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Employee motivation in construction companies in Kuwait

Article in International Journal of Construction Management · November 2021

DOI: 10.1080/15623599.2021.1998303

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 EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES IN
KUWAIT

BY

EHAB SOLIMAN 1,AND HASHEM ALTABTAI1

KUWAIT UNIVERSITY, CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPT.,

Abstract:
Kuwait is mentioned as one of the multi-national workplaces. This paper aims to identify the
motivational factors that affect employees’ performance in Kuwait construction industry. Many
studies conducted regarding motivational factors for construction workers and site engineers, but
there is limited research work aimed to identify the motivational factors for construction
employees. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to rank the motivational factors for
different surveyed categories. The study revealed that the most important motivation factors are
job security followed by salary and promotion arrangements while taking responsibility is the least
motivational factor. The male group of participants chose salary while the female group chose job
security. Normal employees chose good relationships with work companions, while managers
chose job security as the top-ranked motivational factor. ANOVA test and Spearman correlation
analysis were used to analyze the distinguishing difference between different surveyed categories
ranking. This analysis concluded that there is no significant correlation between most of the
surveyed categories indicating that there is no consensus between study categories regarding
motivational factors ranking. This study's result is important to understand motivational factors
which can enhance the working environments to improve productivity for the construction
industry.
Key Words: Motivation, Construction Industry, Employees, RII

Introduction:

In modern economical workplaces, workers’ motivation is very crucial to achieve

the organization's goals (Varma, 2017). The subject of motivation introduced by

many social and psychology scholars for long time. Many theories were invented

1
to illustrate the motivational process in theory, therefore many studies conducted

globally to discuss the motivational factors and how to enhance workers’

motivation in many areas of applications all over the world (Robescu and Lancu

2016).

The state of Kuwait is one of the oil producer countries located in the gulf area.

Kuwait is ranked tenth on the oil producer list and it owns approximately 8% of world

crude oil reserves (EIA 2016). Kuwaiti GDP is about $141.678 billion in 2018. The

construction industry contributes 7% of Kuwaiti non-oiled GDP and 177,696 persons are

working directly in the construction industry in Kuwait (CSB report 2014). Kuwait

managed many governmental development plans and it attracted many workers from

abroad.

Many challenges are facing the construction industry in Kuwait, but one of the most

significant is low productivity (Jarkas and Bitar 2012), project time overrun (Soliman,

2010), and many other problems.

The construction work personnel who are responsible for finishing and achieving

construction project objectives are located in many places. The site personnel who are

working on-site and responsible for achieving the physical accomplishment of the

construction project and the office employees who supporting work accomplishment from

the office. Construction companies’ employees who are working in construction company

or construction organizations and support construction works. This type of employees

contain who are working in financial, accounting, technical support, Human resources,

contracting, cost estimate, purchase and inventory, and marketing departments. Their work

location mainly in company or organization headquarter or related offices. This type of

employees are engineers, accountants, quantity surveyors, and many other professional

2
staffs. Their performance has a great effect on construction project site productivity.

Problems of material unavailability, contracting problems, dispute resolution, contractor’s

incompetence to project finance are examples of construction problems that either initiated

or handled by construction employees’ inefficiency.

There are many research works conducted globally to study and identify motivational

factors for construction workers and site engineers but there is limited research work

discussed the motivational factors for employees who work in construction industry

offices.

Employees’ motivation has a great influence on overall company output. According to

Hafiza et al. (2011), there are several factors that can affect employee performance like

training and development opportunities, working conditions, worker-employer

relationship, job security and company over all policies and procedures for rewarding

employees. Among the factors that affect employee performance, motivation that comes

with rewards is of utmost importance (Carraher, Gibbson & Buckley, 2006). It is stated

that employee motivation has more positive effects on project output goals more than other

aspects (Hall et al., in 2009) and Kaur 2013 stated that employee motivation is a valuable

asset that creates value for an organization in strengthening the business and revenue

growth.

This study is an attempt to understand the motivational factors that are affecting

construction employees who working in Kuwait construction industry.

Objectives

This study aims to identify the motivational factors that affect construction industry

employees in the state of Kuwait. The study also aims to answer the question if there is
3
a common agreement between employees regarding the importance of motivation

factors. By identifying these factors, the work environment can be enhanced to enhance

employee productivity.

