Industry overview
What is shaping construction
Construction materials are chosen by a chain of people: engineers, contractors, masons and individual homebuilders. Site conditions, credit and word-of-mouth all matter.
- Masons and contractors strongly influence material brands
- Individual homebuilders rely on trusted advice
- Site safety and quality standards are rising
Client background
A labour welfare foundation, working in Delhi NCR & Bengaluru. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- A labour welfare foundation
- Sector
- Construction
- Team engaged
- Market Research
- Services
- Qualitative research, Quantitative research, Government research
Client challenge
The foundation wanted to design welfare services for migrant construction workers but lacked data on their living conditions and access to benefits.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: understanding the lives of migrant construction workers.
- Understand the views, needs and behaviour of workers.
- Measure how widespread each pattern is, and explain the reasons behind it.
- Give the client evidence it can act on within 9 weeks.
Target audience
The work focused on 1,500 workers.
- workers1,500
Audiences we typically reach in construction
Contractors and masonsCivil engineers and architectsIndividual homebuildersMaterial dealersSite workers
Geographic coverage
Coverage: Delhi NCR & Bengaluru. Market: India.
- India
Research methodology
A mixed-method design: structured research measured how widespread each pattern was, and qualitative conversations explained why.
- 1Brief
- 2Worker survey at sites and settlements
- 3In-depth interviews
- 4Insight
Interviewers speaking workers’ home languages surveyed workers about housing, wages, health, children’s education and welfare registration, with careful consent procedures.
Qualitative researchQuantitative researchGovernment research
Sampling strategy
- workers
- 1,500
- Qualitative participants were recruited purposively to cover the full range of experiences that mattered, rather than for statistical representation.
Data collection
- interviews
- 40
- Interviews and discussions were led by experienced moderators using a guide agreed with the client.
Data quality & validation
- Recordings and transcripts for every session
- Re-screening of qualitative recruits
- Logic and range checks on the final data
- Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures
Data analysis
- Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
- Significance testing on the differences that mattered
- Thematic coding of interviews and discussions
- Journey and decision mapping
Key findings
- Few workers were registered for welfare benefits, mainly due to documentation barriers.
Language and trust were essential to reaching this workforce.
Recommendations
- Build on the core insight: language and trust were essential to reaching this workforce.
- Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: few workers were registered for welfare benefits, mainly due to documentation barriers.
- Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.
Business impact
- The foundation set up registration camps at sites.
What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.
Deliverables & next steps
- Insight report and management presentation
- Cleaned data file and data tables
- Interview summaries and key verbatims
- Evaluation findings with programme recommendations
- Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
- A natural follow-on question: how do dealers win contractor loyalty?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.