EFFECTIVE EMPOWERMENT ACTIVITIES FOR CONSTRUCTION: INITIATIVES FROM

MANUFACTURING

L. Jawahar-Nesan, G.D. Holt, P.O. Olomolaiye

Abstract The Construction industry is often criticised for lagging behind other more progressive industries (such as: manufacturing; processing; and service industries) in adopting innovative concepts and technologies. Coilstruction is perceived as being less productive, giving poor quality, and being more adversarial. In contrast, there has been a recent trend throughout the manufacturing sector to: push the decision making process down to the workforce; introduce nlultiskilled operatives; and create lean management structures. Several ~nanufacturing co~npanies have adopted Total Quality Management, and restructured their workforce into flexible, self managed work teams. In pursuance of developing a necv~aradigm for effective implementation of empowerment in construction, this research initially identified the key enlpowerment activities that are widely being practised througllout the manufacturing sector, by analysing case histories from the literature. This paper identifies and defmes enlpowerment activities that led manufacturing co~npanies towards quality and productivity, and, proposes that these activities should be implemented within construction organisations. The paper also ideillifies ongoing research that is investigating possible applications of the said activities to construction and developing a conceptual framework for implementation of the empowerment concept within construction, predominantly, contractor organisations.

Keywords: Empowerment, quality, productivity, construction performance.

L. Jawahar-Nesan, G.D. Holt, P.O. Olomolaiye, School of Construction, Engineering & Technology, University of Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV1 1 SB, UK

Utinkovite aktivnosti opunomokenja u gradevinarstvu: Inicijative iz proizvodnj e

Gradevinarstvo se Cesto kritizira zbog zaostajanja 7a uspjeSnijim granama privrede (kao Sto su proizvodacka, procesna, usluina) i usvajanju novih koncepata i tehnologija. Smatra se da je gradevinarstvo manje produktivno, da pruia nisku kvalitetu te da je suprostavljena progresu. Suprotno tome. u posljednje se vrijeme pojavljuje trend u cjelokupno~n proizvodnom sektoni: spuitanje procesa odluCivanja prema radnoj snazi, uvodenje operativaca s viSe specijalnosti; stvaranje "mrSavih rukovodeCih struktura. Nekoliko je proizvodnih tvrtki usvojilo potpunu kontrolu kvalitete i restrukturiralo radnu snagu u fleksibilne, samorukovodne radne timove. U razvijanju nove paradigme ucinkovitog uvodenja opunomocenja u gradevinarshm, ovo istraiivanje je prvo utvrdilo kljutne aktivnosti opunornoCenja koje se naSiroko primjenjuje u proizvodnom sektoru, analizirajuCi priinjere iz literature. U radu se odreduju i definiraju aktivnosti opunomocenja koje su dovele proizvodne tvrtke do kvalitete i produktivnosti, te se predlaie uvodenje gradevinske organizacije. U radu se takoder ukazuje na istraiivanja koja proliCavaju primjenu spomenutih aktivnosti u gradevinarstvu i razvija se koncepcijski okvir za primjenu koncepta opunoinoCenja u gradevinarstm, a narotito u gradevinskim poduzecima.

Njutne rijeti: opunomocenje, kvaliteta, produktivnost, uspjeSriost u gradenju

Background There is currently a high level of dissatisfaction amongst UK construction clients regarding the delivery of completed projects. the quality of service, and predictability of cost. In order to address these problems and improve construction processes, the key drivers to change in the L K construction industry such as the Technology Foresight (1 995) and Latham (1 994) have emphasised a focus on teamwork, empowerment, and partnering in construction projects. In particular, the Technology Foresight expressed its dissatisfaction of the construction industry regarding lack of innovation and developments. It advised the coiistruction industry to reengineer basic processes, and to provide "lean" rapid and effective performance; that is comn~onplace throughout other industries (eg., manufacturing, processing, service sector etc.). Currently, the need for design and construction organisations to rethink and redesign their processes is primarily driven by: globalisation of the economy; greater perforn~a~lce expectations from clients; greater competitioil amongst doiuestic organisations; continued restructuring of work practices; and industrial relations (Technology Foresight, 1995 and Lover and Mohamed, 1995).

The construction industry is currently driven to achieve the above competitive advantage by adopting the latest management concepts prevailing in other industries such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Reengineering, and Concurre~lt Engineering. These

concepts need to be well orchestrated to analyse existing processes or methods and establish a new one with the participation of employees. It is also understood that the introductioil of new processes alone is insufficient to guarantee improvement in performance but also there is a need for effective leadership, increased empowerment and more integrated approaches to training that take account of the newly developed processes. These require management to consider the culture of an organisation (in particular, individuals at the work face) to implement a meaningful change (Jawahar-nesan and Price, 1996).

