providing training to its members, the workers shall be encouraged to

actively contribute and participate for the implementation/betterment of safety and health

norms within the site. Safety officer shall maintain and analysis the data on work injuries,



accidents and occupational health diseases for taking corrective actions and prevent the

reoccurrence and also keep the site management aware of the safety programme and

making recommendation to the site related safety improvements.

3. Better communication and entertainment facilities: - Telecommunication sector has

made phenomenal growth in the recent times. Nowadays Telephones and Internet are easily

affordable and is an effective means to stay connected and to communicate with each other.

Printed media and electronic media (newspapers, magazines and television) are the source

of information and entertainment. All these means acts as a stimulant enabling us to be in

the positive state of mind by keeping us informed and updated with the day to day

happenings, in touch with the dear ones and providing a sort of refreshment in the leisure

time. In the remote areas the presence of traditional communication and entertainment

facilities is almost negligible, for communication satellite phone facility can be availed and

this facility can be extended to the workers by installing intercom system within the camp

area allowing them to receive calls and can also make calls on payment basis. Satellite

dishes are the easy and the affordable medium to gain access to the free satellite

entertainment and informative channels providing their services round the clock and

management can provide a television in the common room / mess for the workers, that

shall keep them updated with the daily affairs and shall be a good source of entertainment

during the off days.

4. Proper Site Management: - Proper site management means understanding and managing

manpower for its optimum potential by good supervision and leadership, communication

qualities. Supervision is the function of leading, coordinating and directing the work of

others to accomplish designated objectives. A supervisor guides his subordinates so that

they produce the desired quantity and quality of works within the desired time. A good



supervisor ensures the proper delegation of duties and responsibilities to the subordinate

staff. Effectively interpret and communicate management policies and directives to the

subordinate and understand the problems of his subordinates, if they make mistake he is

mainly interested in showing them how to prevent reoccurrence of such incidents rather

than in punishing them on the other hand if intermediate milestones or targets are achieved

he appreciates his team. Working schedule/ hours shall be strictly adhered to, and workers

shall be provided weekly rests.

5. Transparency in the HR policies: - The people of an organization are its most important

assets. Its success and failure are largely determined by the caliber of its workforce and the

efforts it exerts. Therefore the policies and the methods an organization adopts to meet its

manpower needs are of vital significance. The comprehensible and the transparent HR

policies ensure that right kind of people are working at right places and shall not leave any

element of doubt in the mind of joining/ existing staff regarding their contract period,

salaries, wages, site specific incentives, promotions, leave, retrenchment benefits, job

description and job stability etc, because term and conditions for all these aspects are

mutually discussed and agreed between the employee and the employer before joining in an

organization.

So the company HR policies shall be amended accordingly and the employees shall be provided

wages and other benefits as per the prevailing practices.

CONCLUSION

As a Project Manager this is a challenge. I shall strive to practice all that is mentioned above. It is a

test of my leadership quality in leading from the front, in providing all the facilities to the workers

on site within my powers.



Welfare Amenities can be immediately started without seeking permission of corporate office.

Such facilities are:

Canteen

Rest room

Night shelter

Clean drinking water

Latrines and urinals

Washing facilities

First aid facilities

Housing

Crèche

Besides above immediate relief, I would approach the corporate office for setting up of a personnel

department to look in to other expert areas like training need identification, imparting training in

the fields of safety, skill enhancement and attitude change.

I understand all above is going to cost the company, but the benefits of increased productivity and

satisfied employees far out ways the cost.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Management in organization by Koontz and Odoneal, MacGraw Hill Publications.

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NCP 22 Assignment

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