ASSIGNMENT

PGPCM-SODE Module 11 NCP 21

CONSTRUCTION PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

SUBMITTED BY: Ajeet Singh REG. NO.: 213-03-11-11416-2153 SODE-PGPCM

ASSiGNMENT NICMAR/CODE Office Name Reg. No. Course No. Course Title Assignment No. Date of Dispatch Last Date of Receipt AJEET SINGH 213-03-11-11416-2153 (PGPCM) NCP 21 Management in Organisation

Your company has bagged a lucrative contract to construct a housing colony for an Industrial Group to be located in Western Maharashtra in a coastal belt. You as a Project Manager have been asked by the company to evolve Organization Structure with following conditions.

i. Organization should be as lean and thin as possible with bare minimum of personnel on company roll upto Junior Engineer level.

ii. All supervisors to down below will be temporary for project duration only to be recruited locally from 10 km radius.

Suggest and discuss an organization structure denoting responsibility, authority, communication control for all facets of construction work and management functions as visualized by you.

ole Housing colony consists of 10 Bungalows for senior executives, 20 Apartments in five building, 100 dwellings for white collar workers and 300 dwellings for blue collared workers. Colony will have market and entertainment complex.

SCOPE OF WORK
Since this is a large project, the whole project may be divided into phases. Let us divide the project into Two phases. The Scope of work under each phase is described as follows:PHASE 1 Construction of quarters of essential staff will be undertaken first. In this phase we will construct the following: 5 Bunglows 12 Apartments 50 dewllings 100 dwellings Market for senior executives in 3 buildings for white collar workers for blue collar works

The project may be assumed to be located at a distant location and therefore it is essential to provide a market for daily chores.

Entertainment complex is Maslows II order need. This may be taken up in phase-2. Largest number of dwellings may be taken up in this phase so as to provide accommodation to larger number of people. This will create a safe environment to the occupants and help this township flourish.

Phase-I will take the largest time as ground work such as laying of Water Supply lines, Sewage lines, Electricity Lines, Communication Lines etc has to be laid out first underground. Only after the planning and layout of these can the construction of the quarters begin.

The skeleton structures constructed during this phase will act as temporary dwellings for the construction staff.

Intially, the industrial group for whom the colony is being constructed will require more of Senior Execs and Managers to commence its operations in this new place. Hence 50% Quarters for senior execs, 60% apartments and 50% dwellings for white collar workers is provided against only 33% dwellings for blue collar workers.

PHASE 2 5 Bunglows 8 Apartments 50 dewllings 200 dwellings for senior executives in 3 buildings for white collar workers for blue collar works

Entertainment Complex

By the time of completion of Phase-I, it may be reasonably assumed that the industrial group has began its operations and now in the process of expanding.

At this point of time it will need more workers than managers. Hence 66% of dwellings for blue collared workers will be constructed in this phase against 50% for senior execs, 40% apartments and 50% white collared workers.

At this point of time, the second order needs will be visible among the occupants and it is desirable to give an entertainment complex in this phase.

Further development of new facilities such as club house etc may be also taken up in this phase if there is demand.

Different types of organisational setups

Bureaucratic Structures
Bureaucratic structures maintain strict hierarchies when it comes to people management. Bureaucracy works on strict following of rules and decisions are based on following of procedures rather than being result-oriented. The work culture is neutral in outlook and the main stress is on the following of procedures. There are three types of bureaucratic structures.

1 - Pre-bureaucratic structures
This type of organizations lacks the standards. Usually this type of structures can be observed in small scale, start-up companies. Usually the structure is centralized and there is only one key decision maker. The communication is done in one-on-one conversations. This type of structures is quite helpful for small organizations due to the fact that the founder has the full control over all the decisions and operations.

2 - Bureaucratic structures
These structures have a certain degree of standardization. When the organizations grow complex and large, bureaucratic structures are required for management. These structures are quite suitable for tall organizations. These structures follow the principle of hierarchy, control and communication in a strict up-down approach. Different levels have no freedom to bypass their immediate level even if the need is so.

