Attracting and Retaining Staffs in Construction Industry

Managing Human Resource

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Attracting and Retaining Staffs
The business dynamics have changed in many parts of the world. This change is reflected
back in the different business operations. It is essential for every organisation to manage their
human resource in a planned manner so that they may not face any kind of strategic
challenges. Since there are several issues faced by the organisation in terms of managing
staffing hence a strategic human resource management is required in the organisation
(Huxham & Vangen, 2013). This is much bigger problem for the organisations operational at
the international level. It is also essential for the organisations to understand the behaviour of
the employees. For managers it is crucial that they understand the needs and demands of their
sub-ordinates. This is necessary for motivating employees in the way they want. In order to
achieve maximum productivity of employees, this is highly necessary.
HRM of any company irrespective of the industry they belong to needs to have a proper plan
so as to manage their staffing in an appropriate manner. It’s not that only hiring talented
staffs is essential but to retain them is again a challenge for an organisation. It is crucial for
the HRM to underline the factors that are not allowing any company to retain its employees.
The construction industry is one of the biggest industries in the worker especially in terms of
the employee strength (Garrick, 2012). With the development of new cities, infrastructure
requirements are increasing and hence it the number of companies in this industry is also
increasing. Any employee needs several types of motivational factors to stay at any place in
which the biggest is the reward and appraisal they receive from the organisation. Along with
this it is also necessary that company ensures the development of the staff in the long run and
sustainable future is the only thing that can help in attracting and retaining staffs.
It is essential for an organisation to understand the challenges that they might face in
attracting and retaining staffs. If these issues are not addressed properly there is a chance that
they might lose their control on their staffs. It is not beneficial for the organisation in the long
term. In the larger context, it results in degrading their performance which is ultimately
reflected back in their quality that they deliver (Langford, Fellows, Hancock & Gale, 2014).
Since in the modern day business, quality management is a very essential aspect hence
maintaining the quality of the organisation is extremely crucial. Employee’s performance gets
directly reflected back on the operations of the firm and at the same time it affects the quality
that any company delivers to its clients. In construction Industry since many crucial works
needs to be done which requires high focus and dedication. Once the employee’s

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performance gets degraded, it ultimately starts to build the pressure on them to leave the job.
In such an environment, the negativity automatically starts to develop. The negative
environment at the workplace is a major reason for employees leaving the organisation
(Murray & Dainty, 2013). This might be because of many reasons which are further the
responsibility of the managers to understand and respond to it. If the company is not growing
both in terms of employee development and in other forms, negative environment
automatically gets build up. On the other hand employees also leave the organisation when
they seek or get opportunity in a bigger firm that could ensure their future. This is the reason
why people prefer larger firm over the smaller ones. They believe that they have greater
chances of growth.
Construction Industry requires both skilled and unskilled labourers hence the management
has to face challenges related to compensation i.e. the pay scale. It has been noticed that the
companies that are not paying well to their employees mostly lose them. They generally
move towards the employers that pay them high. Since the basic pay scale of the construction
industry is already on the higher side hence this can be a greater challenge for the
organisation. Since the low cost labourers are hard to find which is the basic requirement of
this industry (Cowling & Mailer, 2013). Along with this it is also to be noted that a
construction industry requires skilled labourers that too at comparatively lower cost. This is
the reason why most of the companies have given their human resource on the contract basis.
The outsourcing of this lower grade worker helps them in maintaining the demand and supply
of the labourers whenever required. But this again creates some other kind of challenges like
the conflicts between the lower level and higher level of workers. This is generally because
the engineers and managers belongs to some other company while the lower level staffs
belongs to some other contractors. This creates dispute among the company professionals
which is a major reason for employees leaving the organisation (Jerome, 2013).
Along with this, company also faces challenges related to the managing the balance between
how many skilled labourers they actually require and how many they have. This is because
some days the construction process requires too many people while on the other hand some
requires day the requirement is less (Nankervis, Baird, Coffey & Shields, 2016). In this
situation, it is essential that company manages their business operations on the basis of
resources they have. This will benefit both company and employee. Every employee at any
level wants permanent jobs hence companies must also focus on strategies that could ensure
their existence within the organisation for a long time period. The managers face the