Identifying and analyzing factors that cause for turnover of construction tradesmen in military services Sri Lanka

Abstract

Human resource component of construction industry plays vital role in achieving project deliverable in time with expected quality and cost. Labour turnover is one of governing factors that contributes for project delays and cost over-run of today’s construction industry in Sri Lanka with prevailing labour scarcity. Frequent changes of construction workforce in a construction project could incur additional burden to managers to maintain the consistency of construction progress. Construction sector of Military Services in Sri Lanka is encountered with difficulties in skilled labour retention that is affecting the organizations’ efficiency, quality of work, duration of projects and finally project cost. Though construction tradesmen in military services are offered with various facilities such as paid leave, free medical, uniforms, free meals and accommodation, advances, considerable monthly pay and other welfare facilities, a considerable amount of tradesmen are leaving the organization due to various unknown reasons. The main objective of this study is to identify the factors that cause for turnover of tradesmen in the construction sector of Military Services. The research methodology involves both qualitative and quantitative methods that lead to triangular research design where both methods merge together to achieve research objectives. Qualitative method was used at the initial stage of the research study to gather primary and secondary data. The quantitative method is used to develop questionnaire and data measurements at the later stage of the study. The questionnaires were distributed among construction tradesmen, supervisors and site engineers and recorded responses separately. The tradesmen were selected proportionately to the tradesmen strength in tri forces and sample size was taken as 392 that allows for 95% confidential level. The sample size for supervisors and site engineers was selected as 95 and 72 which allow 90% confident level. The Relative Important Index (RII) was used to rank the factors according to the responses of tradesmen, supervisors and site engineers. From the research it was identified the most significant factors that cause for turnover of construction tradesmen on the perception of employees, supervisors and site engineers. Three parties are in the opinion that being away from family and relatives, lack of recognition of trade/employment in the military, the current transfer system applied on tradesmen and social issues due to lack of knowledge on society are highly influenced for the turnover of construction tradesmen. The top management to ensure, the issues with respect to turnover of construction employees are addressed with much interest and dedication for the betterment of the organization.