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International Journal of Construction Management

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Reality check against skilled worker parametersand parameters failure effect on the constructionindustry for Bangladesh

Shakil Ahmed, Hamidul Islam, Ikramul Hoque & Mehrab Hossain

To cite this article: Shakil Ahmed, Hamidul Islam, Ikramul Hoque & Mehrab Hossain(2018): Reality check against skilled worker parameters and parameters failure effect on theconstruction industry for Bangladesh, International Journal of Construction Management, DOI:10.1080/15623599.2018.1487158

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1487158

Published online: 01 Oct 2018.

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Reality check against skilled worker parameters and parameters failureeffect on the construction industry for Bangladesh

Shakil Ahmed, Hamidul Islam, Ikramul Hoque and Mehrab Hossain

Department of Building Engineering and Construction Management, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology,Khulna, Bangladesh

ABSTRACTLabour skill has a significant impact on time, cost, and quality of a construction project. Thecompetitive construction industry forces companies to increase their labour skill to remain theirpositions in the industry. It is universally agreed that the skilled worker is one of the main fuelsto run construction industry. A skilled worker must have a professional training, minimum 2years working experience, and have the knowledge of construction materials, equipment andsafety and physically fit. To check the status of the worker against nine main parameters of skil-fulness of the worker is the key to the study. A questionnaire was designed with very deep lit-erature research and expert opinion. The data were collected through questionnaire surveyamongst the construction workers in Bangladesh. The percentages of workers found in thisstudy having full knowledge and practicing regulation of construction safety, materials, equi-pment’s and tools, labour codes and building code are 19.35%, 6.45%, 9.68%, 4.87% and 2.30%,respectively. The workers in the study area having the professional training, minimum educationand minimum working experience are 6.45%, 46.06% and 62.50%, respectively. A total of62.25% workers are found physically sound. Building code practices and awareness building isthe driving key to enhance skills of worker.

KEYWORDSBangladeshi ConstructionIndustry; parameter failureeffects; questionnairesurvey; worker status level;skilled worker parameter

Introduction

Construction industry plays a significant role in theway of contributing to the overall development ofBangladesh as it enhances the economy and generatesa huge employment field. Bangladesh is one of themost densely populated countries in the world with163 million population (Bureau 2017) and more than1252 people live in per square kilometre (WordBank2017). For this huge size of the population, a huge innumber but uncontrolled construction industries aregrowing quickly. This huge amount of uncontrolledconstruction industries are operated by the hugeamount of worker.

Workers are the major key to the successful run-ning of the construction industry. The workers with-out skill do not brings any benefits to theconstruction industry rather complexity and risk. Soit can be said that the unskilled workers itself a riskand threat to the construction industry. If a high levelof construction output is predicted by authority haveto be achieved, then the raising concern is howunskilled worker can be met the parameters of skilled

(Agapiou et al. 1995). Unskilled worker is the mainfactor of construction delays and cost overrun(Koushki et al. 2005). Unskilled worker is one of themost significant causes of accident on constructionsite (Abdelhamid and Everett 2000; Suraji et al. 2001).The shortage of skilled worker is the major factor thataffects the quality in construction (Chan et al. 2004;Enshassi et al. 2009; Abas et al. 2015) Constructiondelays, quality issues, cost overrun and safety-relatedissues are the major barriers that obstruct the pro-gress and success of construction project. If any ofthese has occurred, the whole project is undoubtedlygoing to be failed. As a result, the individual, localand national economy are affected and the rate ofinfrastructure development is decreased. So, skilledworker is the most important element for the success-ful growth of our rising construction industry.

There is no structured definition to define a skilledworker in construction industry. The parameters ofskilled worker are varied from person to person andnation to nation. In Oxford Dictionary, the skilledworker is indicated as ‘having or showing the

CONTACT Shakil Ahmed ashakilmondol@gmail.com Department of Building Engineering and Construction Management, Khulna University ofEngineering & Technology, Khulna-9203, Khulna, Bangladesh� 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENThttps://doi.org/10.1080/15623599.2018.1487158

knowledge, ability, or training to perform a certainactivity or task well’. The workers are skilled whohave professional training, working experience andhave knowledge (Sch€on 2017). Menard (2017) saidthat construction workers are skilled who have speci-alized training or skills, capable of exercising judg-ment, and have knowledge of the particular tradethey work and a minimum college education. TheDepartment for Federal Skilled Worker (FSW),Canada (FSW 2017) stated that the main parametersof skilled worker are education, work experience,knowledge of work and others. But in Bangladeshthere are no official parameters of construction skilledworker by which one could be said to be a skilledworker. In this study, nine parameters of constructionskilled worker are established with respect to the per-spective of Bangladeshi construction industry.

