Personnel Issues at Construction Consulting Firms
Last time, in “Problems Facing Construction Consulting Firms, as Seen by a Construction Consultant"I had the opportunity to write an article for 』."
Since the discussion on the message board has been more lively than I expected, I’d like to take this opportunity to ramble a bit about personnel issues at construction consulting firms—and specifically at our company.
I would appreciate it if you could share your candid opinions and critiques. Please note that some of the wording may be a bit awkward, but I hope you’ll just overlook that as you read.
It depends on the capabilities and motivation of the person in charge.
Once a project is awarded, I assume the primary responsibility for it is naturally assigned to someone. Since my company is a construction consulting firm specializing in water and wastewater systems, the person holding a Certified Engineer (Water and Wastewater) or RCCM (Water Supply, Industrial Water Supply, and Wastewater) certification will inevitably serve as the supervising engineer.
However, in practice, the work is primarily carried out by employees who do not hold the necessary qualifications but have gained a certain level of experience; if such employees are unavailable, the supervising engineer typically performs the work personally. Naturally, as you can imagine, the quality of the final product varies depending on the employee’s experience, ability, and motivation.
Since the company I work for has, at least to some extent, obtained ISO 9001 certification, there should be no variation in the quality of our deliverables; however, it appears that variations in quality are inevitably occurring due to the discretion of the personnel in charge.
Even issues that would likely be pointed out if the client’s supervisors or inspectors possessed the necessary knowledge and skills regarding construction are often overlooked, and the burden of this is frequently passed on to the contractor. This is because some staff members receive an overwhelming number of inquiries from the client after construction has begun.
In the end, I can’t help but think that it ultimately depends on the abilities and motivation of the people in charge of the work.
Our Troublesome Maintenance Engineers
The management engineers at our company mentioned above are as follows:
- A troublesome middle-aged guy who, despite holding the necessary qualifications, has no motivation for his job, was assigned the role of management engineer, delegates all the work to his subordinates, and accepts whatever they turn in as the final product without checking it.
- He’s motivated and recently earned a certification, but he gives very detailed instructions and won’t rest until he’s checked everything himself, step by step. However, since his workload exceeds his capabilities, his stress builds up day by day, and whenever he finds a mistake in a document prepared by a subordinate, he harps on them relentlessly (it would be more efficient to just give correction instructions and move the work forward rather than wasting time on that…). Furthermore, because he’s so obsessed with every last detail, the documents he produces are long and extremely hard to read.
Although they're both managers, I feel like they're pretty much the same.
I’m a subordinate in the same department as the guy in #1. Basically, he never takes the initiative to do anything himself, nor does he give any instructions, and he doesn’t do any work on his own, so whenever I can’t figure something out on my own, I call the manufacturer to ask. I also provide this supervisor with updates on my progress via email or in writing on a regular basis.
Despite that, my boss—an older guy—doesn’t seem to be reading my emails or written reports (I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not, but he claims he checks them), and it seems he isn’t able to report on our progress at the weekly management meeting.
It’s no surprise, since I can’t even keep track of the work I’m directly handling myself… But at recent meetings, for some reason, they’ve been calling on me—just a low-level employee—to explain things, which is a real pain (grr).
There’s no doubt that this will eventually become a factor that lowers the motivation of other employees, and since it’s difficult to reassign staff at small and medium-sized companies, it’s obvious that overall quality will ultimately decline. In fact, it seems that many people at our company have resigned due to interpersonal issues.
Employees Who Are a Liability to the Organization or Their Work
This reminded me of a certain quiz my superior gave me a few years after I joined the Self-Defense Forces. If you’ve read any books on personnel development, you might be familiar with it.
"Can you identify which of the following types of people can destroy an organization or hinder work?"
- A person who is motivated and capable
- People who are motivated but lack ability
- People who are talented but lack motivation
- People who lack motivation and ability
"So, which one is it?"
At the time, I didn’t understand the intent behind the question, so I didn’t know the answer. Thinking about it simply, I figured that Person 4 would probably do the least work, so I answered, “Number 4.” My boss replied as follows:
"Too bad! The correct answer is 2. People who are motivated but lack ability—to put it simply—have a desire to be recognized by those around them. However, because they lack ability, they rarely receive praise from others, including their superiors. As a result, they begin to feel something close to jealousy toward colleagues who are held in higher regard than they are."
This leads to the simplistic notion that getting a lot of work done will result in recognition. Certainly, if you can get a lot of work done, your standing will likely improve. However, people who lack ability tend to take on too much work, become overwhelmed, and then shift the responsibility onto those around them. The damage is particularly severe when this happens right before a deadline.
"As you say, Type 4 people are probably unnecessary to the organization. However, since they don’t work because they lack motivation, they don’t cause as much trouble for those around them as Type 2 people do, and since they don’t feel jealousy toward their colleagues, they’re harmless. Not doing their work is certainly a problem, but it doesn’t go so far as to destroy the organization."
I’ve been reflecting on what my former boss said while at my current job.
In large organizations like the Self-Defense Forces or major construction companies, they might be somewhat more tolerant of people who fall under category 4, but our company only has about 15 engineers.
Given that there is one management engineer each who falls under categories 2 and 4, I’m sure you can easily imagine what the workplace atmosphere is like and how the workload is distributed…
How about your company?
I apologize for making this sound like an insider’s conversation, but based on my daily interactions with others in the industry, I personally get the sense that there are probably many other companies in a similar situation.
I believe that, no matter what kind of job it is, human relationships ultimately play a decisive role in determining both the quality and quantity of work. I think the way to deal with these difficult people depends on the attitude of management.
For those of you who work at construction consulting firms or whose work is primarily office-based, how are things at your company?
From the God of Construction