Background

Motivation Definition

Motivation is defined according to Cox et al. 2006 as "providing a drive to act to satisfy

needs or desires". Pinder 1998 stated that work motivation is a set of energetic forces that

originate both within as well as beyond an individual’s being, to initiate work-related

behavior and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration. According to Jenkins

et al. 1982, motivation is intangible, a hypothetical construct that is used to explain human

behavior. Motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic (Legault, 2016). Motivation is divided

into Intrinsic motivation and Extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation depends on

the activity itself, and it states that the reason behind doing an activity is that the person

finds the activity interesting and leads to self-satisfaction. On the other hand,

extrinsic motivation requires contribution between the activity and other separable

consequences such as tangible rewards, which means that the satisfaction does not

result from the activity itself but from the extrinsic consequences to which the activity

leads. In another definition, according to Jarkas and Radosavljevic, 2013, intrinsic

motivation is an internal desire to perform a specific task, while extrinsic motivation is

considered as external factors which are unrelated to the task being performed, but provide

satisfaction that the task itself may not provide. Employee motivation is among some ways

to boost labor productivity. The most common system for employee motivation is a system

that encourages employees to pursue individual goals, to grow as a professional (Weber,

2015).
4
Motivation Theories

Many theories have been introduced to understand what motivation is and how people

are motivated. These theories started in the twenty century early. These theories can

be summarized as:

Maslow's Theory

This theory was developed by Abraham Maslow (1943-1956). It states that all people

have needs and they are working to satisfy these needs. The needs are arranged

according to their importance in a hierarchy. The hierarchy consists of five categories of

needs. Maslow hypothesized that these needs appeared sequentially as one moved up the

phylogenetic scale. The lower needs have greater influence than the higher needs. The

more of these basic needs were satisfied, the better would be the psychological health of

the individual. The lowest-order needs must be fulfilled before people become concerned

with higher-order needs.

Herzberg's Theory

This theory was developed by Frederick Herzberg in 1959. It is known as the two-

factor theory or the motivator-hygiene theory. This theory shows that an individual’s

satisfaction with the work is attributed to the job itself factors, while dissatisfaction is

attributed to the work environment factors. The first set of factors is related to the work

itself, which means that the presence of these factors causes job satisfaction. On the other

hand, the second set of factors is related to the work environment, which means that the

presence of these factors prevents job dissatisfaction but does not guarantee job satisfaction.

Adam Equity Theory

This theory was developed by John Stacey Adams in 1963. It states that fairness and

equity are key components of a motivated individual. It is based on the notion that
5
people are motivated by their desire to be treated equitably. This belief is derived from

a comparison of friends and/or colleagues.

Vroom's Expectancy Theory

Vroom's expectancy theory separates effort, performance, and outcomes. The

Expectancy theory was developed by Victor Vroom in 1964. It states that a person is

motivated by the outcome of his performance. It assumes that people make decisions

and behave according to what they believe; the outcome of a particular action will be

based on how attractive that action is to them.

Alderfer’s ERG Theory

This theory was developed by Clayton P. Alderfer in 1969. It classifies Maslow's

hierarchy into three categories. The first category is existence needs which include

the first and second levels of Maslow's hierarchy, physiological and safety needs.

The second category is relatedness needs which include the third and fourth levels of

Maslow's hierarchy, social and external esteem. The third category is growth needs

which include the fourth and fifth levels of Maslow's hierarchy, internal esteem, and

self-actualization.

Reinforcement Theory

This theory was developed by Burrhus Frederic Skinner. It states that an

individual's behavior is a function of its consequences. It is the process of shaping

behavior by controlling the consequences of the behavior. In reinforcement theory, a

combination of rewards and punishments is used to reinforce desired behavior or

extinguish unwanted behavior.

6
Motivation and construction industry

The construction industry is considered by many special characteristics. This industry

involves interrelationships between many stakeholders, an open area environment, and

the dynamic behavior of workers. Some of the conducted researches aimed to identify and

understand the motivation for workers and site engineers in the construction industry.

Most of these studies focused on construction workers’ motivation as a means of

productivity enhancement.

As examples of these studies, Al-Abbadi and Agyekum-Mensah 2019 studied the

motivational factors that influencing Jordanian construction worker’s productivity. They

concluded that the most motivation factors were personal growth/career improvement, pay

on time, decision-making ability, decent and respectful job, and rewards. Results from

the study indicate that workers valued personal growth and improving their career more

than having higher pay and getting financial rewards.

In Turkey Kazaz et al 2008 surveyed the motivational factors for the workforce in the

Turkey construction industry. They used 37 motivation factors grouped into four groups

organizational, economic, physical, and socio-psychological factors. The most effective

group was organizational factors and the key motivational factors were quality of site

management, material management, pay on time, and systematic workflow.

Kaming et al 1998 study the motivators and de-motivators for workers in the Indonesian

construction industry. They indicated that the five predominant motivating factors were:

fairness of pay; good relationship with workmates; overtime payment; bonus; and good

safety. While the five most predominant demotivating factors are: disrespectful

supervision; little accomplishment; lack of co-operation amongst workmates;

7
discontinuity of work; and unsafe working conditions. Results also confirm that there is

no significant difference between perceptions of motivating and demotivating factors

amongst the groups of craftsmen surveyed.

Aghayeva and Slusarczyk 2019 surveyed the motivators and demotivators regarding construction

workers and construction managers in Azerbaijan. They revealed that the amount of payment, job

security, quality of site management, timeliness of payments, and bonuses and fringe benefits are

the motivators for construction workers. While the amount of payment, high responsibility job, job

security, bonuses, fringe benefits, and challenging task are the motivators for construction

managers.