About 82% of construction company experiencesthe shortage of skilled workers (Makhene and Thwala2009). Skilled workers shortage is not due to the short-age of workers rather it is the shortage of adequatelytrained skilled and productive workers for certain jobs.Bangladesh faces the crisis of skilled worker more tre-mendously than other developing countries. A reportindicates that about 31.32% workers of constructionsector in Bangladesh are skilled while rests areunskilled (Limited 2010). Bangladesh needs another 4million skilled workers in construction sector by 2021to meet the requirements of the growing economy(Report 2016). To sustaining the sustainable improve-ment of the construction industry as smoothly, theskilled worker is the major required challenge to meet.So, the most crucial problem of construction industryis the shortage of skilled worker in Bangladesh.

Thus, it is necessary to keep updated with actualstatus level and essential information of worker in con-struction sector for understanding the actual situationof construction work force to monitor, control andimprove. If the real scenario comes to light, it will beeasier for the authority to take effective necessary stepsto improve the quality and standard of workers inBangladesh. For this, the study was conducted to findthe real status level of construction workers againsteach set parameter of skilled worker. It also finds thefailure effects of each parameter on construction pro-ject. This study will help to find out the causes andresponsible elements for the lacking of sufficient skilledworkers by analysis the worker status level against eachparameter of skilled worker in Bangladeshi construc-tion industry. It will also offer some suggestions whichcan play a vital role to decrease the crisis of skilledworker and turn the unskilled worker into skilled.

Research methodology

This study is undertaken in two perspective process.At first, the parameters of skilled worker are set fromdiscussion with experts and a comprehensive litera-ture review. Figure 1 shows the entire process of con-ducting this study. The figure represents the step-by-step process of this study in a sequential order.

Setting out the skilled worker parameters onBangladesh perspective

To conducting this study, we are setting out theparameters of construction worker consideringBangladesh’s socio-economic state, national labourcondition, compatibility of construction industry, andother issues. At first, after a comprehensive literaturereview of journal paper, Internet, newspaper, andreports, a list of parameters have been sort out ini-tially from it. The reviewed literatures are US Citizenand Immigration service (Security 2018), Albertaprovince official website, Canada (Alberta 2018),Construction Labor Contractors, Blog (CLC 2018), S.E. Shoo et al. (Khoo et al. 2007), Erin Tolley (Tolley2003), USLegal (UsLegal 2011), Manolo Abella(Abella 2006), and Breschi et al (Breschi and Lissoni2009). Some of the parameters are added, some ofsubtracted and finalized the set of parameters througha comprehensive discussion with an expert panel. Theexpert panel consist of the following:

1. High officials from the Ministry of Labor andEmployment, Bangladesh Government.

2. High officials from Safety and Right. Safety andRight is a non-government organization promot-ing health and safety and enforcing rights ofworker in Bangladesh.

3. High officials from Imarat Nirman Sramik UnionBangladesh (INSUB) (in English ‘BuildingConstruction Labor Union Bangladesh’). Thisunion is protecting the right and work forthe welfare of the construction workersin Bangladesh.

4. A group of civil engineers, architects, construc-tion project managers and contractors who havemore than 15 years of working experience inrelated field.

5. University Professors who teach at related schooland department at different universityin Bangladesh.

After all the review and the discussion, a final setof parameters of construction skilled worker for

2 S. AHMED ET AL.

Bangladesh is coming out. A construction worker issaid to be skilled worker if he/she:

1. Knows and executes construction-related safetyregulations in workplace

2. Knows and executes the Bangladesh NationalBuilding Code (BNBC)

3. Knows and follows Bangladesh NationalLabor Law

4. Knows and follows about construction material-related issues (merit, demerits, safety, standarduse procedure and process, storage)

5. Knows and follows about construction equipmentand tool-related issue (standard operation proced-ure, safety, maintenance)

6. Has professional training on related work7. Has a minimum 2 years of working experience

on related field8. Has a good physical condition for performing

his work9. Has a minimum primary education (class 5)

