Abstract:
Competent masons are the need of good construction. Poor quality and low productivity are common problems on construction projects. One reason for this is incompetency of masons. Masons are responsible for most of the construction activities. There is need to identify the factors that hinder the display of masons’ competency in the field. Literature review suggests that competency is governed by several variables including skills, motivation, and personality traits. Factors of skills and motivation were retrieved from the literature review. Factors of personality traits were retrieved from the Big Five Personality Traits theory. The research hypothesized that skills, motivation, and personality traits have equal impact on the masons’ competency, and that the impact of factors affecting competency declines with experience. Data was collected through a questionnaire and was analyzed on Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The relative importance of factors was found through the comparison of their relative importance indices. The correlation between factors affecting competency and the masons’ experience was drawn. This research found motivation to be the most impactful category on masons’ competency followed by skills and then their personality traits. Three factors that were found positively correlated with experience were lack of education of masons, lack of formal training and masons’ resistance to change. Knowledge of the relative importance of skills, motivation, and personality traits provides the construction project managers with basis to prioritize their measures to improve the masons’ competency. This research acquaints construction project managers with knowledge of the potential issues that masons encounter and suggests guidelines for their eradication to enhance the competency of masons.