In Kuwait, Jarkas and Radosalvajevit 2013 studied the de-motivators factors that affect the

productivity of master craftsmen in Kuwait. They resulted that the most important de-

motivators were: payment delay, rework, lack of a financial incentive scheme, the extent

of change orders during execution, incompetent supervisors, delays in responding to

requests for information (RFI), overcrowding and operatives interface, unrealistic

scheduling and performance expectation, shortage of materials on-site; and quality level

of drawings.

Kim et al 2015, studied the difference between motivators for multi-national workers in South

Korea. They performed a study to determine the order of importance of the productivity-

related factors for workers of different nationalities. They divided these factors into

economic, social, and psychological factors by nationality. The participants put “amount

of pay” as the most important motivator, while they put welfare as the least important

motivator. In general, the study revealed that there was no significant difference in

importance by nationality difference for economic factors, but there is a significant

difference regarding psychological factors.

8
Raoufi et al 2018 distinguished motivation differences between workers’ crew-level and

individual levels. They indicated that there are some areas of disagreement between

supervisors and craftspeople.

Regarding the motivational factors for construction engineers, there are some other

studies concentrated on motivation of engineers on construction sites. As an example,

Venkatesan et al. (2009) studied the motivation and demotivation factors for engineers

in construction organizations. Six key motivational and de-motivators factors were

studies and ranked. The six motivators were achievement, proper recognition and

awards, interesting work, participation in decision making, advancement, and adequate

training and development. While the six demotivators were poor work conditions, poor

administrative policy, poor work relationship, lack of communication, lack of appreciation,

and my colleague gets more benefit than me despite his/her lower performance

Yisa et al 2000 studied the motivators and de-motivators of site engineers in Iranian

construction projects. They resulted that the five most motivating factors for Iranian site

engineers were determined as being: fair pay, participation in decision-making, recognition

on the job, chance of promotion, and good supervision. While the five most de-motivators

are: disrespectful attitudes from superiors, lack of co-operation, incompetence amongst

colleagues, poor supervision, and lack of supervision. Wang et al. (2016) studied

construction project managers' motivators and human values. Twenty different motivating

factors were studied. These factors were reduced to 6 factors for the analysis including

(1) dependence, (2) achievement, (3) dominance, (4) autonomy, (5) deference, (6)

affiliation. The study concluded that construction project manager performance can

be enhanced by promoting motivators that match with their human values.

9
One of the limited research work focused on the construction employee motivation is the

study conducted by Rudramurthy and Sambatur (2011), who conducted a study to identify

motivators for employees working in construction companies in India. They revealed job

training, good salary, and recognition from peers are the important factors to be considered

in motivating the employees. In UAE, Ailabouni et al. (2007) conducted a study aimed at

identifying the factors affecting employee productivity in the UAE construction industry.

They concluded that the top five affecting factors are: proper work timings giving a

balance between work and time for family, leadership skills of supervisors, technical

qualifications, whether they are well paid or not and on time, security of job,

and transparency and accountability of management.

As noticed from the previous section, most of the previous research work focused on

construction worker motivation and its relationship with workers’ productivity, and

some research work concentrated on-site engineers or managers. There is a shortage of

research in understanding motivation factors that affecting construction industry office

employees’ performance who are working and supporting construction work from

office.

Methodology

The goal of this study is to identify the motivational factors that affect employees’

performance in different workplaces working in the Kuwait construction industry. To

reach this goal, the study went through the following steps: A literature searches

for motivation theories and their application in the construction industry. To

collect data regarding workforce motivation in Kuwait, a questionnaire is designed

in two steps, a pilot questionnaire in the draft and discussed with four experts in the

10
construction industry. The four experts were interviewed and discussed the

questionnaire purpose, original questionnaire design, and questionnaire parts. Minor

corrections were made to the original questionnaire due to experts’ comments. The

questionnaire questions are from the closed type of Likert scale answers. The designed

questionnaire was then distributed among the employees in different workplaces in

Kuwait including different parts of construction industry stakeholders. The collected

answered questionnaire is statistically analyzed including descriptive analysis for

participants’’ sample. Relative Importance Index (RII) is used to rank the motivational

factors for each of surveyed categories. RII is commonly used to rank factors of Likert

scale answers. ANOVA test and Spearman correlation factors are used to test the

relative agreement between surveyed categories regarding motivation factors ranking.

Questionnaire designed

The questionnaire formed in three parts. It started with participant general

information. The second part included questions about how motivation can affect the

performance of the employees as well as the company's achievements. The

participant is asked to evaluate five general listed statements regarding the effect of

motivation on employees’ performance in the construction industry. This evaluation

ranged in three levels (agree, disagree, and natural). It consisted of 5 statements:

1) Motivation influences the performance of the managers in the construction

company.