2 - Post-bureaucratic Structures
The organizations that follow post- bureaucratic structures still inherit the strict hierarchies, but open to more modern ideas and methodologies. They follow techniques such as total quality management (TQM), culture management etc.

Functional Structure
The organization is divided into segments based on the functions when managing. This allows the organization to enhance the efficiencies of these functional groups. As an example, take a software company.

Software engineers will only staff the entire software development department. This way, management of this functional group becomes easy and effective.

Functional structures appear to be successful in large organization that produces high volumes of products at low costs. The low cost can be achieved by such companies due to the efficiencies within functional groups. In addition to such advantages, there can be disadvantage from an organizational perspective if the communication between the functional groups is not effective. In this case, organization may find it difficult to achieve some organizational objectives at the end.

Divisional Structure
These types of organizations divide the functional areas of the organization to divisions. Each division is equipped with its own resources in order to function independently. These is a coordination department to achieve the synergy and sum up the output of the divisionis.There can be many bases to define divisions.

Divisions can be defined based on the geographical basis, products / services basis, or any other measurement.

As an example, take a company such as GE. It can have microwave division, turbine division, etc., and these divisions have their own marketing teams, finance teams etc. In that sense, each division can be considered as a micro-company with the main organization.

Matrix Structure
When it comes to matrix structure, the organization places the employees based on the function and the product. The matrix structure gives the best of the both worlds of functional and divisional structures.In this type of an organization, the company uses teams to complete tasks. The teams are formed based on the functions they belong to (ex: software engineers) and product they involved in (ex: Project A).This way, there are many teams in this organization such as software engineers of project A, software engineers of project B, QA engineers of project A, etc.

Conclusion Every organization needs a structure in order to operate systematically. The organizational structures can be used by any organization if the structure fits into the nature and the maturity of the organization. In most cases, organizations evolve through structures when they progress through and enhance their processes and manpower. One company may start as a pre-bureaucratic company and may evolve up to a matrix organization.

In our case we should keep in mind the type of industry we are operating in and the end results required, the nature of human resources and technical qualification, training etc to come to a concluding organisational structure.

The salient features of the construction business are:

The construction industry is labour and capital intensive industry. Trained staff is scarce and most of the construction work in developing countries is dependent on non-standard site practices and rule-of-thumb. Training is generally on-site training especially for the lower staff.

High level of mechanisation is required to accurately plan and schedule. Machines provide higher output for a given input, can perform larger tasks which will otherwise require impossible amount of manpower.

The staff often needs to work in hazardous conditions hence safety should be taken care of with priority.

Construction activity is generally 24x7 business and hence staff as well as managers have to stay at worksite where keeping the family is usually not possible. Hence some incentive to account for this hardship should exist.

Functions
Functions needed to be performed should identified first. Following are the main functions which need to be performed under this project:1. Planning and Scheduling 2. Materials Management 3. Manpower Management 4. Budgeting and Accounting 5. Site Management 6. Safety Management These activities are essential for any organisational setup to function properly. In construction activity, large number of labourer/staff is involved so there may be a separate Personnel Department depending upon the scale of operations. However, in our case we will assume that the scale of operations is not very large and hence the establishment matters are dealt in by Project Engineers. However, separate departments for material management and accounting should be there as construction project generally involve large scale consumption of material and well as big spending. Also it is generally a good practice to keep materials management a separate activity to avail the benefits of centralised purchasing.

Organisational Setup

Designation
PM Project Engineer Gr-1 Project Engineer Gr-2 Materials and Logistic Manager Funds and Accounts Manager Junior Engineer (JE) Safety Supervisor Site Supervisor (SS) Artisan Staff

Number
1 2 2 1 1 6 1 12

Status
Permanent Permanent Permanent Permanent Permanent Permanent Permanent Temporary Temporary

