Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42107-019-00212-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Identifying factors affecting construction labour productivity in India

and measures to improve productivity
Aman Agrawal1 · Srijeet Halder1 

Received: 3 July 2019 / Accepted: 14 November 2019

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Abstract
The construction industry is one of the largest industries in India. But the majority of the construction projects have suffered
from delays. Lower than expected labour productivity has been a frequent cause of delay in construction projects. Although
measuring labour productivity is easy and straightforward, controlling it is often not so. This study makes an attempt at iden-
tifying top factors that influence labour productivity. The uniqueness of this research is that it is one of the very few attempts
in capturing the perception of construction workmen directly, instead of managers or supervisors. The results should be useful
for construction project managers in improving labour productivity at their sites. A survey of construction workmen has been
conducted to gauge their perception of what influences their efficiency at work. The factors identified this way were ranked
using the Relative Importance Index (RII) method from the level of importance assigned by the respondents on a 0–3 scale.
Furthermore, a survey of managing engineers, who are involved directly with construction labour in producing construction
works, has been used to identify the measures to improve labour productivity at the site. These factors were also ranked
based on their effectiveness rated by the participants of the survey using RII. These measures identified in the second phase
of the study were mapped with the factors they mitigate. These results should assist project management teams to extract
the optimum amount of work from construction labour. They can use the measures recommended in this study proactively
to keep productivity at optimum levels and also identify the early signs of deteriorating productivity.

Keywords  Construction labour productivity · Productivity improvement · Relative Importance Index (RII) · Construction
project management

Introduction
India is a developing country. The construction sector is the
2nd largest sector after agriculture in India. In most recent
years, the economy has been growing, yet the growth of the
construction industry has not been at par. It is estimated that
more than 10% of India’s Gross Domestic Product comes
from the construction industry while providing employment
to more than 30 million people (Shree et al. 2015). Thus,
the construction sector is key to the development of India’s
economy.
Around 30–40% of the total project cost is spent on labour
(Shree et al. 2015). More often than not, actual labour pro-
ductivity at the site is found to be significantly less than what
was assumed while submitting the tender. Due to this, the
project fails to meet the schedule target and incurs an addi-
tional cost. For any profit-oriented company in construction
industry, improving productivity is a major concern. Despite
many technological advances, labour is still an important
asset for the construction industry, as the quality is depend-
ent on labour.
Productivity is defined as the ratio of the value of out-
put produced (products or services) to the value of input
provided (Ameh and Osegbo 2011). Algebraically, labour
productivity can be defined in either of the following two
ways (Attar et al. 2012):
Output
Labour Productivity = ,
Labour cost

* Srijeet Halder
shalder@ricssbe.edu.in
Output
Labour Productivity = .
Work hour
1
RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University
Mumbai, Mumbai‑Pune Expressway, Mumbai, India

