New home warranties: homebuilding market study

Citation for published version (APA): Sommerville, J. (2008). New home warranties: homebuilding market study. Office of Fair Trading. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the ResearchOnline@GCU portal Take down polic

Recruitment sources and employee turnover in sectors of the construction industry

The construction industry organisation must secure recruits who will not only serve to execute the immediate tasks, but also enable management of the organisation to adopt longer term strategic frameworks. In order for management to execute these longer term strategies the human resources employed must be perceived as being available as and when required, or else having stable tenure. Recruitment practices within the industry have ignored an important factor when seeking to secure the potential recruit i.e. which source of recruitment is the more effective in terms of securing employees who remain within the organisation for an acceptable period of time. Personnel records of construction industry organisations were analysed and from this analysis sources identified which are predictive of ' lower turnover rates and also of stable or longer employee tenure. As a control, an organisation quite distinct from those related to construction was analysed as part of the study, to ensure that the findings were not spurious nor unique to this particular industry. The procedure is applicable to all organisations within the construction industry as well as other industries. Being relatively straight-forward to setup and execute, the procedure involved affords the organisation the opportunity to focus on those sources of recruitment which are clearly shown to be the more effective thus releasing organisational resources e.g. finance, managerial expertise, for application in other areas. The research clearly shows the link between Recruitment Source and Employee Turnover

Risk management implementation in small and medium enterprises in the UK construction industry

Purpose – The competition and challenges facing construction firms during the recent recession have brought risk management (RM) to the fore in people’s minds. Examination of the difficulties of implementing RM in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK construction industry has been relatively untouched. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – As part of on-going research to facilitate RM processing aimed at improving the competitiveness of SMEs, the difficulties in RM implementation were identified through a literature review of RM implementation in SMEs. Postal questionnaire were sent to SMEs who have experience of construction management. Findings – Of the 153 of SMEs responding, most highlighted that the main difficulty experienced is how to scale RM process to meet their requirements. None of the available standards explain the fundamental principle of applying RM to the situations that SMEs find themselves in. This difficulty is further exacerbated by a lack of management skills and knowledge in the adoption of RM tools or techniques to identify and analyse the business’ risks. Originality/value – The identified difficulties can be considered to develop a process to facilitate RM process within SMEs. </jats:sec

The UK housing developers' five-star rating: fact or fiction?

Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to explore how the data collected by the NHBC is used in practice to improve the service provided to the customers, the transition of any changes into practice and the overall management of the customer satisfaction process by the builder. Design/methodology/approach – A Qualitative approach to the research was adopted and the findings from the interviews provide an indication of the views from a range of private house builders relating to the areas of customer satisfaction and the ratings provided through industry based questionnaires. Findings – This paper has uncovered the views and opinions of private house builders relating to customer satisfaction and five star ratings. The findings provide evidence that the house building industry is not fully engaged with the HBF five star related concept and that they provide a differing level of service in relation to customer satisfaction. Research Implications - The research concluded that the customer can be manipulated by the builders in some cases causing a bias in the market; on the whole the customer satisfaction surveys and star rating are simply seen as a marketing tool, used by the builders marketing department as a sign of quality and a way to promote the company. Practical Implications - This paper is of interest to private house builders and the wider construction industry and will aid their understanding of customer satisfaction and quality related ratings applied by industry bodies. Originality/value – The findings within this paper provide an overview of the opinions of house builders relating to customer satisfaction and five star ratings using interview-based data obtained from private house building operatives