Questionnaire design

The research data were collected through a surveyamong the construction worker. For this, a question-naire was designed with nine parameters of skilledworker in construction sector. The designed question-naire is divided into three parts. Figure 1 shows ascanned copy of designed questionnaire having three

Figure 1. Scanned copy of a questionnaire responded by a worker.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 3

parts of it with the response of a worker. Part I isabout the general information about the respondent.Part II contain five parameters of construction skilledworker and the respondents dealt with the followingfive types of answer against each parameter: (A)Known and followed, (B) Known but not followed,(C) Partially known and followed, (D) Partiallyknown but not followed and (E) Unknown. From thefive types of answer, worker chooses only one type ofanswer against each parameter that indicates his/herstatus level for this parameter. In part III, respondentswere requested to answer another four parameters ofconstruction skilled worker and the answer of thequestionnaire can be given in two different ways,namely (F) Yes and (G) No. From the twos type ofanswer, worker choose only one type against eachparameter that indicates his/her status level for thisparameter. Figure 2 shows a surveyed questionnaireresponded by a worker. Parts I and part II of ques-tionnaire represent the status level of the workeragainst each set parameters.

Data collection

The necessary data were collected through the ques-tionnaire survey among the construction workers byvisiting construction sites, labour unions, labour wel-fare trust, and government agencies and so on. Atotal 87 sets of questionnaire were distributedamongst the workers. Seventy-one sets were returnedof the 87 sets of the questionnaire, which is 82% oftotal distributed sets.

Data analysis

Table 1 represents the demographic characteristics ofthe respondents.

The numbers of workers are categorized into fivegroups based on their answers against each parameterin part II and two groups in part III of the question-naire. The following equation is used to calculate thepercentage of workers for each type of answer againsteach parameter:

W ¼ Q X 100N

(1)

where W indicates the percentage of workers whochoose ‘P’ type answer. Here. Qis the total number ofworker who choose ‘P’ type answer (in equation (1)

9.35

%

2.30

%

4.87

%

6.45

%

9.68

%15.5

8%

5.88

% 14.6

5%

11.0

0%

23.4

3%

2.80

%

16.1

3%

2.50

%

24.9

3% 32.2

6%

26.2

4%

20.0

8%

5.45

%

31.7

0%

7.55

%

46.0

3% 55.6

1%

72.5

3%

25.9

2%

27.0

8%

S A F E T Y R E G U L A T I O N ( O S H E , B N B C )

B A N G L A D E S H N A T I O N A L B U I L D I N G

C O D E ( B N B C ) R E G U L A T I O N

B A N G L A D E S H N A T I O N A L L A B O U R

L A W

C O N S T R U C T I O N M A T E R I A L S R E L A T E D R E G U L A T I O N ( M E R I T ,

D E M E R I T S , S A F E T Y , U S E P R O C E S S )

S T A N D A R D P R O C E D U R E A N D S A F E T Y O F T O O L S

A N D E Q U I P M E N T U S E

Known and followed Known but not followed Par�ally known and followed

Par�ally known but not followed Unknown

Figure 2. Statistics of worker status against skilled worker parameter for questionnaire part II.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of respondents.Demographic characteristics Frequency Percentage, %

SexMale 52 73Female 19 27

Age�20 years old 15 2121–30 years old 26 3731–40 years old 17 24�40 years old 13 18

LocationDhaka Division 18 25Rajshahi and Rangpur Division 11 15Chittagong Division 13 18Sylhet Division 8 11Khulna and Barisal Division 21 31

Working fieldBuilding 29 41Infrastructure 20 28Electrical and mechanical 14 20Others 8 11

4 S. AHMED ET AL.

‘P’ is a symbol used for indicating any type of answer,for this study P¼A, B, C, D, E or F type answer)and N means total number of workers (for thisstudy N¼ 71).

Result and discussion

The set parameters of skilled worker in constructionindustry are analysed by the collected data through aquestionnaire survey. The actual current status of theconstruction workers in Bangladesh is not so good.There are a million of worker in Bangladesh whohave no signature education, no professionaltraining, not aware of health and safety, physicallyweak and so many issues that negatively affect theproductivity, schedule and quality of constructionproject. Figures 2 and 3 show that a huge amount ofunskilled workers are involved in Bangladeshi con-struction industry. This is one of the prime factorsthat is interrupted the advancement and improvementof construction industry in Bangladesh.