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In general, productivity is a measure of how efficiently
a system uses its resources to produce output from input.
However, there has been no consensus about the exact defi-
nition of productivity for labour.
There are numerous factors that affect labour productiv-
ity. Some are external, such as inclement weather and politi-
cal unrest. Some might be internal to workman too, such
as his ability to work in a team, his own personal mindset,
dedication towards his work, etc. Some factors can be con-
trolled or improved, like providing sufficient training to the
workmen on the usage of tools and machinery. Some might
be out of anyone’s control like rain and high wind.
Thus, it becomes important for the project management
team to identify all of these factors and try to mitigate them
as much as possible.
This paper is structured in four main parts. First, the cur-
rent understanding of labour productivity is discussed in
the literature review section. After that, the methods and
techniques used in this study have been discussed in the
methodology section. This study used a structured close-
ended questionnaire survey as the primary data collection
method. The respondent profile and sampling method have
also been presented in this section. The key findings are then
discussed followed by the conclusion of the study. Finally,
the limitations of this study and directions for future research
have also been provided.
Literature review
Labour productivity is one of the major concerns for projects
in any developing country, where many activities are car-
ried out manually. Construction employs the 3M principle,
i.e., manpower, machine, and material. Five major factors
reported by Shree et al. (2015) that affect labour productiv-
ity are supervision, the skill of labour, tools, and equipment,
absenteeism and financial constraints. Communication also
plays a major role in Indian projects because of changing
languages across geography. As stated above, 30–40% of
the total project cost comes from labour. Effective utilisa-
tion of the manpower for any project greatly influences its
profit margin.
Low productivity, in general, is bad for an economy as
it creates inflationary pressure (Ameh and Osegbo 2011).
Improving productivity in a construction project has multi-
ple benefits. From the owner’s point-of-view, reduced cost,
shortened project duration and better return on investment
are some direct benefits of higher productivity. Whereas
from the contractor’s point-of-view, more satisfied custom-
ers, higher competitive advantage, higher profits, and faster
turnover are some benefits (Jadhav and Wadalkar 2007).
Low labour productivity is also a major cause of con-
struction delays. Kaming et al. (1997) reported poor labour
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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
productivity to be second in frequency and severity of its
effect on construction delays; the top one being design
changes. Odesola (2015), based on a survey of 180 com-
pleted public building projects in six different states of Nige-
ria, reported a strong negative correlation between labour
productivity and project performance (cost overrun and
time overrun). Karimi et al. (2017) carried out a correlation
analysis on the different measures of project performance
with the availability of craft labour in the US. They found a
negative correlation between productivity factor with the dif-
ficulty in recruiting craft labour, which means more difficult
it is to find and recruit craft labour for the project, lower is
the productivity factor. They also reported a positive corre-
lation between the time overrun and difficulty in recruiting
craft labour, which means more difficult it is to recruit craft
labour, more chances of time overrun is there.
Ghate et al. (2016) based on a questionnaire survey con-
ducted on civil engineers in the Mumbai region found out
that the major factors which affect labour productivity are
(1) skilled labour, (2) availability of material, (3) construc-
tion method, (4) safety condition on-site, (5) scheduling
of work, etc. Use of skilled labour has been reported as
the most important factor to increase productivity. Since
skilled labour can produce more work with better quality
and accuracy in the same amount of time. It is intuitive that
skilled labour can produce more amount of quality work
than unskilled labour. If productivity is calculated based on
the number of hours employed for labour and the value of
work produced, productivity will come out to be signifi-
cantly higher. This is because of the fact that skilled labour
will produce more and rework will also be less in their work.
However, if productivity is calculated based on the payment
made to the labour and the value of work produced in them,
it may not necessarily be significantly higher. By the per-
sonal experience of the author, skilled labour charges as
much as 50% higher than unskilled labour. Apart from that,
the supply of skilled labour is often found to be short of
demand. Labour shortage is one of the major risks in con-
struction projects, which can transform a well-performing
project into one with cost- and schedule overrun (Mohd
Rahim et al. 2016). Due to this reason, employing skilled
labour for all work is not always feasible or financially
viable.
Mistry and Bhatt (2013) identified 27 different factors
that affect labour productivity. The factors were divided into
four main categories, which are technology, labour, man-
agement and external. They used the Relative Importance
Index (RII) and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
to rank the factors by their importance. RII and AHP were
found to be the most commonly chosen analytical methods
by researchers for the identification of factors affecting pro-
ductivity. In a different study (Shoar and Banaitis 2019) the
inter-relation between the factors were considered. First, the
Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
researchers ranked the factors affecting productivity using
RII. Factors having RII > 0.7 were shortlisted and then the
fuzzy fault tree analysis (FTA) technique was applied to
identify the basic events that cause low productivity. Using
fuzzy logic-based techniques help to compensate for a lack
of extensive data for model preparation. Such techniques
predict the probability of getting low productivity without
much historical data.
A lot of studies have been done on identifying various
causes of less than expected productivity. However, very
less work can be found in the literature on predicting labour
productivity. The traditional method, used by contractors,
of calculating productivity rates of labour for different tasks
rely solely on subjective opinion and past experience of the
project manager and the planning engineers. These rates are,
then, used to estimate labour cost as well as the duration of
each activity. Since each project is new and has a unique set
of constraints, data from previous projects alone cannot give
a very accurate prediction of productivity rates. If all the fac-
tors that influence labour productivity could be known, the
productivity could be forecasted with more accuracy (Ghod-
dousi and Hosseini 2012) hence the risk of schedule or cost
overrun would be less. El-Gohary et al. (2017) proposed a
model based on Artificial Neural Net (ANN) to predict the
productivity of labour. ANN is a modern soft computing
technique. It is surprisingly effective in identifying patterns
from large datasets which are not possible by human minds.
However, ANN requires scores of data points to train before
it can give reasonably accurate predictions. Inputs that come
from the people who manage the project suffer from the
same biases as any other human-dependent systems. These
biases introduce inaccuracies and random noises which limit
the level of effectiveness of any such prediction model to the
level of effectiveness of the overall data collection and infor-
mation system of the project. In another interesting study
by Khanzadi et al. (2017), a system dynamic (SD) simula-
tion approach has been taken to predict the productivity in
three types of construction works—plaster, formwork and
excavation. The cause-and-effect feedback loops have been
applied to simulate the work. The simulation was conducted
on the Vensim software to analyse the balancing effects of
the positive and negative feedback loops until the predicted
productivity settled on a constant level. The application of
the proposed method on two project case studies has shown
the suitability of the method for estimating productivity in
construction projects (Khanzadi et al. 2017). Such predictive
studies are need of the hour for the construction industry to
reduce the looming risk of schedule and cost overruns in
almost all projects.
Studies on construction labour productivity around the
world suggest that the factors affecting productivity vary
significantly with geography. Ghoddousi and Hosseini
(2012) studied labour productivity factors in Iran, while
Mahmoud (2019) identified the factors in Iraq. Shoar and
Banaitis (2019) summarised various studies conducted by
different researchers in middle-east and African region. The
relative importance of the individual factors has been found
to be varying with location. However, some of the factors
have been consistently found in the top 10 factors by dif-
ferent researchers in different locations, such as the skill of
the labour, leadership skill of site manager, availability of
proper tools/equipment/material, and choice of the construc-
tion method.
Ghoddousi et al. (2015) conducted a survey on CEOs of
Iranian construction companies to gauge their perceptions on
the productivity factors. Interestingly, in their perceptions,
the level of importance for the factors that affect productiv-
ity is significantly different from the managers at the lower
levels. The CEOs gave higher importance to managerial
policies as compared to project nature and working envi-
ronment. They regarded major aspects of human resource
management (HRM) to be more important. These aspects
were amount and timeliness of payments, promotions, job
security, etc.
Methodology
This research has been conducted in two phases. In the
first phase, an extensive list of factors that affect labour
productivity has been prepared through a literature review.
To understand the relative importance of these factors, a
questionnaire survey was designed to gauge the perception
of the workmen regarding what affects their productivity
the most. The factors were listed in no particular order. The
workmen’s perception of how important each of the factors
was, was taken in a 0–3 scale (0—no impact, 1—low impact,
2—moderate impact, and 3—high impact).
Responses were recorded by visiting various sites in the
Mumbai and Solapur regions in the state of Maharashtra,
India. In total, 302 construction workmen were approached.
Questions were read to them in either Hindi or Marathi
(depending on their preferred language) and their responses
were noted by the research team.
Figure 1 shows the age group distribution of the respond-
ent construction workmen. To ensure a good representa-
tion of the overall workmen population, respondents were
selected from all age groups. However, about one-third of all
respondents were in the age group of 24–30. In fact, this age
group has the highest population in Indian construction sites.
Collected responses were analysed by Relative Impor-
tance Index (RII) method. The RII scale ranges between 0
and 100. Factors having importance index more than 67 is
highly important. Factors with RII of between 33 and 67 can
be stated as moderately important. Whereas, factors with RII
less than 33 are not-so-important.
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 Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Age distribution various mitigation measures were first identified through a

