Improvement in construction productivity through goal setting in a unionized environment

Goal setting is one of the motivational techniques used in manufacturing and service industries to improve the productivity of the work force. Previous studies have shown that specific, difficult goals produced better performance than medium, easy, do-your-best goals, or no goals and a programmatic use of goal setting and feedback increases productivity by an average of almost 20 percent. Due to the inherent characteristics of the construction industry, there has not been an attempt to apply this technique to the construction of new buildings. However, the application of goal setting for routine road maintenance work has been tested successfully in Pennsylvania. This study explored the effectiveness of the goal setting technique on masonry work and showed that it can be used in the construction industry to improve productivity if certain guidelines are followed. However, there is a definite possibility that difficulties will be encountered in the implementation of a goal setting program. Some of these difficulties are (i) job disruption during construction due to a strike, lack of material, or interference from other trades, (ii) interference from owner and/or design engineer in the form of major change orders, (iii) interference from unions, and (iv) absenteeism. Some of these difficulties were encountered during this study and disrupted the goal setting process, which, in turn, affected the experimentation. Two hypotheses were considered for this study: (i) the productivity of construction work in a unionized environment can be increased by using the goal setting technique, and (ii) short-term goals are more effective than long-term goals. Three experiments were performed over a period of fourteen months. In all three experiments, the groups with a goal outperformed the groups without a goal. This increased performance is shown by higher expected profits at each experimental site. Comparison of all three experiments allows conclusions to be advanced that (i) goal setting induced increased productivity of unionized groups with a goal and (ii) short-term goals resulted in higher productivity than long-term goals.