Management Skills Needs of Building Construction Site Supervisor in Rural Areas

Management skills are the strengths and competencies required of a manager for proper execution of a project. There has been reports of abandoned building construction projects in the rural areas, probably due to supervision lapses. The building construction site supervisor needs to exhibit exceptional abilities for the discharge of his responsibility to the society. This paper identified the management skills needs of the building construction site supervisor for optimum job efficiency in the rural areas. The descriptive survey design was used for the study. The target population was all the building construction experts in Ebonyi State of Nigeria, that received either formal or informal education. A structured questionnaire developed by the researchers in line with the formulated three research questions was used to guide the study. The questionnaire copies were distributed to the respondents. 348 survey answers out of 400 distributed copies of questionnaire were returned, found reliable and used for data analysis. The statistical mean, standard deviation, t-test, correlation and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. Finding showed that the conflict resolution skill need, the decision making skill need, and the planning and organizing skill need were necessary, for the optimum operation of the site supervisor in the rural areas. The paper recommended that the building construction site supervisor should endeavour to acquire adequate management skills and appreciate the culture of the people in the rural areas to enhance the execution of building construction project. The finding could be applied in supervision of building projects to ensure optimum project delivery.