literature review.
42 and Responses were collected from personnel involved in
more 18-24
11% 19% site management such as site engineers, supervisors, project
managers, etc. to understand how effective were each of the
36-42 measures in improving labour productivity. The responses
20%
were taken in a 0–3 scale similar to Phase 1. Responses were
analysed to rank the measures in the order of their effective-
ness. Finally, a matrix was formed to map the mitigation
24-30
31% measures with the causes (factors) of low labour productiv-
30-36
19% ity they solve.

Results and discussion
Fig. 1  Age distribution of respondent workmen

Factors affecting productivity

In the second phase, another questionnaire survey was
run. Purpose of this survey was to find out various mitigation In the preliminary literature survey, 15 research papers were
measures project management team can take to avoid low shortlisted for the identification of various factors affecting
labour productivity. In a similar manner to the first phase, labour productivity. Table 1 highlights the finding of the

Table 1  Factors affecting labour productivity (literature survey)

Sr. no Source Factors

1 Shree et al. (2015)
2 Mistry and Bhatt (2013)
3 Jadhav and Wadalkar (2007)
4 Madhan and GI (2018)
5 Attar et al. (2012)
6 Jamadagni and Birajdar (2015) Technical specification, working overtime, labour fatigue, delay in payments, unavailability of tools
7 Dey et al. (2017)
8 Patel et al. (2017)
9 Thomas and Sudhakumar (2014) Poor co-ordination, poor project planning and scheduling, strikes due to political issues, frequent revi-
10 Enshassi et al. (2007)
11 Ameh and Osegbo (2011)
12 Alinaitwe et al. (2005)
13 Montaser et al. (2018)
14 Dixit et al. (2017)
15 Tiwari et al. (2016)
Supervision, skill of labours, tools and equipment’s, absenteeism and financial constraints
Instalment, ability of works, clearness of specialised detail, deficiency of materials, inspiration of
work, high/low temperature, downpour, high wind, inspiration of work, physical weariness
Time, schedule pressure, type of undertaking, safety, quality labour gathering
Inappropriate venture co-appointment, delayed material, supervisor or skilled worker non-attendance,
unavailability of equipment’s/illustrations on time at working environment, poor undertaking
arranging and planning, unavailability of materials on time at work spot, communication issue
among expert and directors, improper task co-appointment, poor site the board and supervision by
temporary worker.
Lack of alignment goal, contractual conflict, difficulties in measuring productivity, weak commitment
to continuous improvement and lack of labour force focus.
Financial difficulty of owner, skill of labours, waiting for material, unclear instruction, proper selec-
tion of the labour for work
Labour dissatisfaction, labour disloyalty, labour fatigue, labour personal problem, labour dissatisfac-
tion and labour disloyalty, payment delay, financial motivation, lack of incentives schemes and
accidents
sion in drawing and unavailability of drawing on time
Material deficiency, lack of understanding, lack of work observation, misjudging among work and
administrators, drawing and detail modification, payment delay, labour disloyalty, inspection delay,
working 7 days out of each week without occasion and device/hardware deficiency
Subcontractor incompetence, Inadequate machines, Inadequate planning, Inadequate funds
Length of workday, design complexity, design changes and quality, motivation, skill of labours, mate-
rial storage, delay in materials, working conditions
Lack of structure system and design cables, absence of authority to discipline labour, rework in draw-
ing, lack of communication between workers and engineers, slow response of the consultant
Poor site co-appointment, lack of competency, fragmented inventory network, lack of duty, improper
arranging, lack of business the executives, inefficient site the board
Storage of material, clarity in technical specification, payment delay, site layout, construction method,
rework, weather conditions, level of skill, SHE (safety, health and environment) and work planning
and scheduling

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Table 2  Statistical analysis of S. no. Factor Average Std. dev. Normality test Relative
survey results Importance
Index
Skewness Kurtosis RII Rank