Construction safety

Today in the construction industry, there is no con-cerning issue as important as construction safety. Indeveloped countries, it is taken a great attention thatis why authorities and government take various meas-ures to ensure construction safety. But in developingcountry, construction safety is the bloodcurdling con-cern because of avoiding and violating health & safetyregulations mostly, whereas in Bangladesh noadequate attention is drawn by the authority and

workers in this regard. A clear picture is disclosedwith the current worker status level on constructionsafety culture in Bangladesh in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows that 9.35% of the workers properlyknow and 2.80% of the workers partially know theconstruction safety and both groups of workers prac-tice the regulation at working sites based on theirknowledge of safety. About 15.58% of the workersknow where 26.24% of workers partially know theregulation of construction safety but they do notpractice the regulation at working sites. Almost halfof the total workers about 46.03% are not aware ofconstruction safety regulations and know nothingabout construction health and safety. So they do nottake any safety measures during work.

This current status of construction worker isbrought out many tremendous issues that make theindustry as hazardous one than any other industry inthe country. In average, 150 workers have died andthousands of workers are fallen victim in low to highimpact injuries due to construction accident at work-place every year in Bangladesh (SRS 2010, 2011, 2012,2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017). Failure of adoption andassurance of construction safety have affected the pro-ject negatively. It is the main cause of project delay(Aziz and Abdel-Hakam 2016; Burr 2016), affectingthe quality of construction work (Zeng et al. 2015;Larsen et al. 2016; Rumane 2016), decreasing thelabour productivity (Hiyassat et al. 2016; Sveikauskaset al. 2016), cost overrun of the project (Shehu et al.2014; Jadhav et al. 2016), arising dispute betweenstakeholders (Gunduz et al. 2017), and affecting thepsychology of worker negatively (Leung et al. 2016).

6.45

%

62.5

0% 69.2

5%

46.0

6%

93.5

5%

37.5

0%

30.7

5%

53.9

4%

W O R K R E L A T E D T R A I N I N G W O R K I N G E X P E R I E N C E ( M I N I M U M 2 Y E A R S )

P H Y S I C A L L Y S O U N D E D U C A T I O N ( M I N I M U M C L A S S 5 )

Yes No

Figure 3. Statistics of worker status against skilled worker parameters for questionnaire part III.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 5

BNBC

BNBC is the only government issued regulations andguidelines for the building construction sectors inBangladesh. It is contained legal and technical specifi-cations, construction health & safety, quality of con-struction, environmental regulations for construction,worker wages and rights and others. So avoidance,violation and elimination of BNBC might be broughtthe project into construction accidents, quality haz-ards, worker conflicts about wages and rights, nega-tive impact on environment, dispute on legal issuesand so on. It is very significant to know and under-stand the current worker status against this parameterof skilled worker that is how the workers know andexecute the BNBC in construction projectin Bangladesh.

Figure 2 indicates that more than half portion ofthe workers in construction sectors do not knowabout the regulations and guidelines of BNBC and theamount is 55.61%. Only 2.30% of workers properlyknow while 16.13% know partially and they followand practice BNBC guidelines and regulations atworking site. Other 5.88% of workers know and20.08% of workers partially know the regulations andguidelines of BNBC but they do not follow and prac-tice at working sites.

Avoiding and violating of BNBC in Bangladeshis a legal dispute and it is a punishable crime.Government agencies can temporarily suspend, stopor ban the project where BNBC is avoiding and vio-lating. Some literature (Ahmed 2010; Rahman 2012;Biswas 2014; Shill 2015) state that this brings out legaldisputes, delay or even stop, cost overrun, additionalcompensation in any construction project. Avoidingand violating of BNBC is main causes of constructionaccident and hazards (Al Mamun et al. 2014) andaffecting the quality of construction(Biswas 2014). Sois very important and essential to know, follow andexecute the BNBC guidelines and regulations for theconstruction worker for the betterment of himself andall over the construction industry.

National labour law

Most of the Bangladeshi construction workers are notaware of the national labour laws. Figure 2 presentsthe current culture and attitude of constructionworker towards national labour law in Bangladesh. Ahuge amount of construction workers about 72.53%are totally unaware and do not know about thenational labour laws/acts. Only 4.87% purely knowwhile another 2.50% partially know and they follow

the labour laws at their professional filed. Another14.65% know and 5.45% partially know but they donot follow or practice the labour laws.

