Motivation

Motivating employees is a major problem for many managers. That is ‘How can I motivate my staff when all they want to know is what it is need for them?’

The employee think,

            “Only time my boss takes an interest is when things have gone wrong”

            “The management is care less about us. They never shown any interest.”

            “There’s no quality in the work. The only thing is leave on time at the workplace”

So management need to consider the below two parts.

1. How to identify the motivational needs of employees.
2. How to motivate by meeting this need.

Identifying Motivational needs.

Needs

Maslow has suggested that people needs can be grouped 5 levels.

Basic needs

The need for food and water to stay alive. Basic need for survival.

Security needs

The need for safe and stable home and a job or employment. The need to have some permanent in life and freedom from threats.

Belonging needs

The need to be a part of a social unit. To have friends and colleagues and regular contact with them. To be a part of a working team or family group.

Esteem needs.

The need to be a respected what we are and what we stand for to help in esteem for quality of our work, our position in life and the status of our job.

Self fulfillment

The need for interesting, challenging and satisfying work to be able to achieve something and fully used our skills and abilities to do fulfilling’s work.

The five levels are like a five ladder as we meet our need of a one run, we go on to the next.

If we have a secure job a feel confident in our ability to perform it (security), we then want to satisfy needs for belongings to do this be concentrate on developing relationship and team spirit. If we can satisfy these needs, we then become concern about esteem being praise for our work perhaps quality or work quantity. But, over run are threaten we have rapidly down the ladder.

If we are at the level of self fulfillment (that is we are predominantly concerned with doing interesting and challenging work) and suddenly there is possibility of our needs quickly change. We stop caring about doing interesting work and become worried about security, our behavior become change and concerned about protecting our position rather than producing new ideas.

Individual need can be identify by looking for evidence in individuals behavior.

General signs of need not been met- that is motivational problem.

• Poor time keeping or punctuality
• High absenteeism
• High labour turned over
• Poor quality of work
• Complaining about nothing
• Bad industrial relations
• Low moral
• Meeting the motivational needs

Ex.

A manager has a new project for a group task. He ‘sells’ it to them by emphasizing that it is a completely new area which is very challenging and will provide opportunity to expose to senior management (Self Fulfillment). His approach fails disastrously because the group of task are worried about being plucked from their usual work and concern their ability to do this new task (Security). His selling has grammatically intensify their fears and droughts.

        Motivate by emphasizing at too or low level, a manager is concerned that is department should have good moral that he should get on well with each individually need. He devote part of his day to having a chat and a joke with each member (Belonging).

       His attempt fails with several individuals who recent is inclusion. They feel he is wasting time and stopping them getting on their work with find more interesting and satisfying then idle (Self Fulfillment).

Below are listed some options available for motivating staff

Self-fulfillment

• Involve staff in decision making and consult them where possible.
• Allow staff the freedom where it is feasible to plan and conduct their work in their own way.
• Provide more stimulating and challenging work.
• Create solutions where the skills and capacities of staff and used to their fullest.
• Involve staff in new areas requiring creativity and original thinking.

Esteem

• Help staff to see how important and demanding their work is.
• Encourage the staff to think of themselves as the ‘experts’ or ‘best’ at their work.

Belonging

• Be personal and sociable with staff.
• Show an interest in staff as individuals.
• Encourage staff to function as a team and spend time together outside work.
• Develop a good working atmosphere.

Security

• Reassure staff
• Minimize criticism and support individuals.
• Only give tasks at which they can succeed.

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Management principles

What is management?

Simply it is a process of controlling and dealing with peoples and things in business and organizations. Its main function is to get peoples together to accomplish the goal and objective of company.

Who is Manager?

He is the person who control and making decisions to attain the peoples to accomplish the organization goal and objectives.

Functions of Manager

• Planning
• Organizing
• Leading
• Controlling

Accomplishment of project manager

System organization

In some organizations, there may not be an official system. Just ‘our way of doing things’. That is mostly keep in the heads of the staff.

