International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET)

Volume 9, Issue 2, February 2018, pp. 95–104, Article ID: IJMET_09_02_010

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ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359

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EVALUATION OF HUMAN RESOURCES

MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY USING ANALYTICAL APPOROACH:
A MODEL STUDY
D. Prasanna Kumar
Associate Professor, Department of Management,
K L University, Vaddeswaram, Guntur District, AP, India

A. Satish
Research Scholar, Department of Management,
K L University, Vaddeswaram, Guntur District, AP, India

SS. Asadi
Associate Dean Academics & Professor,
Department of Civil Engineering, K L University, Vaddeswaram, AP, India

ABSTRACT
Human Resources Management plays crucial role in the construction industry as
the work from starting to ending should be taken care by the people who are working
in the construction industry. Selecting of skilled labor, unskilled labor and allotting
them to a particular work at particular time is difficult task. Continuous monitoring of
work force is important as it includes the cost of project that leads to increase and
delay of projects. Construction projects is included with huge amount of money and
perfect schedule to complete the project, so the objectives of the project must be
fulfilled. To execute a project Human resources needed to be focused. The
Questionnaire survey is collected from the employees of different construction
companies of different levels has been collected. Then the Questionnaire survey is
analyzed with the AHP Model to make the decisions and alternatives for the problems
associated with the Human Resources Management. The safety of the workers is most
important here as they work at high altitudes. There are number of incidents taken
place in the construction industry that leads to various issues which causes the project
cost increase and fall behind schedules. The findings revealed that Cost is majorly
considered by the employees in construction projects with respect to profits of the
projects, Time is the secondary thing that is important in construction projects and
finally Quality is given least preference by the employees of the construction
companies as it has importance in the construction projects.
Key words: Resources management, construction project management, Human
resources, AHP Model.

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 D. Prasanna Kumar, A. Satish, SS. Asadi

Cite this Article: D. Prasanna Kumar, A. Satish, SS. Asadi, Evaluation of Human
Resources Management in Construction Industry Using Analytical Apporoach: A
Model Study, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology 9(2),
2018, pp. 95–104.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=9&IType=2

1. INTRODUCTION
Resources management is derived into five types they are Human resources management,
Materials Management, Money, Machinery and Time. Human Resource management has a
important role in the construction industry as people manage the works of the construction.
Even though several software’s available such as Primavera, MS Office which are used as a
project management software. With the help of those software’s we can allocate human
resources to the works involved in the activities of a project. The allocation of right human
resources to the right place of work is important thing. Right allocation of human resources
indicates that human resources includes skilled labor, unskilled labor and technical labor.
Skilled labor includes Contractors, Supervisor etc., which means qualified with training and
have experience at a particular area. Unskilled labor includes masons, mistri etc., have no
experience. Technical labor includes have qualified from an institute and specialized at a
particular field and handles the technical works in construction industry. HR manager is
present in construction projects which he must able to identify the skill sets and experiences
of the persons working. He must taken care of allocation of roles and responsibilities to the
workers of project.
HRM involving the following core activities:
 Role analysis
 Role specification
 Recruitment of temporary and permanent staff.
 Evaluating performance
 Communication with employees etc.,

Project cost increases if the project had been delayed due to the employee issues such as
increments, bonuses and company profit shares. So HRM must be aware of all issues in order
to avoid future problems that lead to the increase of total project cost. Considering of safety
for workers is most important for huge constructions working at high elevations without of
proper safety equipment wearing such as ropes, jackets, googles etc., those people who afraid
of heights should not be selected. These should be identified while work allocation. He should
a check list so he can record everything for future problems to avoid.

2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 To identify the issues involved in human resources management in the construction projects
and data collection through questionnaire survey from different construction companies.
 Data analysis with a technique or software and recommend solutions for the issues involved in
resources management in construction projects.

3. METHODOLOGY
The first phase of research is literature review. To obtain the information and knowledge
about the Human resources management in construction projects is to collection of the

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 Evaluation of Human Resources Management in Construction Industry Using Analytical Apporoach:
A Model Study

different journals on resources management and sub disciplines such as human resources. The
research is done based on the past researches and case studies conducted by previous
researchers. In this phase the researches findings of problems in resources management in
construction projects helps to know the past and present issues of the resources management
in construction projects. The research work carried out by reading conference papers, books,
project papers and mostly of journals.These helps in analyzing the issues and a procedure to
find solution to that issue. It gives an idea using different techniques to analyze the issues and
recommend a solution to those issues.

