Valuing People in Construction


Book Description

Valuing People in Construction provides contemporary perspectives on the ‘glue’ that binds the construction process together; people. The book addresses people issues in the construction industry where behavioural outcomes impact upon business and project performance. The main proposition of the book is that as people continue to lead the completion of construction activities, their health, safety, and well-being should be seen as a priority, and valued by stakeholders. As employers and employees, the role of people in construction must be to strive for the improvement of individual lives and society. This edited collection, which is the first book to focus specifically on placing value on people in construction, focuses on people at work, gender at work, conditions at work, and respect at work. In addition to an editorial overview, the book presents tested and refined empirical work and case studies by leading construction researchers from Africa, Australia, and Europe. Essential reading for researchers, students and professionals interested in construction management, the sociology of construction, HRM in construction, gender, work and health studies.




Valuing People


Book Description

Citizens do not feel empowered and do not feel they are adequately given the space to meaningfully participate in public governance. Clearly, citizens are not satisfied with the manner in which government is run. This is evident across the developed and developing world, as highlighted also by recent manifestation of discontent in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. While past government reforms have tendentially focused on performance, efficiency, and productivity, recent developments in public governance have recognized the central role of individuals as 'citizens' rather than 'customers' in both the development and implementation of public policies. Although government remains indispensable to governance, citizen can and should play an active role towards solutions to recurring problems as well as emerging and future issues. A key way to ensure that governments truly reflect the will of the people, particularly the marginalized and the weaker groups of society, is by creating an environment where citizens are given democratic space to exercise 'voice', even in between elections. Citizen engagement in decision-making and public service delivery is key to development and to the improvement in the lives of people. The research explicitly selected cases from the largest populated continent in the world, a region where culturally, rights and duties of citizens as well as the power and authority of their political leaders have been significantly influenced by 'Asian values'. In particular, experiences in citizen engagement in India and Thailand have been respectively further influenced by social stratification (castes) and hierarchical proximity to the monarchy (sakdhina). Notwithstanding the extent of democratic values within which the two cases were implemented, both cases are indicative of the potential impact meaningful citizen engagement can have in the lives of ordinary people and carry with them potential for replication.




Valuing People and Technology in the Workplace: Ethical Implications and Imperatives for Success


Book Description

Technology’s use has exploded, and many employees have been left behind during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations are constantly trying to balance people and technology within the workplace. In today’s highly technological, globalized economy, it is essential that practitioners and researchers understand that people and technology do not exist in isolation from each other within the workplace. Valuing People and Technology in the Workplace: Ethical Implications and Imperatives for Success explains how philosophy, ethics, and systems theory influence the five values of people and technology development. The three main areas that are included to explain how philosophy, ethics, and systems theory relate to the five values are the three philosophical perspectives, diversity intelligence, and the workforce inter-personnel diversity talent management system. Covering topics such as ethics, organizational philosophical perspectives, and value creation model, this premier reference source is an essential resource for business leaders, human resource managers, entrepreneurs, technology professionals, students and educators of higher education, researchers, and academicians.




Valuing People and Technology in the Workplace: A Competitive Advantage Framework


Book Description

Valuing People and Technology in the Workplace: A Competitive Advantage Framework introduces a more proactive, strategic approach to bring employees into, and develop them within, an organization. Interpreting and accepting this concept requires managers to think of employees as they would think of technology. Technology, equipment, and systems are strategically aligned within organizations. Integrating the literature from strategic technology management, strategic human resource management, and human resource development and exploring how this integration can provide competitive advantage to organizations for better implementation of people and technology development initiatives is a potential solution. Valuing People and Technology in the Workplace: A Competitive Advantage Framework provides a comprehensive framework that can be used to develop and design case studies that could measure the identified values that people, technology, and strategy can provide to the organization. This book aims to serve as a guide for managers and leaders as they develop strategies to introduce new people and technology into the workplace.




Social Value in Construction


Book Description

While the concept of social value is not new, recent interest in social value in construction has grown because of new social procurement legislation around the world and an increasing acceptance of the need to ensure construction projects provide social value, rather than simply economic value. Despite this growing recognition, literature and professional guidance on the subject is hard to find. This is the first book looking at social value in construction and it sets the agenda by asking and answering important questions like: How is the construction industry developing and supporting social enterprise and social value and for who? How and when is the industry recording and measuring social value and its effect? Which organisations are doing things well and what can we learn from their experiences? What can industry players do together to consolidate efforts and drive improvements? What are the key challenges in the field and what does the future look like? Drawing on a variety of professional and academic experiences and disciplines, the authors present global perspectives and lay the foundations for creating social value in the construction industry. This timely book makes use of real-life case studies and examples of best practice to demonstrate how innovative companies can utilise contemporary research to create social value through their projects. It is time the construction industry viewed community involvement and corporate social responsibility as an opportunity rather than a risk, and this is the book that shows the industry how. This is essential reading for all professionals in the construction, engineering, architecture and built environment sector. In particular, project managers, clients, contract managers, quantity surveyors, CSR and HR personnel will gain a lot from reading this book.




