CONSTRUCTION WORKERS’ SKILL DEVELOPMENT: A STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING CAPACITY AND PRODUCTIVITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

This paper examines construction workers’ skills development as a strategy for building capacity and improving work productivity in South Africa. Whilst there are other factors that could influence workers’ skills development, this study focused on human work skill behaviour factors in the construction industry. A descriptive research methodology using emailed questionnaires to collect data was used. Collected data were analysed using two statistical methods.The first one used the mean values to establish data acceptance and the second, the relative importance index, was used grade the data Twenty three factors, narrowed down to six main behaviours were found to be significant in influencing construction workers’ capacity to improve productivity. The six behaviours included educational backgrounds, attitude towards own skills development, working conditions, the organisation’s role in enhancing employee capacity and goal setting. Based on the results of the study, it was recommended that construction project organisations could incorporate the identified skill development factors in their organisations in order to build their skill capacity to improve construction productivity in South Africa. It also was recommended that, governments could use identified factors in their national strategies and policies for construction workers’ empowerment and productivity improvement to create wealth in the national economy.

Keywords

• Skill development factors, Construction workers, Capacity building, Productivity, South Africa