3.1. Data Collection

Data collection for the Human resources management is done using the qualitative research of
previous journals as stated in the objectives. Data collection will also gathered from the
officials of the construction projects such as Contractors , Engineers, and Project managers as
suggestions given by the researchers in their research papers. The pilot survey was conducted
to identify and ensure the effectiveness of the questionnaire survey.In the literature review the
research was focused on:
 The problems regarding the management of resources in construction companies that is
responsible for the loss of profits to the construction companies.
 The methods/model used to analyze the issues and to recommend the best alternatives for the
construction companies.

The pilot survey is a small methodological test in which it will ensure the proposed
methods and procedures will work in practice before it will applied in large and expensive
investigation. The aim of the data collection is to gather information regarding resources
management in construction projects.
The aim of the data collection is to gather information related to the topic resources
management and about the resources utilizing in the construction projects. The data collection
was done in three ways as following:
 Questionnaire survey
 Journal Papers
 Literature survey
Questionnaire survey
The main aspect in the research is the valuable information is gathered from the different
levels of officials of construction industry. The opinions of the people is honest while they are
responding to the questionnaire survey that regarding to the controversial issues in fact their
responses are different. The questionnaire survey was distributed to the different officials of
different construction projects in Vijayawada. The questionnaire survey will includes set of
questions in o Human resources. In this section the respondents were asked about their
background. The questions that had been asked were:
 Number of projects involved in;
 Years of experience in construction projects;

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 D. Prasanna Kumar, A. Satish, SS. Asadi

3.2. Data Analysis

3.2.2. Analytical Hirearchy Model (AHP)
The AHP Model was applied to the opinions of the different levels of officials of construction
projects. Every problem has its own different criteria’s and each criteria has its own different
alternatives. This method is used to find best alternative and that will be implemented to
resolve the issues of the Human resources management in the construction projects. The
alternatives were analyzed by the AHP Model under goes five steps to find the best
alternatives.
It is an multi criteria decision making technique used to take decisions on complex
problems in which many variables or criteria are involved in the resources management
issues. The observation and collection of data regarding resources management is done on
some of construction companies.
AHP Model calculation for problems in construction projects
 Firstly the problem is decomposed in to Goal, criteria, sub criteria and alternatives in the form
of questionnaire survey.
 Then the pairwise comparison’s was done to the criteria’s and alternatives and we find the
importance in tends to extremely strong to equal. In this the officials of the construction
projects gives their opinions for our questions.
 Then I made in to pair wise comparisons for alternatives and find the importance that which
alternative weighs more.

AHP is an two stage process:

 Decomposing the complexity
 Synthesizing the relations

There are five basic elements involved in AHP Method they are
 Hierarchy construction
 Pair wise comparisons
 Relative Weight calculation
 Aggregation of Relative Weights
 Consistency Ratio

CR = CI =

Where as CR = Consistency Ratio

CI = Consistency Index
RI = Relative Index

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 Evaluation of Human Resources Management in Construction Industry Using Analytical Apporoach:
A Model Study

Table 1 Questionnaire Survey

S.NO CRITERIA EXTREMEY VERY LOW NOT AT ALL
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT NEUTRAL IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)
1 Is organization’s HR
executive must aware of the
business needs and strategies
2 Is efforts must be taken to
generate awareness among
the organization’s financial
position, customer’s needs,
quality of product/service,
cost etc
3 Is job analysis is important
for all major jobs
4 Is organization must have a
computerized human
resource information system
with latest software
5 Is individual, group and
organizational needs are
used to training needs in
your organization
6 Is knowledge acquiring and
learner’s reaction is
important in evaluation of
training
7 Is employee’s opinions
important to develop
performance standards
8 Is it must that performance
appraisal system to extend
for all members in
organization
9 Is promotions will increase
the performance of
employee’s
10 Is it quite difficult to dismiss
a permanent employee from
the organization by doing
mistakes
11 Is it important for an
organization utilizes the
assessment center for
identification and
development of management
potential
12 Is organization carries out
succession planning in order
to execute to fill gaps in
managerial positions
13 Is it important to pass the
authority to low level of
hierarchy
14 Is it important to have
employees profit share
15 Is it important that
organization has a structured

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 D. Prasanna Kumar, A. Satish, SS. Asadi

policy for management of

attrition and turnover
16 Is it important to conduct
exit interviews
17 Is employee’s satisfaction
survey is important
18 Is it important for an
organization to encourage
employees to improve
product improvement
19 Is it important for an
organization for employee
programmes and awards
20 Is written agreement is
important between employee
and management

Figure 1 Image of Response Figure 2 Image of Response

…..