2) A highly motivated employee will work harder to achieve goals rather than a lowly

motivated employee.

11
3) Managers have an important role in motivating the employees and creating a

conducive workplace in which employees are self-motivated.

4) It is very important for the construction company to have motivated managers in

order to remain competitive over the long run.

5) It is important to identify motivational factors that serve as drivers for the managers

in construction companies to work.

The third part of the questionnaire included evaluation and identification of factors that

influence employee motivation. The used motivational factors are extracted from

Maslow's hierarchical needs theory as Maslow’s model of the hierarchy of needs has

integrated all the varieties of motivation and needs and it is most commonly used (Rouse,

2004). Some previous studies measured the level of motivational factors in Maslow's

hierarchical needs through a set of questions. For example, the Need Satisfaction

Inventory (NSI) originally published by Lester (1990) is a self-report measure that

assesses the degree of satisfaction with the five basic need categories according to

Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Noltemeyer et al 2012 who examined Maslow's model

by testing the relationship between deficiency needs variables and growth needs

variables. They used a set of questions to represent each level of Maslow's categories

needs. Lester 2013 compared two scales of college student's level of satisfaction based

on Maslow's hierarchical needs. Almost all of these studies focused on different

applications not in engineering organizations.

In this study, each level in Maslow's hierarchical needs can be measured in two

motivational factors. The lowest level of Maslow's needs is the physiological needs

which can be measured by the monetary value that can enable the coverage of the
12
 physiological needs. Salary and bonuses motivational factors can represent

physiological needs. The second level of Maslow's hierarchical needs is the security

level. This level can be measured by the availability of job security and

promotion/growth schemes as motivational factors. The third level of Maslow's

hierarchical needs is the social and belonging level. This level can be measured

by the recognition received for doing work and enjoyment of the work.

Recognition and enjoyment are the motivational factors that can be used to evaluate

the third level of Maslow's needs. Self-esteem is the fourth level of Maslow's

hierarchical needs. This level can be evaluated by giving responsibilities to

management and being treated fairly. The self –actualization needs level is represented

by the last two factors which are expectancy (a belief that effort will lead to the

achievement of a target) and relationships (having a good relationship with

management and colleagues). Total of 10 motivational factors that can evaluate the

Maslow hierarchical needs in construction industry employees.

The participant is asked to evaluate the influence of the listed motivation factor on

5 points Likert scale. Each factor has a 1 to 5 scale where the value of "1" stands for

no influence, while "5" shows the greatest influence.

Sample Size

Questionnaire distributed for many companies and agencies working in Kuwait

construction industry in both private and the public sector. This includes the Ministry

of public works, Kuwait Credit Bank, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education,

Kuwait University, Kuwait Central Bank, Kuwait Finance House, National Bank of

Kuwait, Kuwait Oil Company. The questionnaire is distributed to the employees

13
 working in either construction companies or the organizational offices which control

and manage construction sites belonged to that organizations. The total number of

distributed questionnaires was 601 and the completed number of returned

questionnaires is 283 completed questionnaires by a rate of 47% of questionnaire

return, which is an acceptable return rate.

Analysis and Discussion

Test of Reliability

Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is used to test the reliability of factors extracted from

dichotomous, multipoint formatted, or ordinal rating scale questionnaires. The alpha

coefficient ranges in value from 0 to 1.

Cronbach’s alpha (α) is calculated by Eq. (1):

𝑛𝑛 √𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉
∝= (1 − ) ……………………………….. (1)
𝑛𝑛−1 𝑉𝑉 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡

Where: where n is the questions numbers, Vi is the variance of scores on each question,

and Vtest is the total variance of the overall scores.

The higher the alpha coefficient score, the more questionnaire reliability. Nunnaly (1978)

has indicated that a value of 0.70 is an acceptable reliability coefficient. The calculated

value for Cronbach’s Alpha by using SPSS version 24 is 0.705 which is an acceptable

level.

Survey Respondent Demographics Analysis

Table 1 shows the study sample size analysis. As shown in Table 1 that the used sample

size is representing a wide range of participants from Kuwait construction industry. The

analysis is based on the sample of 283 responses which consists of 166 females (58.6%)

and 117 males (41.3%). The sample majority was female. The sample collected from
14
companies and organizations' headquarters and offices. Females prefer to work in

office more than in site. Most of the respondents were in the age range of 20-30 years

(42.8%) then the range of 31-40 years (38.5%). Regarding education level, 65.4% of the

respondents have a bachelor degree while 14.5% had diploma, 14.1% had a master's

degree and 6% had a Ph.D degree. The number of respondents working in the public

sector represents 76.7% while the private sector employees were 23.3%. The sample

included 80.2% of employees and managers with 19.8% as shown in table (1).

