CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONALS’ PERCEPTION OF A WEB-BASED RECRUITING SYSTEM FOR SKILLED LABOUR

Globally, the construction industry is experiencing shortage of skilled labour to handle most of its construction projects. There is the need to develop a two-way collaborative technology that adequately connects the available skilled labour to the construction projects where they are needed and vice versa in order to reduce the shortage. By harnessing the strength of web-based technologies, this study intended to evaluate construction professionals’ perception of a web-based recruiting system for skilled labour. The study developed a web-based recruiting system using CSS, HTML, Javascript and MyQSL. System block design and a use case diagram was used to model the web-based systems which are presented in screen shots in this study. A total of one hundred (100) structured questionnaires were distributed to construction professionals in the attitudinal survey on the developed web-based system. The data obtained was analysed and presented using SPSS v21. Statistical tools such as stacked bars, mean score, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Kruskall Wallis test were utilized. Based on the designed web-based platform, the study revealed that in recruiting skilled labour for construction projects, construction professional are mostly concerned with having the sufficient number of skilled labour which are readily available to the site location, properly screened and obtained through a low-cost recruiting process in order to improve their competitive advantage in the construction industry. The study identified lack of knowledge about using a web-based system, low IT training among skilled labour and inaccurate information supplied by worker as major drawbacks to using a web-based system for sourcing for skilled labour. The study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in the drawbacks to the use of web-based recruiting system for sourcing for skilled labour among the construction professionals. The study recommended that there is need to increase ICT trainings among construction professionals and its ancillary stakeholders in order to utilize new innovative ICT tools in the construction industry. Innovative ICT tools can be used to complement traditional methods in use in the construction industry so as to enhance the delivery of construction projects