1 Labour personal problem 1.662 1.034 − 0.123 − 1.162 55.4 1

2 Improper managerial skills 1.510 0.991 0.014 − 1.030 50.3 2
3 Scheduling of work 1.500 1.004 0.079 − 1.067 50.0 3
4 High/low temperature 1.483 0.963 0.204 − 0.938 49.4 4
5 Schedule compression 1.483 0.921 0.049 − 0.822 49.4 4
6 Labour dissatisfaction 1.474 0.906 0.160 − 0.762 49.1 6
7 Shortage of materials 1.464 0.966 0.115 − 0.947 48.8 7
8 Type of project 1.464 1.017 0.138 − 1.086 48.8 7
9 Misunderstanding between labour 1.450 1.019 0.183 − 1.082 48.3 9
and site supervisor
10 No motivation of labour 1.440 1.029 0.088 − 1.126 48.0 10
11 Location of site 1.440 0.965 0.248 − 0.907 48.0 10
12 Working overtime 1.440 0.958 0.228 − 0.891 48.0 10
13 Physical fatigue 1.427 1.005 0.092 − 1.061 47.6 13
14 Construction method 1.421 1.001 0.140 − 1.036 47.4 14
15 Strikes due to political issues 1.417 0.946 0.217 − 0.848 47.2 15
16 Labour disloyalty 1.414 0.939 0.154 − 0.847 47.1 16
17 Inspection delay 1.407 0.990 0.146 − 1.002 46.9 17
18 Lack of labour force 1.407 1.029 0.205 − 1.091 46.9 17
19 Safety condition on-site 1.404 0.955 0.173 − 0.890 46.8 19
20 Rain and high wind 1.397 0.999 0.205 − 1.005 46.6 20
21 Drawing and specification alteration 1.391 1.024 0.204 − 1.076 46.4 21
22 Financial constraints 1.387 0.964 0.188 − 0.909 46.2 22
23 Payment delay 1.371 0.986 0.249 − 0.943 45.7 23
24 Clarity of technical specification 1.348 0.986 0.242 − 0.948 44.9 24
25 Poor project planning and scheduling 1.334 1.023 0.248 − 1.054 44.5 25
26 Absenteeism 1.328 0.916 0.322 − 0.673 44.3 26
27 Skills of labour 1.169 0.941 0.308 − 0.860 39.0 27
28 Unavailable of tools and equipment’s 1.000 0.988 0.624 − 0.707 33.3 28
29 Supervision 0.871 0.756 0.591 0.034 29.0 29

Table 3  Reliability statistics
Cronbach’s alpha Cronbach’s alpha based on standard- N of items
ised items
0.887 0.885 29
literature survey. Many factors were identified by the vari-
ous researchers, some of them overlapping with each other.
From the literature survey, 29 factors were identified that
are found to have an impact on labour productivity in con-
struction. Table 2 lists the factors identified and presents the
results of statistical analysis conducted on the survey data.
The RII method was used to calculate the relative impor-
tance of each of the factors. RII is calculated by the follow-
ing formula:
∑
nW
RII =
A⋅N
In the above equation, W is the score provided by each of
survey respondent (0 to 3), A is the highest value of the
Likert scale used that is 3 and N is the sample size that is
302. The factors are ranked by RII from highest to lowest.
The skewness and the excess kurtosis (aka kurtosis) of each
of the factors, both of which are measures of normality of
a curve, are within – 1.96 to + 1.96 range. It means that
the data has a normal distribution and is fairly symmetrical
(Mahmoud 2019).
To check the reliability and internal consistency of the
data, the Cronbach alpha test was performed. For this pur-
pose, the popular SPSS package was used. After running
the reliability test in SPSS, the Cronbach alpha (α) was

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 Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Fig. 2  Relative Importance RII

Index of labour productivity 25.0 30.0 35.0 40.0 45.0 50.0 55.0 60.0
factors
Labor personal problem. 55.4
Improper managerial skills. 50.3
Scheduling of work. 50.0
High/low temperature. 49.4
Schedule compression. 49.4
Labor dissatisfaction 49.1
Shortage of materials. 48.8
Type of project. 48.8
Misunderstanding between labor and site… 48.3
No motivation of labor. 48.0
Location of site. 48.0
Working overtime. 48.0
Physical fatigue. 47.6
Construction method. 47.4
Strikes due to political issues. 47.2
Labor disloyalty 47.1
Inspection delay. 46.9
Lack of labor force. 46.9
Safety condition on site. 46.8
Rain and high wind. 46.6
Drawing and specification alteration. 46.4
Financial constraints. 46.2
Payment delay. 45.7
Clarity of technical specification. 44.9
Poor project planning and scheduling. 44.5
Absenteeism. 44.3
Skills of labor. 39.0
Unavailable of tools and equipment's. 33.3
Supervision. 29.0

Table 4  Measures to improve labour productivity (literature survey)