Table (1) Distribution of the Participants’ Personnel Information

Gender Female Female, 58.6

Male Male , 41.3

Age Above 51 years 9.90%

41-51 years 8.80%
31-40 years 38.50%
20-30 years 42.80%

20-30 years 31-40 years 41-51 years Above 51 years

Educational level
PhD 6.00%
Masters 14.10%
Bachelor 64.50%
Diploma 14.50%

Workplace 76.70%
Private Sector 23.30%

Job title Employee 80.20%

Manager 19.80%

15
Motivation and Employee Performance

Regarding the second part of the questionnaire asked respondents for their judgment

about the importance of motivation in the construction industry. Five statements are

presented to evaluate the importance of motivation in construction industry performance.

There is total consensus regarding the importance of motivation in construction. All the

statements are answered as agree by more than 95% of the sample size as shown in Table

2. This indicates that the survey participants are well recognized the influence of

motivation in their work performance.

Table 2 Statistics of Statements related to the Motivation

Motivation effect statements Agree Neutral disagree

1- Motivation influences the performance of the 95.1 4.2 0.7

2- A highly motivated employee will work harder 95.4 4.6 0

in order to achieve goals rather than a lowly

3- Managers have an important role in motivating 95.8 3.9 0.4

the employees and creating a conducive workplace

4- It is very important for the construction 96.1 2.5 1.4

company to have motivated managers in order to

5- It is important to identify motivational factors 96.8 2.8 0.4

h di f h i

Motivation Factors

The third part of the questionnaire includes the question "How much do the following

factors influence your motivation?". The respondent will choose for each factor a

range from great influence factor to has no influence in five Likert scales. To rank

these motivational factors, the relative importance index (RII) is used. Relative
16
importance index is a common tool used to rank different aspects for a questionnaire

of Likert scale answers and it was extensively used in many previous research works.

The RII for each motivation factor is calculated by equation (2) as proposed by

(Fagbenle et al. 2004).

∑𝑖𝑖=5
𝑖𝑖=1 𝑤𝑤𝑤𝑤∗𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛
𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅𝑅 = ---------------------------------------------(2)
5∗𝑁𝑁

Where, wi = Respondent's rating from 1 for no influence to 5 for greatest influence,

ni= frequency for each rate, and N is the total sample size.

Ranking of Motivation Factors

The ranking of the motivation factors according to the RII is shown in Table 3. The

first ranked factor was the job security then the salary and promotion/growth factors

with equal RII then comes the promotion/growth factor. The least two important

factors were bonuses then responsibility .

Table 3 Ranking of the Motivation Factors using RII

(sample size, N =283)

W : respondent's rating
Motivation
1 2 3 4 5 RII Ranking
Factors
N: Number of counts
Job security 8 9 21 47 198 0.895 1
Salary 10 5 25 59 184 0.884 2

Promotions/growth 10 8 22 60 183 0.881 3

Recognition 12 8 21 55 187 0.88 4

Expectancy 13 6 19 56 189 0.88 4

Relationships 9 8 23 65 178 0.879 6

17
 Enjoyment 14 8 23 49 189 0.876 7

Equality 18 8 27 31 199 0.872 8

Bonuses 8 13 36 55 171 0.86 9
Responsibility 9 10 47 75 142 0.834 10

Despite many previous research work that put the financial factors are the most

important motivational factors especially for workers, in this study the security

factors have the top-priority ranking. Kuwait is a rich country with an average

employee income is about 72,000 dollars per year (Statista 2018). This enough

salary will secure most of the physiological needs for employees in Kuwait. One

of the factors that measure job security is employees turning over. The employee turning

over in Kuwait is remarkable. Al-Refaei and Omran (1992) stated that the organizational

factors have a much more direct effect on the employee turnover rate than psychological

factors in the Kuwait work environment.

Loss of job security leads to several other issues such as low motivation, low

commitment, and in some cases, even depression and other physical ailments. According

to Borland (1999), job security is defined as freedom from fear of losing a job, or an

employee’s assurance or confidence that they will keep their current job. Heibutzki

(2013) indicated that the importance of job security influences employee career stability

and work motivation. In their study to evaluate the effect of job security in work

performance in Oman, Sanyal et al 2018 concluded that job security is a big issue facing

employees in Oman, especially after the adverse impact on the nation’s economy due to

the fall in oil prices. Both private and government sectors have significantly reduced

offering new jobs and job losses have been reported from the private sector. Kuwait -as

18
 an oil producer country- is highly influenced by oil price declination in the past few

years.

The second-ranked motivational factor was the salary, this is understood as even the

salary is enough, the standard level in Kuwait is high and the salary level will affect the

decision of an employee to work or to quit. While the salary was in top-ranked factors,

the bonus was in the ninth rank. Most of the employee in construction companies’ office

depends mainly on their basic salary and the bonus scheme is not motive them compared

to site personnel who their bonus is related to their direct productivity and their total

income is highly influenced by their bonus.

The least important motivation factor is the taking responsibility. Taking responsibility

means the process of motivating employees by giving them responsibility for a certain

task or department with no remarkable money increment. This technique of motivation

is not valid in construction offices employees in such work environment.

