Adapted from FYP from Faculty of Construction & Land Use

6.1 Restatement of survey objective

This research study is aimed at investigating the current weaknesses of the labour productivity on Hong Kong construction sites and the differences on the perceptions of the productivity problems by the management level and worker level. Owing to the low labour productivity in the Hong Kong construction industry, labour is considered to be the most influential factor. The aim of this research was originally aimed at finding the most serious root cause that hinders the labour productivity identified by the site staff. It was done using a replication of the procedures adopted in the previous study by Zakeri et al.[6]

However, an additional objective was made in the design of the research study so that responses from both workers and management could be captured. The same questionnaire was used with these two sets of respondents and when the responses were received the data was separated into two sample groups. These two sample groups of equal size were separated by their job role.

6.2 The questionnaire survey

The original questionnaire was taken from an English language construction journal and the questions were translated so that data were collected through a structured Chinese questionnaire in order to overcome the communication difficulties. The wording of the questionnaire may not be exactly the same as the original version, therefore, several pilot studies were conducted to ensure easy understanding and correct usage of Chinese wording.

Although the questionnaire design was adapted from the previous study, additional questions were asked in order to investigate the problems that possibly happened on Hong Kong construction sites whereas it was not relevant in the previous study. Different productivity factors were also identified suited for the Hong Kong situation as mentioned in the literature review.

6.3 The findings

Although the data was collected from a representative sample on different construction sites, it does not necessarily mean that the results apply to the whole industry. The findings of this research however do contribute to finding out the productivity problems on site and give an indication of the significant problems.

From the ranking of the productivity factor by the entire site staff, the five most problematic constraints have been found to be:
repeat work
interference of work
weather
site condition/environment
improper plan of work

The repeat work problem was ranked the highest and the major reason was poor workmanship and design changes. Changes in design or revision in drawings in turn lead to extensive rework. The interference of work closely followed the repeat work, with others factors being the weather, site condition/environment and the improper plan of work.

Compared with the findings of Zakeri et al, lack of material was the most serious productivity problem in a construction site in Iran. The main reason was the high demand for infrastructure redevelopment in Iran. In Hong Kong, lack of material was ranked the ninth with lesser significance.

Since the study also intended to explore the ranking of productivity factors according to the views of the workers or the management, a separate analysis was performed. The productivity factors were ranked after separating the respondents into two sample groups - the management level and worker level. The results obtained showed great differences on the responsibility of the productivity factors. A comparison of the five most problematic constraints ranked by the management level and worker level are shown below:

Table 6.1 Comparison of Ranking results of the productivity factors by the management
Level and worker level.

The reason behind this different ranking as shown in table 6.1 is their different perceptions on responsibility to the productivity factors. The management level are concerned about the factors with neutral responsibility to be more important while the worker level are concerned about management level responsibilities.

The workers are those who are directly involved in the construction work. Therefore productivity problems encountered by the workers directly mean the time lost on the construction works, the production of output, and their ranking result should be more realistic compared to the views of the management who are more remote. From the ranking of the workers, which factors are regarded as highly responsible by the management level, the low productivity in Hong Kong construction sites can be partly traced to the poor planning and management.

For the management level, they may not accept that they are responsible for the poor productivity and they may try to blame the worker or other parties, and this is shown by their low management level responsibility score.

The findings on the responsibility of the poor productivity may not be conclusive because the justification for the responsibility on each factor is not clear enough to provide reliable findings. Also, the method used to score the responsibilities did not check the management level independently of the management's own view. Therefore, the findings on the responsibility provide only a primary indication.

For future research into this topic, the productivity problems or responsibilities identified in this research can be further studied to alleviate the problems of respondent bias. Any further studies on measuring the responsibility for the poor productivity, alternative data collection methods should be adopted with a clear allocation of responsibility. For example, collecting data on site by direct observation or from documents, site records or site diary can largely eliminate any possible bias by the respondents.