S. no. Source Mitigation measures

1 Rao et al. (2015)
2 Menon and Varghese (2018)
3 Shinde and Hedaoo (2017)
4 Ghate et al. (2016)
5 Hammad et al. (2011)
6 Chan (2002)
7 Alinaitwe et al. (2005)
Proper planning and scheduling should be improved, proper logistics plan and availability of material at
site before the start of work is very important factors it directly affects the labour productivity
Expanding aptitudes and experience labour, good administration at site, motivation among the work,
lessen absence of material accessibility and reduce the quantity of vagrant works
Automatic material tracking, work testing strategy, collaboration among ventures and construction prof-
itability improvement officer
Skilled labour, Availability of material, Construction method, Safety condition on-site, Scheduling of
work.
Analyse the entire construction process in detail, providing better planning, safety planning, regular
meeting, train supervisors, crew
Planning, feeling part of team, site welfare, job security
Innovation, benchmarking, transfer of knowledge, industrialization of construction

calculated as 0.887. Full result of the reliability test con- (Rad and Kim 2018) which means the questionnaire will
ducted in SPSS is shown in Table 3. The value of α between produce similar results if run on a different sample of the
0.8 and 0.9 means the reliability of questionnaire is good same population.

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Asian Journal of Civil Engineering

Fig. 3  Relative Importance RII

Index of mitigation measures
50.0 55.0 60.0 65.0 70.0 75.0 80.0 85.0 90.0

Appoinng competent Project Manager. 83.8

Payments on me. 82.5

Skilled labors. 80.3

Proper arrangement of labors. 78.7

Health condion of labors. 77.8

Training and movaon for the labors. 76.9

Proper maintained personal protecve… 76.4

Site administraon. 73.6

Automac material tracking, tools and … 73.1

Hygienic condion on the site. 72.8

Approvals of final drawing. 70.3

Shi‡ based working hours. 67.2

Daily meengs. 66.1

Rotaonal holidays for labors. 63.9

Figure 2 graphically shows the factors ranked by its Rela-
tive Importance (or RII) given by the workmen. It shows the
general perception of the surveyed workmen regarding the
most important factors that affect their work productivity.
Labour personal problems have been identified as the
most significant factor affecting labour productivity. Since,
it is internal to the individual workman and may differ from
person to person, complete elimination of it is not quite pos-
sible by the intervention of the project management team.
However, by providing good living conditions, timely wages
can help to ease the problem.
Scheduling and management of work are also major
issues. Improper scheduling may cause frequent resource
overloading. Sometimes, improper planning of material
also causes all or part of the labour force to sit idle due to
lack of sufficient material. Planning the work properly with
thorough due diligence may help there. Use of scheduling
software also helps in this case without increasing much
overhead.
Temperature, wind and rain are all external causes which
may not be addressable by the PM team. However, flexible
shifts may help somewhat. For example, starting the work
early in the morning in the summers and giving breaks
during the afternoon, while continuing the work until late
into the night.
Measures to improve productivity
In the preliminary literature survey, some measures were
found to improve labour productivity. Those are reported in
Table 4. The project management (PM) team can take these
measures proactively to prevent low labour productivity.
Some of the measures are cost intensive and may prove to
be difficult to be implemented. Some measures like proper
planning are within the control of the PM team.
By analysing these findings, 14 unique measures were
highlighted which are summarised as follows:
1. Daily meetings.
2. Training and motivation for the labours.
3. Skilled labours.
4. Site administration.
5. Proper maintained personal protective equipment.
6. Payments on time.
7. Proper arrangement of labours.
8. Automatic material tracking, tools and equipment’s.
9. Hygienic condition on the site.

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Table 5  Low productivity Mitigation measures Factors mitigated

mitigation matrix
Daily meetings Supervision
Improper managerial skills
Poor project planning and scheduling
Labour disloyalty
Safety condition on-site
Labour personal problem
Strikes due to political issues
Training and motivation for the labours Motivation of labour
Labour dissatisfaction
Type of project
Construction method
Schedule compression
Clarity of technical specification
Skilled labours Skills of labours
Clarity of technical specification
Drawing and specification alteration
Site administration Improper managerial skills
Safety condition on-site
Physical fatigue
Motivation of labour
Proper maintained personal protective equipment Safety condition on-site
Labour personal problem
Labour dissatisfaction
Labour disloyalty
Payments on time Motivation of labour
Financial constraints
Labour disloyalty
Proper arrangement of labours Absenteeism
Labour disloyalty
Labour personal problem
Labour dissatisfaction
Automatic material tracking, tools and equipment Unavailable of tools and equipment’s
Shortage of materials
Motivation of labour
Improper managerial skills
Location of site
Hygienic condition on the site Lack of labour force
Safety condition on-site
Labour personal problem
Labour dissatisfaction
Health condition of labours Motivation of labour
Lack of labour force
Safety condition on-site
Labour personal problem
Labour dissatisfaction