In a comparison with a previous research work aimed to identify motivational factors for

employees, Taguchi 2015 in Japan. He defined that the interest of work has more attention

than salary in Japan work environment. Rudramurthy and Sambatur (2011), revealed job

training, good salary, and recognition from peers are the most motivational factors

affecting construction companies in India. Ailabouni et al. (2007) revealed that proper

work timings giving a balance between work and time for family, leadership skills of

supervisors, technical qualifications. In this study, the most important motivational factors

are job security, salary and promotion schemes. From these studies, it can be concluded

that there are many motivational factors of top importance for employees more than the

money income.

19
As mentioned before, the study motivational factors were driven from Maslow hierarchical

needs theory. The study results are compared to the levels of Maslow hierarchical needs.

The RII value is calculated for the two motivational factors that represent each level of

Maslow hirarchical needs. The RII values for each one of the five hierarchical levels is

calculated. Table 4 shows the rank of the five hierarchical levels and compared to what is

mentioned by Maslow hierarchical theory. As shown from Table 4, the most important

ranked level in this study was the safety level which is the second level in Maslow's

hierarchy. The phycological needs level in Maslow theory is ranked first, while in this

study was ranked in fourth rank. In this study, the self-actualization was in the second-

rank, while in Maslow hierarchical needs was in fifth level. This change of levels ranking

may be because the Maslow levels of needs can be applied a general theory for any person

as a base for living and surviving. In a study of Montag et al 2020, they concluded that

the levels of satisfaction are different for groups changes. Their study participants

provided a different ranking of their satisfaction rather than used from Maslow's

hierarchical theory.

This can be derived to a conclusion that the hierarchical levels of Maslow's theory are

relevant to the human being to live and survive but these levels of ranking are different to

employee’s motivation to work in a specific job or work environment.

Table 4 comparing between study results ranking and Maslow theory rank

Level Maslow
Motivational needs
Motivational Factor RII study levels
level
Ranking ranking

Salary
phycological needs 0.872085 4 2
Bonuses

20
 Job security
safety 0.888339 1 3
Promotions/growth

Recognition
love / belonging 0.878445 3 3
Enjoyment

Responsibility
self-esteem 0.853004 5 4
Equality

Expectancy
self-actualization 0.881625 2 5
Relationships

Ranking of Motivation Factors According to Different Surveyed Categories

Table 5 shows the calculated RII and ranking for motivational factors for different types

of surveyed categories. Regarding gender changes, according to females’ judgment, job

security was the first ranked, followed by recognition and relationship. On the other

hand, males selected salary and expectancy as the first ranked motivational factor,

followed by promotion/growth. The least important motivational factor for both males

and females was the taking responsibility. It is predicted that males care about money

factors more than females because of their responsibilities as in general, males are

responsible for families supporting in such communities. The two categories of

respondents agreed that taking responsibility is the least motivation factor. This

evaluation reflects the refusal of employees in Kuwait to take responsibility.

21
Table 5: Ranking of Motivational Factors for Different Types of Surveyed Categories.

RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank

Motivation Factors Gender Work Place Job Title

Female sample Male sample Private Sector Public Sector Employee Manager
Salary 0.8747 6 0.8974 1 0.8879 1 0.8829 7 0.8890 4 0.8643 3
Bonuses 0.8590 9 0.8615 9 0.8424 8 0.8654 9 0.8696 9 0.8214 7

Job security 0.9024 1 0.8855 4 0.8758 3 0.9014 1 0.8987 2 0.8821 1

Promotions/growth 0.8759 4 0.8889 3 0.8727 4 0.8839 6 0.8881 6 0.8536 4

Recognition 0.8855 2 0.8735 6 0.8667 5 0.8848 3 0.8828 8 0.8714 2

Enjoyment 0.8711 8 0.8838 5 0.8545 6 0.8829 7 0.8863 7 0.8357 6

Responsibility 0.8289 10 0.8410 10 0.8182 10 0.8387 10 0.8388 10 0.8143 8

Equality 0.8759 4 0.8667 8 0.8303 9 0.8848 3 0.8890 4 0.8036 9

Expectancy 0.8747 6 0.8974 1 0.8818 2 0.8848 3 0.8934 3 0.8464 5

Relationships 0.8783 3 0.8803 6 0.8455 7 0.8894 2 0.8996 1 0.7964 10

22
Regarding the workplace, it is predicted that workers in the private sector care more

about salary because of the flexibility of monetary regulations than in the public sector.

Public sector workers may care more about job security and this could be a good reason

behind why they chose to work for the public sector. Table (5) shows that employees

in the private sector selected salary as the first ranked motivation factor as predicted,

then the expectancy, and job security. While respondents working in the public sector

selected job security as the most important factor as predicted, then relationships and

recognition. The least important factor for both private and public sector

respondents was taking responsibility.

Regarding job title, employees selected relationships as the most motivational factor,

then job security, and expectancy while managers selected job security as the most

important motivational factor, then recognition, and salary.