            It is an organized, purposeful structure that consists of interrelated and interdependent elements (components, entities, members, parts). These elements continually influence one another (directly or indirectly) to maintain their activity and the existence of the system, in order to achieve the goal of the system.

            All the members of the organization have some image in their minds about how the organization should be working.

Companies must have dedicated / committed / experienced / knowledgeable persons

And also,

• Working on time
• Working beyond normal hours
• Sense of urgency

Biggest challenge that facing nowadays companies is retaining good peoples (Staff / Employees) (Staff turned off)

This means, these companies need focus on or emphasis on effecting and effective human resources management system (HRM). Human beings are diverse and interdependent. In order to overcome this situation a manager in a company should have human skills such as motivational, coaching, training etc.

Peter Principle.

It is a theory that individuals in a hierarchy who do a good job and competent are promoted to the next level. If they are not competent, they are not promoted and they remain at the same level.

So better planning is required.

Benefit of better planning

• Helps to motivate employees
• Provide a sense of direction
• Provide coordination
• Helps delegation
• Serves as a communication media
• Setup the organizational framework

And also good control system

Quality of an effective control system

• Accuracy
• Timeliness
• Economic
• Flexibility
• Understandability

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Curing

Why curing is needed

Curing is designed primarily to keep the concrete moist, by preventing the loss of moisture from concrete during the period in which it is gaining strength. Protection from premature drying is necessary so that the strength development of concrete is not affected by water removal.

The consequences of too early water losses are:

• Lower strengths in part near the surface.
• Tendency to dusting.
• Higher water permeability.
• Reduced weather resistance.low resistance to chemical attacks.
• Occurrence of early age shrinkage cracks.
• Increased risk of all forms shrinkage cracking.

The curing period may depend on,

• The properties required of the concrete.
• The purpose for which it is to be used.
• The ambient conditions, i.e. the temperature and relative humidity of the surrounding atmosphere.

Compressive strength at 180 days as % of continuously moist sample

Effect of duration of curing on properties of concrete

As may be seen in this example, concrete allowed to dry out immediately achieves only 40% of the strength of the same concrete water cured for the full period of 180 days. Even 3 days water curing increases this figure to 60%, while 28 days water curing increases it to 95%. Keeping concrete moist, therefore, is a most effective way of increasing its ultimate strength.

Methods of curing

There are two distinct ways of curing.

1.By retaining water in the concrete, in the early hardening period

Methods used in this process are:

• Ponding, which is done by a dammed wall of sand around the concrete formation and then flooding with water.
• Sprinkling water on to the formation. This method is achieved by continuous spraying of water on to the slab with garden sprinklers or hand held hose.
• Use a layer of sand of gunny bags that holds and retains sprayed on water. The sand cover or gunny bags need to be kept wet at all times for the duration of the curing period.

2.By preventing evaporation of water (Sealing the exposed surface)

• Use a clear polythene sheet laid on top of the slab to stop the evaporation process. This is one of the most efficient methods to cure concrete, especially in sloping areas and horizontal surfaces.
• Leave form-work used to create the concrete formation. The framework itself, if left in place, underneath a suspended slab, or around a concrete column will stop concrete from drying out too quickly which helps the curing process.
• Use concrete curing compounds. These compounds now come in a variety of types. Use water soluble waxy emulsions that can be sprayed on the fresh concrete with a hand pump.

When to start ‘Curing’

It is always better to start curing as soon as the concrete is hardened to a point that the concrete is not damaged when the water / curing agent is added. Curing can be started after 2-3 hours of concrete placement.

Effects of not having good curing conditions

• Plastic shrinkage cracks occur when the surface of the concrete dries rapidly and shrinks before it can gain sufficient strength to resist cracking.
• When ambient conditions and concrete temperatures combine to produce conditions that create a high evaporation rate, it creates increased chances of surface drying and shrinkage cracks forming prematurely.
• Formation of plastic shrinkage cracks could be reduced by adopting the curing process early.

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What is durability of concrete?

