The effect of the site environment on motivation and demotivation of construction professionals

Research was undertaken to investigate motivation of white-collar construction employees, with particular regard to the effect of gender of the employee and of the site environment. Data was collected by a survey adapted from the Michigan Organisational Assessment Rating Technique. The survey was distributed amongst professionals with some site presence in Melbourne, Australia. Results indicate that professionals who are on site for five or more days per week have significantly higher levels of demotivation than professionals who are on site "part time"(ie. one to four days per week) and this result was linked to several identified factors, such as the presence "poor planning as a result of unfair resource distribution", "non recognition for work done", "colleagues' aggressive management style", "chaos/ad hocracy", and the importance of "long hours". It was also found that those people on site "full time" also have higher levels of motivation than those on site part time, although this result was not significant. The paper suggests a possible avenue for further research.