The least important factor for employees was responsibility while for managers was

relationships. It is worth mentioning that the relationships motivation factor was the

first-ranked factor for the employees while for the managers it was the least-ranked

factor. This discrepancy of view may be resulted from the main objective of employees

and managers. The employees who work in a team and it aims to work in a good team

member, while managers have another objective to enhance work as total and the

relationships may be in his least importance.

Table 6 shows the ranking for motivation factors for different age categories.

Respondents from 40-50 years chose equity as the first motivation factor, while all

other age ranges choose job security as their first motivation factor. Respondents of

younger age between 20-30 years old who mainly fresh graduates and they just entered

23
work have their own ranking for motivation factors. They choose self- actualization

factors (expectancy and relationships) as in the second and third rank. Responsibility

was the least important factor for all age ranges except respondents above 50 years

because it is common for this age range have a work responsibility.

The prediction that the older the workers, the less care about money was not

completely true that for respondents aged more than 50 years, the salary was the

factor with the second-ranking.

Table 7 shows the ranking of motivation factors based on level of education.

Respondents with diploma degree selected salary, job security, and relationships as

the prime motivation factors, while respondents with bachelor’s degree selected job

security, expectancy, and relationships as the prime motivation factors. Regarding

respondents with master's degree, enjoyment of work and equality were the factors

with the first ranking with equal RII. According to respondents with Ph.D., the salary

was the factor with the first ranking then financial aspects then promotion/growth

factor.

Table 6 Ranking of the Motivation Factors According to the Age Categories

Motivation RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank

Factors
20-30 yrs 30-40 yrs 40-50 yrs >50 yrs

Salary 0.883 6 0.872 1 0.928 5 0.900 2

Bonuses 0.860 9 0.844 9 0.912 8 0.879 4
Job security 0.903 1 0.872 1 0.952 3 0.907 1
Promotions/growt 0.888 4 0.868 5 0.928 5 0.864 7
Recognition 0.884 5 0.859 6 0.96 2 0.879 4

24
 Enjoyment 0.876 8 0.870 3 0.944 4 0.843 9
Responsibility 0.848 10 0.811 10 0.848 10 0.850 8
Equality 0.881 7 0.850 7 0.992 1 0.814 10
Expectancy 0.893 3 0.868 3 0.928 5 0.871 6
Relationships 0.898 2 0.850 7 0.904 9 0.893 3

Table 7 Ranking of the Motivation Factors According to Educational Level

Motivation RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank RII Rank

Factors Diploma Bachelor Master Ph.D.

Salary 0.922 1 0.872 6 0.905 7 0.871 1

Bonuses 0.883 5 0.850 9 0.905 7 0.812 5
Job security 0.898 2 0.894 1 0.925 4 0.835 3
Promotions/ 0.888 4 0.877 4 0.910 6 0.847 2

Recognition 0.883 5 0.875 5 0.945 3 0.788 8

Enjoyment 0.873 7 0.867 7 0.955 1 0.800 7
Responsibility 0.820 10 0.831 10 0.880 10 0.788 8
Equality 0.863 8 0.865 8 0.955 1 0.777 10
Expectancy 0.863 8 0.887 2 0.925 4 0.812 5
Relationships 0.893 3 0.878 3 0.895 9 0.824 4
The least important motivation factor was taking responsibility for respondents with

the diploma, bachelor, and master's degree holder, while Ph.D. holders chose equality

as the least important factor.

Difference and agreement between Categories groups Ranking

To evaluate the difference and agreement for the surveyed participants categories regarding

motivational factors ranking, the ANOVA test technique is applied to evaluate the significant

difference, and Spearman Correlation Coefficient is utilized to evaluate the level of agreement

questionnaire surveyed categories.

25
 ANOVA is a parametric method used to analyze the difference between different groups.

However, ANOVA is known to be a robust tool and is regularly used for Likert scales (Lam et

al., 2006; Zou and Lee, 2008). ANOVA assumed a null hypothesis, assuming that the means

values of the compared group of samples are to be statistically equal. For the null hypothesis to

be false, the p-value must be less than or equal to 0.05 meaning that there is statistical significance

between groups’ means. If the p-value is greater than 0.05, the difference in means is not

statistically significant.

A one-way ANOVA was carried out using EXCEL 10. Table 8 shows the ANOVA test results

between female and male participants. As seen, the p-value is 0.55 indicating that the difference

between the surveyed groups is not statistically significant.

Table 8 ANOVA test for difference between male and female participants

ANOVA: Single Factor

SUMMARY
Groups Count Sum Average Variance
Column 1 10 8.7264 0.87264 0.000357
Column 2 10 8.776 0.8776 0.000306
ANOVA
Source of Variation SS df MS F P-value F crit
Between Groups 0.000123 1 0.000123 0.370958 0.550093 4.413873
Within Groups 0.005969 18 0.000332

Total 0.006092 19

Table 9 shows the p-values for other surveyed categories. The P-values for all are less than 0.05

except the values between bachelor and diploma certificate holders, and between the above 50

years’ participants with younger samples between 20-30 and 30-40 years’ participants.