It is the ability to resist weathering action, chemical attack, abrasion, or any process of deterioration.

Durability and sustainability

Durability of concrete structure of paramount importance for the following reason

• Financial investment especially in infrastructure projects is very high. Due to this, building durable structures should be sustained and practiced by the construction industry.
• It is the responsibility of the designer, consultant, engineer to design and build the structure keeping the environmental condition, usage etc in mind. This ensures the long life of the building and adds to durability of concrete.
• Also the selection of right material and construction practices by the contractor are vital practices to be followed.

How do we ensure ‘durable concrete’?

The following is an important list of control factors that need attention in the production of durable concrete.

• Structural design of concrete including the cover to reinforcement.
• The concrete mix design and specification (Water to Cement ratio, maximum cement content, type of cement).
• Workability and cohesiveness.
• Batching/ mixing/ transportation/ placing and compacting.
• The curing process.
• Maintenance and usage during service life.

Reasons for deterioration

Deterioration of concrete can take place basically due to porosity.

Concrete has porosity of several types:

• Capillary pores: Depending on the water cement ratio, the number of capillary pores can increase. The table shows the age at which capillary pores get blocked with different water cement ratios. It clearly shows that if W/C ratio is more than 0.7, the capillary pores will never be blocked and remain for the entire lifetime of the structure. Meaning, the durability of the structure/ concrete is in equation.

Water Cement Ratio	Age at which capillary pores become blocked
0.40	3 days
0.45	7 days
0.50	14 days
0.55	14 days
0.60	3 months
0.70	Over 1 year
Over 0.70	Infinity

Coefficient of Permeability represents the level of permeability of concrete. The table below gives the coefficient of permeability of concrete made using same materials but with different W/C ratios:

Coefficient of Permeability for different W/C   

Sr. No.	W/C	Coefficient of Permeability (Valenta)
1	0.35	1.05 × 10-3
2	0.50	10.30 × 10-3
3	0.65	1000 × 10-3

When the w/c ratio is increased two-fold, the coefficient of permeability increases thousand-fold. This clearly explains how important w/c ratio is to durability and strength of concrete.

• Entrapped air: Proper compaction methods should be followed to ensure removal of all entrapped air within the concrete.
• Honey combs: Proper concrete mix and good concrete practice are the key tools to eliminate honeycombs in concrete.
• Cracks: Good concrete practice, right choice of materials, right design and maintenance – all contribute to minimize cracks in concrete.

Concrete in Aggressive Environments.

Deterioration of concrete takes place in stages. The speed of deterioration and damage to concrete will greatly depend on the following:

Physical Factors

• Continuous or discountinuous cracks.4weathering effects.
• Cyclic loading of impact loading.

Chemical Factors

• Environmental actions or aggressive chemicals, iron and their penetration.

Entry of Chemicals into Concrete and their impact

Trigger	Impact
Chloride	Enters through capillary pores, corrodes reinforcement, causes swelling of concrete
Water	Enters through capillary pores, corrodes reinforcement
Carbon Dioxide	Reacts with concrete and deteriorates it
Sulphates	Reacts with concrete and deteriorates it

For the design purpose of concrete, aggressive environment is defined depending on the severity of presence of chemicals stated above.

Preventive measures for corrosion of reinforcement

• Use minimum water cement ratio.
• Avoid entrapped air and segregation during construction.
• Avoid plastic and drying shrinkage cracking of concrete by taking adequate care in designing concrete mix and by proper construction practices especially curing.
• The concrete mix should have good workability and cohesiveness, so that it can be placed and compacted properly.
• Protective coating on steel.
• Another very important preventing measure is to use blended cement containing fly ash or slag.

Type of Cement	Chloride Diffusion Sq.cm / S × 108
OPC	4.47
Pozzolana Cement (70% OPC & 30% Fly ash)	1.47
Slag Cement (35% OPC & 65% slag)	0.41
Sulphate Resistant Cement	10.00

The table shows clearly that Pozzolana or Fly Ash cement Prevent chloride entering into concrete.

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