APPRAISAL OF SERVICE DELIVERY OF MULTI SKILLED QUANTITY SURVEYORS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Extensive changes in today’s business environment coupled with globalisation have made service firms of construction professional to ‘sell’ or appropriate expertise and provide innovations for projects based on technical competencies. However, the need to respond to changes in professional environment calls for new area of skill development for professional quantity surveyors in addition to cost management. Therefore, the research considered the trend of information technology coupled with multiple evolutions of discipline and instability in construction businesses/jobs to appraise multiskilling with a view to developing a model to enhance quantity surveyor’s service delivery in Nigeria. The study adopted both questionnaire survey and Delphi survey on two separate populations of multi skilled quantity surveyors and registered quantity surveying firms (principal partners) that have diversified. Sampling was done by use of snowballing technique. The questionnaire was structured on the rubrics of motivational factors for multiskilling, skills requirements for service diversification, and the business drivers of a professional service firm engaging multi skilled quantity surveyor. The Delphi questionnaire was structured on the basis of optimal trade-offs between time and cost as multi-objective for engaging multi skilled quantity surveyors and administered in iteration process to obtain information from the wealth of experience of the selected principal partners. This was used to develop a software programme for Multi skilled Allocation Model for Optimization (MAMO). The data collected from general questionnaire were analysed using Mean Item Score (MIS), Dendrogram of data cluster analysis and Pearson correlation to establish the relatedness of skill areas. The hypotheses were tested with chi-square cross tabulation and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study revealed that challenges in the work environment, prestige, interest relative to profession and economic factors motivated quantity surveyors to multi skill while quantity surveying firms in Nigeria diversified in the areas of arbitration and other dispute resolutions, project management and other business development to sustain the firm. The study concluded that business opportunities abound in the areas of taxation, insolvency, valuation, insurance and property investment while there is significant difference in the service delivery of multi skilled quantity surveyors on the basis of their academic qualifications. The study recommended that professional quantity surveyors should assess the challenges in the work/business environment in order to be flexible and innovative while the principal partners should encourage professionals to be multi skilled in these marketable areas to ensure business sustainability.