Achieving Value for Money in Capital Build Projects


Book Description

This book is the first to bring together academic and practitioner views of Value for Money (VFM). VFM has been used to assess whether or not an organisation has obtained the maximum benefit within the resources available to it. A concept used by the public sector to assess the benefits of major built environment projects, it has become a major tenet of public private partnerships, capital project infrastructure and civil engineering megaprojects. This book presents and discusses the various debates surrounding the concept of Value for Money. It provides an international perspective on VFM by drawing upon the existing and fast developing body of principles and practices for Capital Build Projects. Readers will gain a level of understanding of the issues involved, the challenges, opportunities and the support mechanisms and protocols required for implementation of VFM in capital building development. Ultimately, the book presents a protocol that has been developed to track and monitor the VFM of a capital project from day 1, an Equilibrium Testing Mechanism (ETM) developed by the authors. This testing mechanism allows each of the parties to a project to monitor their VFM position at any given stage of a project from the beginning to the end of the build stage and beyond as necessary. This book is both a useful reference for researchers and a practical guide for the construction and engineering industry.




Training-Within-Industry Job Programs for Improved Construction Safety


Book Description

The purpose of this book is to demonstrate how a Training-Within-Industry (TWI) Job-Program could reduce human factor-related harm in construction. The construction industry has a significant impact on issues relating to the health, safety, and well-being (HSW) of people in the workforce. It is important to acknowledge that workers' behaviour influences the safety management system (SMS) of construction projects either negatively or positively and that it is important for a management team to identify relevant behaviours and take appropriate action to solve problems. In most cases, accidents happen because of the results of human failure in the form of errors, violations and system failures. Human failure causes accidents and site management needs to reduce hazards that might cause such errors, violations and system failures on worksites. The chapters in the book address factors causing human failure on construction sites, how to mitigate errors and violations through SMS and ‘learning by doing’ and improving practice of using safety instructors on sites. The book closes with insights from a TWI-informed human failure reduction framework. This book provides valuable insights into safety management in a construction site context that can be applied to other areas. It is essential reading for safety managers, construction managers, researchers, and advanced students.




Handbook of Construction Safety, Health and Well-being in the Industry 4.0 Era


Book Description

This Handbook seeks to examine and advance current understanding of the confluence of construction health, safety and well-being and the broad range of Industry 4.0 technologies in use in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. Globally, the construction sector accounts for more than 100,000 occupational fatalities annually. In many countries, reports of work-related accidents, injuries and illnesses are commonplace, and there is an urgent need to improve the occupational safety and health (OSH) outlook of the construction sector. The fourth industrial revolution presents opportunities to leverage modern technologies (e.g., big data, artificial intelligence, automation, sensors, AR, VR and robotics) to improve the poor OSH performance of the construction industry. However, embracing such technologies could also induce unintended adverse consequences for the safety, health and well-being of construction workers. Therefore, the realisation of the opportunities as well as the mitigation of potentially adverse consequences requires research-informed holistic insights around the union of Industry 4.0 and construction occupational safety and health management. This cutting-edge volume addresses a significant gap in literature by bringing together experienced academics and researchers to highlight the drivers, opportunities and drawbacks of the merging of Industry 4.0 with construction health, safety and well-being. After a detailed introductory section which highlights key issues and challenges, section one covers the application of a broad range of digital technologies; then section two discusses the application of industrial production and cyber physical systems in the context of construction safety and health management. Readers from a broad range of AEC backgrounds as well as safety professionals and technologists will come to understand how the technologies are applied and the resulting OSH benefits as well as potential drawbacks.




Construction Safety, Health and Well-being in the COVID-19 era


Book Description

This edited book presents a significant and timely contribution to our understanding of a broad range of issues pertaining to COVID-19 and its relationship to occupational safety, health and well-being (OSHW) in the global construction industry. The editors first introduce the industry and its poor OSHW history before highlighting some of the broader impacts of the pandemic on the sector. The book is then divided into two sections. Section One focuses on the management of COVID-19 transmission risk. It captures insights, practices, technologies and lessons learned in relation to what has and is being done to prevent or mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission among the construction workforce. Construction Safety, Health and Well-being in the COVID-19 Era also details case studies, lessons and best practices for managing sites and workforces when infections inevitably do occur. Section Two brings together international chapters discussing the impacts of COVID-19 on the OSHW of the construction workforce both on and off-site, as well as the management of those impacts. Furthermore, this presents implications of the pandemic (at the short-, medium-, and long-term) for other performance measures of construction projects such as cost, schedule, quality and, most importantly, how the pursuit/non-pursuit of such performance measures have impacted/will impact the OSHW of construction workers and professionals in the industry. This book addresses the gap in literature by offering global perspectives on the OSHW impacts and implications of COVID-19 in the construction industry and will help its wide readership (including construction industry organisations, professionals, researchers, government bodies/policy makers and students) to understand a broad suite of issues pertaining to COVID-19 and its relationship to OSHW in construction.




Climate Emergency – Managing, Building , and Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals


Book Description

Through research and proven practice, the aim of the International Conference of Sustainable Ecological Engineering Design for Society (SEEDS) is to foster ideas on how to reduce negative impacts on the environment while providing for the health and well-being of society. The professions and fields of research required to ensure buildings meet user demands and provide healthy enclosures are many and diverse. The SEEDS conference addresses the interdependence of people, the built and natural environments, and recognizes the interdisciplinary and international themes necessary to assemble the knowledge required for positive change.




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