Abstract
The New Zealand construction industry requires resilient construction professionals with soft skills and certain personality profiles to ensure that their teams are led well and thus resulting in the successful delivery of projects. These individuals will need to have previous experience that will have conditioned and honed their various skillsets and their own personality traits that have been moulded over time. The New Zealand (NZ) construction industry has a specific culture based on its ethnic profile that influences the way things are done. Selecting individuals with exceptional organisational performance is a significant task that NZ construction companies need to constantly be aware of. If the company selects the wrong individual it can have financial and relationship damaging consequences. Previous studies have indicated that there is a positive link between personality and performance outcomes. Psychometric tests can assist in effectively selecting more purpose-fit construction professionals. A Likert scale was used to rank the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) dimensions, according to importance, of construction professionals in NZ. Data was collected via Qualtrics from 266 Site Safe members, their industry partners and then analysed at Massey University. The SAPI personality results suggested that construction professionals in NZ most valued personality traits such as; Integrity, Orderliness, Interpersonal Relatedness, Facilitating, Achievement Orientation and Traditional-Religiosity. All of these fall within the SAPI main dimensions of Conscientiousness and Positive Social-Relational Disposition. The third main dimension reflected as Intellect/Openness with sub-dimensions such as; Epistemic Curiosity, Broad-Mindedness and Intellect. Extraversion proved to be of lesser importance, but in the context of a construction project and teamwork, there is, in moderate consideration, a time for displaying Sociability and Playfulness. The least preferred personality traits were presented under the main dimension of Negative Social-Relational. The sub-dimensions under the least preferred personality traits included Arrogance, Conflict-Seeking, Deceitfulness and Hostility-Egoism. The NZ construction industry is a very close-knit family and word of mouth or personal referrals are prominent in finding a career for many. To ensure individual retention, the correct connections must be made between and individual and the culture of a specific construction company. The research recommends that the personality tests used to employ construction professionals should be combined with a General Mental Ability (GMA) test, as this may increase the probability of a more industry purpose-fit selection. In the case of young graduates entering the often unforgiving work environment with all its complexities and actors, it is also recommended that they be advised through engagement (prior to commencing their appointment) of the stress that can be experienced and how to relieve some of this through maintaining work-life balance activities outside work as this is not part of the SAPI personality test.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Granwal., L.: Statista. Industry in New Zealand - statistics & facts (2020). https://www.statista.com/topics/5725/construction-industry-in-new-zealand/Construction
Hinton., T.: Statista. Quarterly number of employees in construction New Zealand 2010–2020 (2020). https://www.statista.com/statistics/975706/new-zealand-employee-count-in-the-construction-industry/#statisticContainer
Granwal., L.: Statista. Construction industry New Zealand 2014–2020 (2020). https://www.statista.com/statistics/1026508/new-zealand-construction-industry-gross-domestic-product/GDP
Steeman., M.: The construction industry is bracing for more job losses, a survey shows (2020). https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/122852866/the-construction-industry-is-bracing-for-more-job-losses-a-survey-shows
van Heerden, A.., Jelodar, M.B., Burger, M., Zulch, B.: Retaining steel tips: motivation of construction managers in South Africa. In: Kantola, J.I., Nazir, S., Salminen, V. (eds.) AHFE 2020. AISC, vol. 1209, pp. 636–642. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50791-6_82
Van Heerden, A., Burger, M., Zulch, B.: The construction manager’s mask: a more purpose-fit selection for South Africa. In: AHFE International Conference on Human Factors in Training, Education, and Learning Sciences, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 2020, Washington D.C., United States, 24 July 2019 through 28 July 2019, vol. 963, pp. 229–237 (2020). Code 226699
Van Heerden, A.H.G.: Soft skills and the construction site manager: the chameleon professional. In: AHFE 2017 International Conference on Social and Occupational Ergonomics , Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Los Angeles; United States; 17 July 2017 through 21 July 2017, vol. 605, pp. 201–209 (2017). Code 193729
Van Heerden, A.H.G., Burger, M., Zulch, B.: The road to purpose-fit selection of the construction manager. Doctoral dissertation. University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/67931 (2018)
Sherrat, F., Farrell, P.: Introduction to Construction Management. New York. 1st edn. Routledge (2015)
New Zealand Staff Turnover Survey Report.: Lawson Williams (2019). https://www.lawsonwilliams.co.nz/cms/files/Lawson-Williams-National-Staff-Turnover-Survey-Full-Report-2019.pdf
Ayodele, O.A., Chang-Richards, A., González, V.: Factors affecting workforce turnover in the construction sector: a systematic review. J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 146(2) (2020). https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001725
Coetsee, L.D.: Peak Performance and Productivity: A Practical Guide for the Creation of a Motivating Climate (2002)
Melvin, T.: Practical Psychology in Construction Management. Litton Educational Publishing, Inc., New York (1979)
Schmidt, F.L., Hunter, J.E.: The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychol. Bull. 124, 262–274 (1998)
Van Aarde, N., Meiring, D., Wiernik, B.M.: The validity of the big five personality traits for job performance: meta-analysis of South African studies. Int J Select Assess. 2017(25), 223–239 (2017)
Cilliers, C., Meiring, D.: Determining the best factorial fit for the South African personality inventory: Comparison of block-and random-item formations (Master’s thesis). http://hdl.handle.net/2263/45929. Accessed 30 Oct 2020 (2014)
Mouton, S.: An investigation into the first- and second-order factor structure of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) on a relatively large South African sample University of Stellenbosch Masters of Commerce (Industrial Psychology), Stellenbosch 2017
Fetvadjiev, V.H., Meiring, D., Nel, J.A., van der Vijver, F.J.R., Hill, C.: The South African personality inventory (SAPI): a culture-informed instrument for the country’s main ethnocultural groups. Am. Psychol. Assoc. 27(3), 827–837 (2015)
Fetvadjiev, V., Neha, T., Van de Vijver, F., Mcmanus, M., Meiring, D.: The cross-cultural relevance of indigenous measures: the South African personality Inventory (SAPI), family orientation, and well-being in New Zealand. J. Cross Cult. Psychol. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022120969979
Atalah, A.: The personality traits of construction-management professionals. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio (2009). http://ascpro0.ascweb.org/archives/cd/2009/paper/CPRT171002009.pdf. Accessed 30 Oct 2020
https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Construction_professional. Accessed 30 Oct 2020
Meiring, D., Van de Vijver, F., Hill, C., Nel, A., Valchev, V., Adams, B.: https://sapiproject.co.za/home/index. Accessed 30 Oct 2020 (2020)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
van Heerden, A.(., Chawynski, G., Bartolo-Doblas, J., Burger, M. (2021). The Construction Professional’s Kanohi Kē: The Road to Purpose-Fit Selection for New Zealand. In: Kantola, J.I., Nazir, S., Salminen, V. (eds) Advances in Human Factors, Business Management and Leadership. AHFE 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 267. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80876-1_35
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80876-1_35
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80875-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80876-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)