Because of unaware of labour law, workers are notgetting their rights and wages. It is the main cause ofworker-strike which brings the loss of productivity(Ibbs and Vaughn 2015) and delays the project com-pletion (Birgonul et al. 2015). In the case of accidents,workers do not get proper compensation from theauthority because of their ignorance of labour actsand they are felt betrayed (Morrison and Robinson1997). This feeling of betraying drives them to faultyand unsafe work which negatively affects the organ-ization he work for (Rayton and Yalabik 2014). It isalso considered the major causes of construction acci-dents and quality hazards (Rayton and Yalabik 2014).All these things and their consequence create a nega-tive impact on worker’s psychology to do the best inthe perfect way.

Construction materials

Construction materials are the most important andobvious things to perform the construction project. Ifthere are no materials, there are no constructions. Butmost of the construction materials belong somedemerits with it. Workers always work with materials,so it is very necessary to the worker to know all thematerial’s properties and standard use procedures.But in Bangladesh worker are mostly unaware of thisissue. Figure 2 indicates that 6.45% workers purelyknow while 24.93% workers partially know about con-struction materials, their demerits, standard use pro-cedure and related safety issues. Also, they follow andpractice these concerns at workplace. A quarter por-tion of 25.92% construction worker is totally unaware.Rest of 11.00% are known and 31.70% are partiallyknown but they do not follow or practice atthe workplace.

Unaware of construction material-related issues,this condition introduces some other issues that affectthe project adversely such as accident, safety hazards,quality hazards, project delay and so on. Some mate-rials are chemically harmful and need to take safetymeasures to work with that type of materials. Thistype of material leads a project into an accidental andquality hazardous one (Charehzehi and Ahankoob2012) Some construction materials have exploitation,burning, scratching, wounding and cutting character-istics and unaware of this could thread to the safetyand quality of project (Domone and Illston 2010).The standard proportion of materials must be

6 S. AHMED ET AL.

maintained unless the quality of work is hampered(Jingmond and Ågren 2015). Knowing about con-struction materials, the construction waste reducesreuse, and recycling process can be performed effect-ively (Yuan 2013). The above incident and their con-sequences lead a construction project towardsaccidents, safety hazards, quality failure, cost-overrunand construction delays.

Construction equipment and tools

A large numbers of construction workers inBangladesh are totally unaware of the standard pro-cedure of using construction equipment and tools,related safety measure of equipment and tools andtraining for them. Figure 2 shows the status level ofthe worker against this parameter. It is indicated that9.68% workers purely know while 32.26% workerspartially know the standard working procedure andrelated safety and they practice them at work sites.Another 23.43% workers know and 7.55% workerspartially know but they practice at work sites. Rest ofthe workers 27.08% are unaware of this.

Unawareness of this issue turns the worker burdenfrom the asset. Poor and faulty construction equip-ment and tools or fail to use in the right ways orboth are the possible source of safety and quality haz-ard in construction project (Hardin and McCool2015; Karakhan and Gambatese 2018). The operatorsmust have the training to operate safely and appropri-ately (Gooch 2011). Thus, it is very important toknow about Construction equipment and tools andpractice safety measures and standard procedures tocomplete a project successfully and profitably.

Work-related training

Work-related training is a mandatory practice for anyprofession (Dong and Platner 2004). But inBangladesh, training of construction worker, relatedto his work is a nightmare (Biswas 2014). How poorcondition of worker training in Bangladesh hasappeared clearly in Figure 3. A just 6.45% of totalconstruction workers get occupational training andrest of the 93.55% workers do not get any trainingrelated to their work. This untrained worker forcecould be harmful to construction project inmany ways.

Training has turned a worker to expert and moreproductive at his work (Billett et al. 2015). Untrainedworker is one of the main causes of quality and safetyhazards in construction (Love et al. 2015, 2016; Zhou

et al. 2015). Figure 3 shows that the actual situationof Bangladeshi construction worker is in the questionof occupational training.

Working experience

Working experience is one of the prominent parame-ters to become a skilled worker. In Bangladesh, a lotof newcomers are involved in construction work with-out any expertise. From Figure 3 it is shown the sizeof construction workers for both who have minimumtwo years working experience or not. A favourableamount of 62.50% workers have experienced for morethan two years and another 37.50% worker do nothave two years working experience. These inexperi-enced workers are considered as a threat to the pro-ject in many ways.