Taking this emphasis into account, this research concentrates on establishing the critical success factors required to achieve customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, and the applicability of lean practices identified within the manufacturing industry for adoption withn constructioiz.

Research aims and methodology The principal aim of the research was to identifjr the innovative manufacturing initiatives of the empowerment concept that are prevalent within the manufacturing sector and apply them to construction. Three sub-objectives have been to: ascertain and assess the characteristics of new leadership styles that encourage contractor's employees to manage their own work; develop an enlpowerment model for construction contractor's organisation so as to assist implementation of empowerment within their organisation effectively; and develop a best practices framework for the training and management of contractor organisations taking into account: the management of change; and flexible, self-rnanaged work teams.

In order to achieve these objectives, the research was designed to undergo four phases: detailed literature review; postal questionnaire survey; case studies of companies who have implemented empowerment; and interviews. Review of the literature, related to both construction and manufacturing, has identified empowerment activities that lead to successful business performance. A postal questionnaire survey within both manufacturing and construction organisations is currently under detailed analysis. Manufacturing is included in the survey sample, because the developnlent of activities were primarily based upon case study literature of manufacturing companies that implemented the empowerment concept. The survey will compare and contrast the perceptions of both manufiacturing and construction and develop an activity model for application in construction organisations. Based upon the activity model, several concurrent case studies within selected construction organisations will be conducted and a validated model for the application of the concept of empowerment will be developed. The objective of this paper therefore may be sunimarised as: to clarifjr the conceptual linkages between new production management philosophies and present the initial findings of the research - critical elements for successful empowerment implementation in a business organisation.

Empowerment defined The term 'empowernlent' has been used in different ways; some refer to it as 'total employee involvement', 'continuous learning', 'management by participation', and others as 'self-directed work teams'. The following are soille definitions of empowerment.

Empowerment refers to the leadership approaches that enable employees to take ownersllip of their jobs so that they choose to involve themselves in constantly improving the performailce of the organisation (Tener, 1993).

Empowerment means giving enlployees authority conlmensurate with their responsibility to initiate positive change in their organisation. This demands total conlnlitnlent, involvement, support, and trust from management (Avrick et al, 1992).

Empowernlent means every individual is responsible -for: acceptance or rejection of the quality of prior work; self-inspection and control of current work; and acceptance or rejection of finished work (Rubinstein, 1993).

These definitions emphasise participative leadership, employee's owilership of their processes, and total employee involvement. Thus, collectively, the term 'empowernlent' can be defined as " the process of giving employees the authority to take decisions, relating to their work processes and functions, within the limits provided by their management, but, requiring theill to assume full responsibility for their actions".

New manufacturing philosophy for construction Quality probleins in construction have been a never-ending-crisis despite the application of many managenlent resolutions and techniques. A number of problems such as rework, revision, waste, design error, and unbuildability leads construction towards one off a poor progressive industry. Traditionally, construction has followed the path of manufacturing in adopting new techniques and management concepts, and improved its productivity. Currently, there is high awareness within manufacturing in applying the concepts of new production philosophies such as Just in time, Total Quality Control, Total Quality Management, enlpowerment, concurrent engineering, and reengineering etc. These concepts, although slightly different in their applications and principles, have been originated around the new production philosoplly taught by American Gurus such as Deming (1982), Juran (1988), and Japanese New Production System (NPS) Research Association (Shinohara 1988). The fundamental theme of the new production philosophy as stated by Koskela (1 992) is briefly presented as follows.

A production process consists of conversions and flows. The conversion process involves conversion of an input to an output. In other words, processes which transform illaterials into fully or partly conlpleted products (e.g. concreting, welding, and formwork etc.). Efficiency of this process directly adds value to the customer (internal or external). Flows are flow of materials and/or information from raw state to completed state. In this flow, the material/information is processed, inspected, and moved on to the next stage. Inspecting, moving, and

waiting for approval represent the flow aspect of the production. The flow process supports the developnlent of products (conversion) from one stage to the other. The activities related to the flow process do not directly add value to the customer, hence, they should be reduced, eliminated, or optimised to efficiently bind the conversion activities together.

In order to increase the efficiency of both the conversion and flow processes, the concept of employee enlpowerment and lean management have been suggested by many experts (Womack et al, 1990; Koskela. 1992: Smack et al, 1993). Womack et a1 stated that they transfer the maximum number of tasks and responsibilities to those workers actually adding value to the product on line, and inherently possess a system for detecting defects and consequent problems. Authorising every employee to be responsible for their work makes each employee sinlultaneously an inspector and proce.y.ror (producer) of their own work. Consequently, this approach greatly reduces andlor eliminates unnecessary procedures (non-value added activities) and improves efficiency of flow activities. This requires: commitment of both management and workforce in improving the process of conversion and flows; a participative leadership style; flattened organisational structures; self-directed teamwork: continuous (skill) education of employees; and measurable improvements (Avrick et al, 1992; Baker, 1993, Maloney, 1995; Shay et al, 1991; Steiger, 1994, Tener, 1993). In summing up the above points, the concept of empowerment and its inlplications on increasing the efficiency of conversion and flow activities can be illustrated through the proposition of a new principle: 'the principle of business performailce improvement' .

