The Impact of Labour Motivation on Project Performance with an Insight into the Sri Lankan Construction Industry

Abstract

Construction labour is a vital resource in the construction industry as they mostly reshape the raw materials into skyscrapers and other living enclosures. In Sri Lanka, the construction industry has been constantly exposed to many uncertainties and challenges. Being a developing country that lead to many socio-economic issues and constant changes in the living standards caused demotivational impacts on the Sri Lankan labour force. Thus, optimizing labour productivity through labour motivation is a significant challenge due to the various category and type of labours. This study aims to identify and evaluate different labour motivational factors in improving the building construction project performances. In accomplishing the aim, the mixed method approach was used and 5 number of interviews, 39 questionnaire responses were taken into the analysis. After the analysis there were 14 most significant labour motivation factors which applicable for Sri Lankan building construction industry. Cost centers for those were collected from the expert interviews and their cost on motivation factors were analyzed the data collected from the questionnaire. After the analysis financial and time cost centers have been identifies as the major cost centers that have been incurred when implementing labour motivational factors. Moreover, checked the association between labour motivational factors and project performance in terms of time saving, cost saving and quality improvement. As a result, they were associated with them. A framework was developed to aid in the selection of best motivational factors in optimizing project performance. As the last part of this study, the motivational recommendations were made to increase the labour productivity. Furthermore, these findings will be useful in optimizing building project performance.