Figure 3 Image of response Figure 4 Image of response

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 Evaluation of Human Resources Management in Construction Industry Using Analytical Apporoach:
A Model Study

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The questionnaire which was prepared on the Human resources responses had been taken
from the different level of employees in different construction companies was taken. Out of
73 responses I requested I got 42 responses from the respondents. Only respondents with
minimum qualification as diploma were approached for answering the questionnaire survey.
This was done to have quality of the opinion gathered in the survey. The result of Human
resources with respect to cost, time and quality as below:

Goal

Profits Employee share Experience

Cost Time Quality

Profits Employee share Experience

Profits 1 2 4
Employee share ½ 1 3
Experience ¼ 1/3 1
Ranking of priorities
To find the ranking of priorities, namely the Eigen vector X:
 Normalize the column entries by dividing each entry by the sum of the column.
 Take the overall row averages.
1 2 4

0.5 1 3
A =
0.25 0.33 1

Sum 1.75 3.33 8

Normalized column sums

0.58 0.60 0.50

0.28 0.30 0.38

0.14 0.10 0.12

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 D. Prasanna Kumar, A. Satish, SS. Asadi

Row Averages

0.56

0.32
X = 0.12 (Priority Vector)

Criteria weights
Profits = 0.56
Employee share = 0.32
Experience = 0.12
Calculation of Consistency Ratio:
To calculate λmaxso as to lead to the consistency index and the Consistency Ratio.
A X AX X
1 2 4 0.56 1.68 0.56

0.5 1 3 0.32 = 0.96 =λmax 0.32

0.25 0.33 1 0.12 0.36 0.12

λmax= 3.04 , By averaging of Ax and X

CI= (3.04-3)/(3-1) = 0.02, n=3, R.I. = 0.52 (from Table)
C.R. = 0.02/0.52 = 0.04
C.R. ≤0.1 it indicates consistency for decision.
Hence we can move further to do AHP Analysis.
Ranking Alternatives
Profits Cost Time Quality Priority Vector
Cost 1 1/3 4 0.31
Time 3 1 3 0.57
Quality ¼ 1/3 1 0.12
The priority vector is obtained by doing Normalization as done above.
Employee share Cost Time Quality Priority Vector
Cost 1 5 3 0.64
Time 1/5 1 2 0.20
Quality 1/3 ½ 1 0.16

The priority vector is obtained by doing Normalization as done above.

Experience Cost Time Quality Priority Vector
Cost 1 4 3 0.62
Time ¼ 1 5 0.22
Quality 1/3 1/5 1 0.16

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 Evaluation of Human Resources Management in Construction Industry Using Analytical Apporoach:
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The priority vector is obtained by doing Normalization as done above.

Ranking of Alternatives
Criteria Profit Employee Experience
share
Cost 0.31 0.64 0.62 0.56 0.45
Time 0.57 0.20 0.22 X 0.32 = 0.40
Quality 0.12 0.16 0.16 0.12 0.15

As the analysis is done based on the questionnaire survey, the respondents had
concentrated on the cost of projects linking to the profits with respected to the projects of the
company. The next priority they are giving to the time for gaining profits to the company
based on the experience’s of the employees working in the construction projects and the least
preference is given to the quality of work doing by the employees of the construction
company as it is important in construction projects to gain profits. Human resources plays key
role in construction projects as their skills gain profits, fame etc., to the company. From this
analysis the recommendations are quality of work by Human resources that is need to be
recruited while selecting stage itself is one of the main factor in constructions. As it is taken
lightly it is recommended that to consider quality with respect to other factors.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS
Respondents has awareness about the resources management in the construction projects. It is
concluded that resources are utilizing based on the cost of the items or employees that leads to
the profits for the companies. These resembles that if cost of the items is less, they are
preferring to buy and utilize resources in construction projects. If the cost of the items is less
then the quality of the items or work doing by employees will be relatively low. Due to the
low quality many of the structures not performing well and resembles to loss of property and
life.
 It is recommended that while buying and utilizing resources they have to have quality check
list prepared by the Government to the respected country.
 Following the guidelines provided by the PMBOK.
 Avoiding the low cost thinking to recruit unskillful labor which are not qualified that diverts
decision to recruit unskillful labor and it influence decision making for utilizing resources and
quality of work.
 Recruiting through online or offline around the world to have skillful workers if necessary.
 It is observed that unskilled labors are recruiting due some unknown influences, HR need to
sincerely recruit the persons based on the talents.
 Cost of the labor influences the recruitment of skilled labor that leads the fall behind schedules
and decreasing in the quality of the work.

There are many improvements required in many aspects need to be considered in order to
ensure the effectiveness. The respondents opinions will helps in ranking the most common
issues pertaining resources management specifically manpower/labor in the construction
projects. This rank can help in future construction project expected issues that might be faced
during construction work. They can avoid these issues and look for alternatives. Given that
feedbacks of the survey came from the construction employees all members are aware of
issues and still they give importance to the cost of the project as they are not considering
quality as a important factor due to the present competitive situation in the construction
industry.

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 D. Prasanna Kumar, A. Satish, SS. Asadi

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