Contractual employment framework of private sector for young construction professionals / Siti Hawa Mohd Kasmuri

This study investigated employees’ turnover in the Malaysian construction industry by
focusing on employment regulatory framework. It aims to establish a contractual
employment framework for private-sector construction professionals. Provided that the
young professionals are important to drive the future of the industry, the retention
strategy focusing on the organisation and employee preferences should be considered.
The need for an industrial-based employment framework is observed as an efficient
approach in managing employment issues. Therefore, this research identified the
suitable components, which transformed into a contractual employment framework.
Four objectives were developed to fulfil the research aim, namely 1) to identify
employment issues in the Malaysian construction industry, 2) to compare weaknesses
of existing employment regulatory framework, 3) to analyse suitable components for
contractual employment framework for the young professionals in the construction
industry, and 4) to establish the framework. The primary significance of this study is
the fact that employees’ protection in Malaysia is not generalised, leading to
employment disputes, which may affect the industry contribution. This research
adopted a qualitative research design with the support of content analysis in the form of
thematic network analysis on court cases and regulatory documents, including semistructured
interviews. Furthermore, the expert panels’ opinion was employed to validate
the framework as the final stage in meeting the research aim. It was revealed from the
content analysis on the court cases that the organisation was the contributor to the
employee turnover in the construction industry. Meanwhile, Malaysian employment
regulatory was identified as lacking in employment protection through limited protected
employee group. The suitable components for the development of employment were
found through a semi-structured interview with 17 construction professionals from
eight organisations. Suitable components involved comprehensive coverage of the
organisation management and human resources management (HRM) practices. It could
be concluded that employee turnover among construction professionals could be
reduced through implementation the framework. This research developed further
insight into an understanding of the employee turnover issue by identifying the suitable
components from construction professional perspectives, which is efficient industrialbased
employment tool as compared to existing tools. Furthermore, this research
contribute to comprehensive data by adopting in-depth qualitative study. Due to
research scope and limitation, the sampling based on types of construction organisations
and further exploration of employee turnover determinants in the Malaysian
construction industry were suggested as recommendations for future study.