Need based Labourers Temporary

Organisation Chart
P R O J E JE-2 C T PROJECT ENGINEER GR-2 JE-4 SS-8 M JE-5 A N A SAFETY G SUPERVISOR MATERIALS E MANAGER ACCOUNTS R MANAGER PROJECT ENGINEER GR-2 JE-6 SS-12 SS-10 SS-11 Responsible for construction of Dwelling for Blue collar workers SS-9 SS-6 SS-7 Responsible for construction of Dwelling for White collar workers PROJECT ENGINEER JE-1 GR-1 PROJECT ENGINEER JE-2 GR-1 SS-4 SS-5 Bunagalows/Apartments SS-2 SS-3 Market/Entertainment Complex Responsible for construction of SS-1 Responsible for construction of

Communication and Authority

As is clear by the organisational setup, each person will report to the higher authority mentioned in the column preceding him. This is a hierarchy based setup and chosen due to the following reasons: Construction project involve large scale labour and few officers/supervisors. Due to this particular trait, it is utmost necessity that setup should be authority based rather than communication based. Often site conditions and other social factors cause problems like in-subordination, drunkenness, brawls etc and to nip these problems in the bud, it is necessary to enforce strict discipline and hence authoritarian setup is required especially till the level of Junior Engineer. The setup may allow flow of information and horizontal/upward communication from Project Engineer level. Safety is paramount and hence Safety Supervisor will report directly to PM for more effectiveness. Accounts Manager and Materials Manager will report directly to the PM as these functions are largely centralised. In this setup, the Project Manager (PM) will be overall in-charge of the project and he will report directly to CPM who will have several such projects going on under him. All Financial and establishment powers are vested in him. He may delegate his powers as per his wish to Project Engineers depending upon his personal rapport with each. He will also be responsible for Liaoning with Govt./other agencies.

Project Engineer Gr-1 will be a senior and experienced Engineer and he will look after the construction of important assets such as Bungalows, Apartments, Market and Entertainment Complex under various phases of implementation. He will be responsible for day to day functioning of his area. He will also plan the need for materials/funds and intimate Materials Manager/funds Manager sufficiently in advance to facilitate the smooth functioning of activities. He will report directly to PM. Project Engineer Gr-2 will be junior to Gr-1 and will look after the construction of dwelling for white collar and blue collar workers. His responsibilities will be same as PE Gr-1. He will report directly to PM. Junior engineer will assist the Project Engineer. His responsibility will mainly be on site and will be responsible for quality control, manpower planning, layouts and surveys, Map reading etc. Site Supervisors will form a link between the labourers/Artisan Staff and Junior Engineer. Site supervisors will be locally recruited and therefore well conversant with the local language. They will ensure that the instructions passed by the junior engineers are clearly understood and followed on the worksite. They will also report the behavioural pattern of the workers and their demands to JE. Hence they will be the most important link in this chain. Financial powers may be delegated by PM to different levels depending upon the need of the project. It is difficult to determine the financial powers at each level at this point of time but it is also beyond doubt that adequate financial powers should be given at each level so as to enable the employees taken decisions falling under their domains.

Recommendations:
Generally speaking, employees are not cog in the machine. However, construction industry has its unique nature and hence Scientific Management as propagated by Wilson works best at lower levels. At this level, most of the personnel involved are struggling with Maslows first order needs and simple management principles and clear and tangible incentives work best with them. Theories of Elton Mayo et al maybe implemented at middle and higher management levels. Community Centre should also be provided in this colony. Suitable leave structure should be devised to allow the employees enjoy their social life. SOLDIERING comes into picture at lower levels. There should be a system of group incentive as well as individual incentive to get maximum output. Site supervisors and junior engineer play a vital role in this scheme and incentives will be distributed based on their feedback. Timely workshops should be conducted to highlight and award the employees who have made certain innovations in their fields. This will facilitate the flow of knowledge and help workers benefit from each others ideas. Also this will improve communication among the organisation. The Project Manager should hold monthly workshops to promote the welfare policies of the company and should make the employees aware of these welfare policies.

Recommended Readings:
Chapter on Organisation Management Koontz Odoneal- McGraw Hill Publications Management and Organisational Behaviour Laurie J. Mullins Business Organisation and Management P.C. Tulsian Organizational Behaviour P. Robbins