The management of labour on high rise construction projects: an international investigation

Abstract

Results of a model based survey of contractors' planning engineers in France, Germany and the UK, indicates significant divergence in proposed labour management and hence, modern construction practices. For an identical in situ concrete building, French contractors planned to deploy the smallest site management team and labour workforce; which was mainly skilled and directly employed. Their operatives were allocated longer official periods of relaxation and required to work fewer hours. German contractors, while using more managerial staff than French firms, intended to employ the largest workforce, this being predominantly skilled and also directly employed. Working a maximum of five days each week, German firms planned longer working hours, which when considered on a weekly basis were in excess of what is considered (optimally) productive. UK practice included the utilisation of additional managerial staff (compared to France and Germany), combined with subcontract, mainly semi-skilled labour. Planned weekly working schedules were in excess of those elsewhere, and consequently, were also counter-productive. It is hypothesised that if the most effective of these differing international labour utilisation practices could be identified, recommendations for `European best practice' could be proffered.