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Table 5  (continued) Mitigation measures Factors mitigated

Managerial skills of project manager Supervision

Unavailable of tools and equipment’s
Clarity of technical specification
Shortage of materials
Motivation of labour
Improper managerial skills
Poor project planning and scheduling
Drawing and specification alteration
Construction method
Type of project
Schedule compression
Inspection delay
Rotational holidays for labours Motivation of labour
Lack of labour force
Working overtime
Labour personal problem
Labour dissatisfaction
Shift-based working hours Absenteeism
Motivation of labour
Physical fatigue
Approval of final drawings Clarity of technical specification
Misunderstanding between labour
and site supervisor
Drawing and specification alteration
Scheduling of work

1 0. Health condition of labours.
11. Managerial skills of Project Manager.
12. Rotational holidays for labours.
13. Shift-based working hours.
14. Approvals of final drawing.
After the identification of measures, a questionnaire sur-
vey was conducted among site engineers, supervisors, pro-
ject managers, and other actors involved in the management
of site work. These respondents were asked to score each
measure by its effectiveness to counter low labour productiv-
ity. Aggregated result of this survey is reported in Fig. 3. The
mitigation measures are ranked on the basis of importance
given to it by the respondents.
Appointing a competent project manager has been identi-
fied as the most important measure to be taken to avoid low
labour productivity. PM plays an important role in the man-
agement of work at the site. His involvement is necessary to
increase the motivation of the staff as well as the workmen.
A competent PM with a visionary approach may solve many
problems even before they arise. Thus, it is unsurprising that
the role of PM has come at the top in the findings.
Regular payment is also something which has been identi-
fied as most crucial. Many times delay in payment from the
main contractor to the subcontractor, consequently, delay in
payment to the workmen has caused strikes. Even if it does
not manifest into such an extreme situation, a mild demo-
tivation/dissatisfaction among the labour will also result
in a drastic drop in the productivity rate. Sometimes, apart
than the regular wages, some extra monetary incentives for
good quality and speedy work also work in the favour of
the project.
Productivity improvement matrix
Table 5 maps each mitigation measures identified above with
the factors each of them address. The PM team needs to
identify the factors that are most significant at their site and
try to implement the one or combination of measures to miti-
gate the effect of those factors on low labour productivity.

13

Conclusion
There are many resources required for completion of a con-
struction project. Human labour is one of the most important
ones, as it is the human who takes the work forward. Proper
management of manpower is key to the successful comple-
tion of the project; here, successful means within specifica-
tions, time and budgeted cost. Controlling only the cost of
the labour by hiring more unskilled labour may prove to
be counter-productive. Hiring efficient labour and utilising
them to the fullest is also important.
In this study, various factors affecting labour productiv-
ity were identified. The data were collected by visiting six
different sites and asking 302 construction workmen about
their views of what affects their productivity. Responses
were also collected from site management personnel such
as site engineers, supervisors and project managers about
ways to improve labour productivity. Findings have been
reported ranking the factors by their importance.
Purpose of this study is to enlighten the project manage-
ment teams about the labour perspective of what causes low
work productivity from them. This will help project teams
to identify early signs of problems arising due to low pro-
ductivity and take corrective measures in time to bring back
the project on track.
Future scope and limitations
This study has been conducted in the state of Maharashtra in
India. The data have been collected from six different sites
in the region of Mumbai and Solapur. The findings of this
study have to be validated in other parts of the country as
well as the world.
Use of modern techniques such as ANN can also be used
to quantify the effect of each of the factors identified in this
study on the actual labour productivity. Psychometric tests
can be run on construction workmen along with ANN to
delineate psychological traits of a more productive workman
from that of a less productive workman.
Acknowledgements  We, hereby, take this opportunity to thank RICS
School of Built Environment and Amity University for providing ena-
bling infrastructure to carry out this research. We also thank the various
construction workmen, engineers and project managers from various
companies for sharing their views and opinions which are used in this
study.
Compliance with ethical standards  neering and Technology, 2(8), 1330–1334.
Conflict of interest  On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author
states that there is no conflict of interest.
13
Asian Journal of Civil Engineering
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