Principle of business performance iwiprovement

The efficiency of conversion and flow activities depends on the performance of employees. This requires that employees be empowered to improve their own processes.

Corollary 1

In order to make the conversion activities more efficient, flow activities should be restructured such that they reduce or eliminate the non-value added activities.

Corollary 2

Employees are identified for both conversion and flow processes and empowered to improve those processes.

This principle could be applied to any business organisation, including construction. Literat~zre (Congram and John, 1993; Kimple et al, 1991, McDermott, 1991; Murray and Hines, 1994) indicates that other progressive industries such as service, process, and also education have successfully implemented the concept of empowerment within their organisation and achieved dramatic in~provements. However, literature (Koskela, 1992, Lover and Mohamed, 1995) also suggest that the construction industry has shown little interest in adopting these new production principles.

Identification of empowerment activities for performance improvement The concept of empowerment is based upon the well accepted belief that employees doing their job within the empowered environment are best equipped to understand what needs to be done to improve that job. To develop such an environment, Avrick et a1 (1992) suggested the empowerment process should include: top down decision making to implement empowerment as a vehicle for change; that all levels of management are to be advised about empowerment; that team leaders are chosen: responsibilities of team members are defined; authority to employee is given equal to responsibility; teams identifj and implement in~provements: and periodic interactions should take place with management to review team activities. Implementation of these processes seek fundamental changes - culturally. organisationally, and technically. This fundamental shift requires many changes in the way the business is organised and practised. These involves many elements as changing drivers: a new leadership style that enables success of 'subordinates' (Stahl and Anderson, 1994; Pelphrey 1994); creation of fundamental infrastructures such as organisational structures, equipment/facilities, and fund etc.(Pryor and Oakley, 1991; Willis, 1994); involvement of all employees including both management and operatives (Maloney, 1995: Ogle, 1992); recognition of employees to achieve esteem and self-actualisation in employees (Proescher, 1994; Milas, 1995); development of a system that helps create and reinforce the concept of empowerment in the business organisation (Shay et al, 1991; Smack et a1 1993); identification of process owners for all conversion and flow processes (Ruinmler and Brache, 1990; Stewart, 1992): employee education and training on relevant skills (Hessney, 1994; Steiger, 1994); measured process/performance improvements (Petroff, 1994; Congram and John, 1993): and self-managed teamwork (Maloney. 1995; Handley, 1994). To sum up, the empowerment process can be said to consist of the following nine critical elements.

Leadership styles

Resources Development

Involvement

Recognition

Empowerment system

Process Improvement

Education and training

Measurements

Teamwork

These elements have been foliitd critical in the implementation process of manufacturing companies (see Table 1) who have implemented the collcept of empowerment. The perceived characteristics and important activities of each of these elements are briefly described below.

Table 1: Manufacturing companies implementing empowerment.

Leadership activities

The principal role of leadership is to anticipate changes in the business environment and proactively create an environment within the organisation, that has the ability to achieve the ainls of the changes through the involved workforce. This includes establishing new goals and directions (vision/mission) for the company and then leading the workforce towards the achievement of those goals. The term 'leadership' refers to leaderships at all levels of the organisation, including leaders of functional, technical, and delegated teams. Leaders become chainpions in the application of quality and empowerment concepts and play exemplary roles. Other inembers of a teamldepartment or oranisation are ericouraged to observe and follow the attitudes and bellaviours of these leaders.

Resozrrces developrnewt activities

Once the desired goals (vision) are identified, the fundamental infrastructures such as suitable organisational structures, appropriate procedures, required equipmentlfacilities, and enough funds must be assessed and built into the organisation. The empowerment system requires an organisational structure that: involves all levels and functions into the process; facilitates cross-functional teams; supports self-directed work teains; and empllasises a continuous training of employees. Specifically, the infrastructure must have teamwork as a cornerstone on which the organisation is built. Provision of prompt access to resources, and the physical redesign of plant and ofices encourages employees to easily adopt the empowerment policy. Availability of enough funds for these improvement efforts is important for successful inlplemeiltation, olllerwise employees will be floundered to implement their business level decisions.

