Empirical study of Productivity – Morale Relationship among Construction Workers in Nigeria.

Abstract

The Nigerian construction industry has over the years been attributed with problems of low productivity. The issue of workmen morale has remained central in the wide consideration of factors that lead to low productivity in the industry. The study aims at determining the extent to which productivity relate to workmen morale in the construction industry. The research design was by descriptive survey. The population of study involved 90 medium–large sized limited liability and publicly quoted construction firms operating in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, from which a sample size of 42 contracting firms was selected by a combination of purposive judgmental sampling and proportionate allocation techniques. Research instruments included both the personal interview method and a structured questionnaire; while hypothesis testing employed the t-test statistical technique. The results of the study showed that productivity targets were hardly met by workers, while revealing a significant relationship between construction productivity and construction workforce morale. The study concludes that certain motivators like job security, fringe benefits, and certain de-motivators like bad treatment by supervisors, non-recognition of effort affect morale. The study among others recommends the adoption of a procurement strategy that ensures sustained activity of firms and job security of the workers.