Table 9 P-value for ANOVA test

Male female
gender male 0.5500933
Female

26
 private public
Workplace private 0.0241349
public
manager employee
Job title manager 0.0006806
employee
20-30 30-40 40-50 >50
20-30 0.005909 0.00183 0.288896
Age 30-40 3.76E-05 0.224208
40-50 0.000925
>50
Diploma Bachelor Master Ph.D
Diploma 0.392739 0.002443 9.12E-05
Education Bachelor 7.82E-05 0.000101
Master 1.05E-07
Ph.D

The ANOVA analysis shows that there is a statistically significant difference for the surveyed

categories regarding the motivational factors.

Spearman's correlation coefficient is used to measure the level of agreement between all

study categories regarding motivation factors ranking. The Spearman rank correlation is

commonly used to evaluate the level of agreement between different groups of respondents

of Likert scale questionnaire. For example, Mahamid 2016 used the Spearman correlation

coefficient to evaluate the level of agreement between owners, contractors, and consultants

regarding the factors that contributing poor performance in construction projects in Saudi

Arabia. Abidemi et al 2018 evaluated the level of agreement of employers, consultants,

and contractors regarding the variation order causes in construction projects in Nigeria.

Alhajri and Alshibani 2018 used the Spearman correlation coefficient to evaluate the level

27
of agreement between owners and contractors regarding delay factors of petrochemical

projects.

The Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient varies between +1 and -1. Where +1 implies a perfect

positive relationship (agreement), while -1 represents a perfect negative relationship

(disagreement), while values near zero indicate little or no correlation.

Table 10 shows the Spearman coefficient and significance level. Most of the spearman

coefficients are non-significance as shown in Table 9. Only one coefficient is significant

which correlation between Ph.D. holders and diploma holders which is 0.790,

There is no significance between male and female samples, this is similar to Al-Ajmi study

in 2006. The correlation coefficient between participants from private and public sectors

is (0.058); almost no correlation. This reflects the difference between the two mentioned

sectors for motivation factors and the diversity of work environment between the two

sectors. This result is almost similar to what is mentioned by Al-duaij 2013.

Table 10 Spearman Correlation Coefficient

Spearman Correlations Coefficient

male female

male 1.000 0.354

female 1.000

public private

public 1.000 0.051

private 1.000

manager employee

manager 1.000 0.036

employee 1.000

age20-30 age30-40 age40-50 age>50

age20-30 1.000 0.540 0.259 0.551

age30-40 1.000 0.529 0.390

28
 age40-50 1.000 -0.120

age>50 1.000

diploma bachelor master PhD

diploma 1.000 0.511 -0.154 .790**

bachelor 1.000 0.141 0.524

master 1.000 -0.399

PhD 1.000

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Conclusion

Enhancing motivations and enable a proper work environment is an objective of

any company. The aim of this study is identifying the motivation factors for

employees working in the construction industry in Kuwait. Construction industry

employees who are working in companies’ offices to support construction sites

from office. Employees who are working in accounting, quantity surveying,

inventory, contracting, purchasing, and in other construction company office

departments are included in this study. Too many studies aimed to investigate the

motivational factors for in-site personnel but there is limited research conducted

for investigating motivational factors in construction office personnel. A

questionnaire is designed and distributed to a wide range of participants of

employees working in Kuwait construction industry. More than two hundred and

eighty construction office employees participated in this study. Relative

importance index (RII) used to rank participants’ motivation factors. Job security

was the top-ranked motivational factor followed by gained salary then company

promotion scheme. It is noted the motivational factor titled taking responsibility was

29
 the lowest-ranked motivation factor and this gives an indication that most

employees care about safety and monetary incentives more than the desire of

getting responsibilities. This study results show that the ranking of Maslow's

needs hierarchy is not applied for the employment environment. The safety-

related motivational factors are highly important than physiological needs as

mentioned in Maslow. The analysis showed that employees’ motivation is

varying depending on employees’ gender, age, job title, and workplace. While

males chose salary as the most important motivational factor, females chose job

security. Normal employees chose a good relationship with their work companions

as the most important motivational factor, the managers chose job security. Private

sector employees chose salary as the most important motivation factor, while job

security chose as the top-ranked motivational factor for public sector employees.

ANOVA analysis used to test the different significance of surveyed categories'

perspectives regarding motivational factors. Almost all the perspectives of

participants' categories are significantly different. Spearman correlation

coefficient is used to test the degree of agreement between study participants

based on their age, job title, and the workplace regarding motivational factors

ranking. The analysis showed that there is no significant correlation between

most of these groups.

The findings of this study are important as it gives suggestions about the

motivation factors that can be improved in construction companies to improve

construction office employees’ performance.

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