Ir~volvernewt activities

Since there is potential for iinproving organisatiorral performance and employee satisfaction, appropriate strategies for employee involvement should be developed. There are se~veral factors that govern the extent of employee involve~rlent in the work process

including organisational structures, performance improvement appraisal, a suggestion system etc. Employees can be given greater autonomy in the involvement process. For example, a strategy of involving all employees through voluntary participation can be one of the options. Also, they can be encouraged to report their grievances on detrimental working conditions and their internal feelings. The involvement programme should also include external participants (customers and suppliers) so that they can understand the new changing environment and so that their expectations and requirements can be made known.

Recognition activities

Recognition is one of the powehl motivators which deals with internal motives of employees to make them become involved in the process with a greater enthusiasm. Management should show sincerity and fairness in consistently maintaining an appropriate recognition system throughout the organisation. Recognition takes many forms - gifts, presentations, certifications etc. Meetings may be conducted to celebrate individuals' or groups' achievements, or teams might be requested to present their quality or productivity achievements in those meetings.

Empowerment system activities

Any empowerment system should include a set of policies, procedures and activities by which a company can establish, document and maintain an effective and economic empowerment management. All participants including managers, inspectors, and operatives participate in establishing the system. It should address: the information that teams require in order to manage their own production and quality; the tasks required to manage an operation; effective roles for employees; control and improvement of operation; and the plan for implementation.

Process improvement activities

Processes that are designed to align with business objectives will result in increased productivity and quality. A more radical solution is to let employees control their processes. In order for any operation to be successful, it is essential to understand process flows to eliminate waste and increase efficiency. To analyse the process flows for further improvement, every owner (employee who controls the process) must be identified. This process is often called 'process ownership'. Process owners can be both individuals and cross-functional teams. One of the main functions of process owners is identifying and prioritising problems and finding appropriate solutions. This includes application of statistical process control, plan-do-check-act procedures, and quality function deployment. Teams comprised of both management and operatives can be established to produce plant improvement plans, department improvement plans etc.

Education and training activities

The training of individuals and groups on implementation and use of various quality and enlpowerment tools is essential for successful empowerment implementation. Training should mainly cover employees' skill development on technical, administrative, interpersonal, and decision making matters. Continuous training for the entire organisation becomes an integral part of the enlpowerment system. This starts from re- education of leadership and passes through the whole organisation to build a strong followers. In a sense, the whole organisation becomes a "learning organisation', continuously striving for identification and improvement of new skills for process improvement. Posters, display boards, and newsletters can be used to increase awareness among employees. Identification of training needs for each job category, individuals, and teams depends on the level of knowledge and skills possessed by employees. At initial stage, both management and workforce jointly identify training needs. Once the team gradually acquires enough knowledge to be capable of self-management, it is able to train itself without much involvement of management. In self-managed training, the team members share their own functional skills and knowledge with the rest of the team members. This enables them to transfer the skills acquired in one job to others in the same group.

Measurement activities

Performance measurements are the cornerstone for monitoring the continuous improvement approach in an empowered organisation. These include measurement of: productlsenrice deficiencies; skill improvement; customer and supplier satisfaction; productivity; cycle times; and training. The training measures include: employee satisfaction with the training; performance in knowledge learned; and performance in skill or knowledge applied. As a part of a measurement system, external benchmarking can be conducted against top performing companies to identrfy best practice and set performance targets with the objective of achieving competitive advantage. Self-assessment of performance is one of the crucial factors, which eliminates the traditional 'inspection' role of supervisors. Self-assessment requires that organisations or work teams clearly define a set of business objectives and identify a set of attributes to measure their performance against those objectives.

Teamwork activities

Teams of different kinds such as quality improvement teams, self-directed work teams, delegated teams, and cross-functional teams are formed at various levels of the organisation. Self-Directed Work Teams (SDWT) are groups of highly trained workers who manage and coordinate their work activities with a minimum of direct supervision. SDWT approach promotes: employee involvement; efficiency; response to change; communication between employees with multi-functional skills; problem solving; and decision making. Team meetings are conducted frequently to analyse problems, improve processes, resolve conflicts, and celebrate achievements. Team leaders are selected who

own responsibilities on areas such as adnlinistration, interpersonal issues, meetings, organisational relationships, and training.

Conclusions This paper has presented initial findings of an ongoing research which links the new production philosophy and concept of empowerment and its implications in the improvement of business processes. The main finding is identification of critical errlpowerment elements when implelllenting the concept in a business organisation. The critical activities in each of these elements and their impact on business performance, wlth specific reference to construction organisations, is under investigation. In answer to the growing demand for an empowerment activity model [i.e. for applying the new production philosophy to construction (Koskela, 1992)], the nest phase of this research will develop an activity model. and subsequeiltly, through case studies will develop an implementation model for business process improvement in construction organisations.

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