Temping fever in construction

WORKPLACE: Rapid growth of the industry has put the focus on work conditions and social security benefits.

The construction industry is changing. As it grows rapidly, the focus is more on working conditions, basic security, health and hygiene as more and more firms realise that attracting skilled labour is essential for a successful business.

There is hence an implicit need to convert the unorganised labour force in the construction industry into organised labour.

But the construction industry is 'temp' in nature. Projects are time-bound and location-specific. The effective matching of locational demand and supply can play an important role in improving the (already squeezed) margins of construction players. Temping can offer a solution for this and sees for itself an opportunity.

Temping companies, better than others, can deploy people for the short term, on a project-to-project basis and simultaneously comply with all statutory obligations"" ensuring basic 'hygiene' like accident insurance, Employees State Insurance and Provident Fund cover for the labour force.

Now, many of the new projects underway"" thermal power plants, aluminum and steel plants, roads, highways, bridges, irrigation projects, ports"" need people with specialised skills.

Many of these are higher-end jobs. Some of them include site engineers and managers who are diploma holders or engineers; project managers who are engineers with an MBA; site supervisors who are from the industrial training institutes (ITIs) or diploma holders; and electrical and mechanical engineers who are from ITIs or are engineers.

Then there are planning managers who are engineers with an MBA; procurement engineers who deal with stores, inventory, logistics and vendor relations; financial controllers who are cost accountants or finance executives; quality assurance (surveyors) and civil/ structural engineers with IT specialisations with competence in CAD and other design tools.

The construction industry is expected to grow from the current $50 billion to $180 billion in the next six to eight years, says Rajesh A R, vice-president (temp sourcing division), TeamLease Services. Hence India's biggest temporary staffing firm has entered the construction sector, with some 1,000 of the 56,000 associates who are on its rolls belonging to this vertical.

Over 90 per cent of the construction industry, which is highly people-oriented and fragmented, is made up of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The practice so far has been to hire lots of 'cheap labour' to maximise returns.

This is 'uneducated' labour and is therefore relatively unproductive. The difference between India and a developed country such as the US is the level of education and training and a corresponding degree of mechanisation and automation of processes.

It may be economically viable to hire large numbers of labourers and arm them with simple tools, but at the cost of quality and consistency. The intensive use of labour also increases the risk of worksite accidents.

Bad working conditions and a lack of minimum standards of health and hygiene are rampant. What has compounded the issue is that about 48 per cent of the workforce in the industry consists of women. Many of the subcontractors, the ultimate employers of the uneducated labour, don't comply with statutory obligations.

However, lately there has been a trend towards big construction firms complying with statutory obligations. Projects like the Golden Quadrilateral have strengthened safety norms with the National Highways Authority of India making it mandatory for contractors to follow the basic safety requirements, says Rajesh.

This has increased the demand for skilled personnel on a project to project basis. The temping firms are seeking to step into this gap.