Research into work-life balance among site managers paints a bleak picture of long hours, stress and disrupted personal lives.

Long working hours among site managers are leading to increased stress, reduced productivity and problems with family life, according to research published exclusively in CM.

And despite the industry’s acknowledged skills shortages at management level, few firms or industry bodies are taking any steps to help site managers achieve anything like a work-life balance.

As one senior company manager said: ‘It is expected of these guys that they know what they are letting themselves in for. They work very long hours over a long period of time to complete the programme. There is not a lot we can do to get around that.’

These long hours are creating negativity and bad feeling in the industry. I discovered this first hand while on placement experience during my construction management honours degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Site managers painted a negative picture of the construction industry and I observed people working excessive hours and looking run-down. Other students came back from their placements with similar stories.

Site managers I spoke to had experienced the same long hours culture with a number of contractors. Comments posted on one firm’s intranet are typical of the views expressed (see box below).

A survey of site managers working for main contractors in Scotland reinforced these views (see opposite). With 75% of the 28 respondents working over 50 hours a week, site managers reported that productivity was affected and that they regularly experienced stress.

 57% thought work-induced tiredness stopped them from being normal in the home

The long working hours are also impacting on home life. Partners reported that relationships and social lives were suffering. The site managers admitted that tiredness affected their ability to function at home and that they weren’t seeing enough of their children.

The effects of stress are well documented: physical symptoms include heart disease, back pain, gastrointestinal problems and various minor illnesses; psychological effects include anxiety, depression, skipping meals, drinking too much caffeine or alcohol, smoking and drug abuse. All can lead to under-performance and absence.

The issue of work-related stress has received increasing attention from the Health and Safety Executive.

In 2007, HSE research showed that over a third of all new incidences of ill health were due to stress and that an average of 30.9 working days are lost for each case of stress-related illness.

Quite apart from the cost to a business of an under-performing manager, or a manager who is off sick, employers have a legal duty to tackle health problems occurring as a result of employment practices.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), employers have a general duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health of their employees at work. Employers also have a legal obligation under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulation (1999) to take into account stress-related illness: ‘When allocating work to employees, employers should ensure that the demands of the job do not exceed the employee’s capability to carry out the work without risk to themselves or others.’

So what are contractors doing about the problem? The short answer is very little.

 45% of wives or girlfriends feel their partner works too many hours and 73% say this has an Effect on their relationship or that their home life is suffering

Senior managers know that long hours are causing dissatisfaction and stress. Of three of them questioned, each from a different major contractor, all admitted that their site managers worked longer than the managers would have liked.

One, quoted in the introduction of this article, felt that this was just the way things were.

However, he also commented that a survey of staff had shown that 20% were unhappy with the hours they had to work.

The other two companies were trying to address the issue but admitted that they were not succeeding in all cases. Factors which led to the long hours culture were cited as pressure from clients to fast-track projects, increased paperwork due to health and safety legislation and the weather. Poor planning and lack of management training were all also seen as contributory factors. One of the managers felt that a site manager’s role was not open to job-sharing due to the complex relationships with many subcontractors.

Interviews with representatives from the CITB in Scotland and the Scottish Construction Forum revealed there is no pressure from construction companies for these bodies to tackle the lack of work-life balance. The only initiative that anyone questioned could come up with was HSE’s recent work.

This research demonstrates that one of the biggest barriers to work-life balance in construction is the culture of the industry. There is a complacent acceptance of long hours: this is what the industry expects from its site managers and others.

There is already a substantial shortage of site managers and other professionals. And society’s perception that construction is dirty and demanding will only serve to magnify future skills shortages. Destructive practices such as very long-working hours will only add to that negative perception among the public and construction students.

The impact of an overworked and overstressed site manager could be catastrophic. With the focus on health and safety within the industry, applied effort has to be concentrated on the health of the key professionals who are maintaining the sites. The importance of the health of site managers cannot be understated as it is these very people who are tasked with implementing the safety of others. cm

And our survey said...

Questionnaires went out to a variety of main contractors working in Scotland. Twenty eight site managers responded and 11 partners answered questions about home life. All the site managers were male, ranging in age from 20 to over 55.

In terms of experience, 57% of respondents had been site managers for five to ten years and 21% had been site managers for between 10 and 20 years. Fifty-seven per cent had reached the position of site manager through formal management training, and 32% had come up through the trades. Alarmingly, 32% said they had received no formal management training before taking on their site management roles.

The vast majority of respondents would prefer to work within the range of 35 to 40 hours a week (figure 1). However, only one of the 28 site managers achieved this, (figure 2) with 75% of site managers working over 50 hours a week and 35% working over 60 hours a week.

Despite the fact that most wanted to work less than 40 hours a week, 93% had opted to relinquish their rights to work a maximum of 48 hours a week under the Working-Time Directive, with 89% opting out by default.

This suggests that site managers are bowing to industry pressure against their wishes, a pressure that was confirmed in interviews with senior managers, who agreed that it was expected that people would opt out.

These very long hours are affecting people’s ability to do their jobs. 61% of the site managers felt that the long hours affected their work productivity (figure 3) and 75% admitted to feeling regularly stressed (figure 4).

Not surprisingly, the impact of this working culture is also being felt in the home. 54%t said they felt burnt out and exhausted after work (figure 5). 75% per cent agreed or strongly agreed that long hours were adversely affecting personal relationships (figure 6) and 57% thought work-induced tiredness stopped them from being normal in the home (figure 7). Only a third felt they saw enough of their partner and children, while 60% didn’t (figure 8).

The partners who responded reinforced the view of a disrupted family life. Over two-thirds felt their men were working too many hours and a troubling 73% felt their relationship or home life were suffering. Social lives are also blighted, with 73% of partners saying they did not have enough time for one (figure 9).

And are these site managers being compensated for these long hours or offered support? Over half – 57% – are not (figure 10) and few can expect support from elsewhere, since only 14% are members of a union.

Take it to the top: A site manager complains

This comment was posted on the intranet of one contractor where employees may anonymously ask direct questions to the chief executive every month.

‘No gripes about incentives, no gripes about morale, just a few home truths which I would like to know (and I reckon many others would, too). Questions first:

  • Why are our hours not logged on the staff time sheet? (We enter a stroke for day worked, nice choice of word, ‘stroke’, as hours like these lead to it).
  • Why is it not monitored?
  • How do you expect to control it?
  • Is this expected?

44 weeks based on salary equates to 1,716 hours. My actual hours worked during these 44 weeks – 9.5 hrs per day (note this is our minimum 9.5 hours), 12 Sundays x 8 hours, 6 Saturdays x 8 hours. This equates to 2,258 hours (nights to 10pm, 8pm not included). There is a difference of 542 hours, 31% over standard terms and conditions.

Can’t, won’t and don’t intend to do this again over the next 44 weeks, take from this what you want.

Please don’t reply that you do all the hours under the sun. That would be the icing on the cake for me. I won’t hide. Here’s my name [deleted], Glasgow.’

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Construction Manager

Postscript

This article is taken from a dissertation written by Omar Ahmed Wazir as part of a construction management honours degree at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is now working as an assistant planner with Bovis Lend Lease and is committed to helping change the industry.