Lack of working experience of worker is decreasedproductivity of workers and increased the rate oferrors at work (Frey and Osborne 2017). Workingexperience is made the worker enable to take a gooddecision and also make an essential asset to the com-pany (Salleh et al. 2017). The inexperienced workersface more accidental event than an expert one (Wanget al. 2016). So it is really essential for all constructionworkers to learn and earn expertise.

Physically fit

Workers are the main fuel for every economic indus-try including construction industry. And physically fitworkers are undoubtedly a valuable asset to the com-pany. A big portion of workers are found with low tohigh impacted health issues in this study. Figure3shows that 69.25% workers are physically fit andother 30.75% workers have appeared with anunhealthy physical condition. This unhealthy portionof the worker has played a role of problem creatorrather than an asset.

An unhealthy worker is worked under physicalweakness and stress. This unfavourable condition hasincreased the possibility of error in judgment andderives him to make wrong decisions (Hammondet al. 2015). Construction accident is taken place atincreasing rate when worker are not fit physically andpsychologically for performing his work (Leung et al.2016). Construction quality is also hampered by theunfit workers (Aljassmi et al. 2016). It is the majorcause of construction accident, construction delays,quality issues, cost overrun and project complexity. Sothe authority must and worker must give a greatattention to meet this parameter.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT 7

Education

A minimum level of education is necessary to theworker in any sector of work. The minimum level isset as class 5 for Bangladeshi workers in this study. Inthis study, the worker proportion is clearly displayedagainst the minimum education which is a major par-ameter of the skilled worker in Bangladeshi construc-tion industry. Figure 3 indicates that only 46.06%workers have educated as required level (class 5) andother 53.94% workers are uneducated. This unedu-cated portion is liable for bringing threat to the con-struction project in many ways.

Educated workers can easily understand his joband give the best output (Cairo and Cajner 2018).They are more productive, aware of health and safetyissues and able to take effective decision which turnsa project into a successful one (Appelbaum 2013;Ammendolia et al. 2016). Thus it is very importantfor a worker to have a minimum level education andit is one of the essential parameters of skilled workerfor Bangladeshi construction industry.

Conclusion and recommendation

Skilfulness of the worker is directly proportional tothe labour productivity and hence the success of con-struction project. That is why many researchers havean attraction on this topic. Although there are severalstudies which examine the factors affecting labourproductivity, there is scarce of study relating to theskill of the worker. For these reasons, we investigatethe nine main criteria of skilfulness of the worker isthe driving force of the study. A productive question-naire was planned with very profound literatureresearch. The data were composed through the ques-tionnaire assessment amongst the construction work-ers in Bangladesh.

The first group of the questionnaire was analysedin five different ways and another group of question-naire was in two different ways. A total 87 sets ofquestionnaire were distributed amongst the construc-tion workers across the country and 71 sets werereturned. Almost half of the total workers areunaware of construction safety measures, and hencethey are falling into accidents every day at a higherrate. Some portions of workers know the safety rulesbut don’t follow the regulations and guidelines. Alarge portion which is more than half of the construc-tion workers in Bangladesh do not know the BNBCCode and Labor Laws. Another other small portion ofworkers know the code and laws but do not followand practice them at work sites. Around one-fourth

of construction workers are unaware of constructionmaterials, construction equipment and tools. Half ofthe workers completely or partially have knowledge ofthe guidelines for equipment and materials but don’tfollow and don’t practice them at working fields. Thepercentages of workers found in the study describedas part III of questionnaire having full knowledge andpracticing regulation of construction safety, materials,equipment’s and tools, labour codes and buildingcode are 19.35%, 6.45%, 9.68%, 4.87% and 2.30%,respectively. The workers in the study area having theprofessional training, minimum education and min-imum working experience are 6.45%, 46.06% and62.50%, respectively. In total, 62.25% workers arefound physically sound. To increase the skill of theworker authors suggested some guidelines such asproper training of the worker-related to the safetymeasures, health and hygiene, risk management andother fundamental issues of construction sectors. Tofollow the building code and labour laws by thelabour and authority would be the key factors toincrease the skill as well as productivity ofthe worker.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported bythe authors.

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