Dear Amit,
If you are from construction sector then you may be aware that "Thekedar-Munshiji" culture still exists in this industry. Construction is not just brick and mortar business. It is just tip of the iceberg. Acquisition of the land is a major challenge. After acquiring the land, getting the sanction for the plan is a herculean task. One has to wade through lot of government hurdles or regulations. Then comes the brick and mortar activities. There one has to beset with fraudulent contractors. Lastly, sale of the product. Piling inventory erodes the profitability.
If your company is itself into contracting then accounts receivables is a major challenge. All the major companies deal contractors or suppliers as their adversaries. Margins get wiped out because by some or other reason, real estate or infra companies impose penalty. It could be because of fake reasons as well.
This is not all. Occasionally there are fights at the construction site or safety issues. Last but not the least, there are site specific issues as well. Sometimes fallacious activities of the managers are discovered imposing one more challenge as to how to avoid fence eating the crop!
Against this backdrop, if your boss is turning cold shoulder to you then it could be because of the above reasons. He could be considering that HR is a secondary department therefore, it deserves a back seat. When he was talking to you what was the project status? Possibly project could be at ab initio phase. As the project progressed, his attention was diverted in too many other issues hence less time for you!
Your sector is famous for quixotic ways of the bosses. I know a boss of your industry who thinks everybody must work for 24 hours. Sometimes he calls his Managers for the meeting at 2200 or 2300 hours. By chance if you had worked under such boss, possibly you would have raised post in this forum on how to deal with quirky boss!
I have trained 200 procurement/store professionals of major infra company. I also have provided consulting services to establish Performance Management System (PMS) for one of the major real estate companies of Pune. Both the assignments have given me insight on the construction or real estate industry's working style.
Nevertheless, human resources in the company need to be developed irrespective of the HR's affiliation with the boss. To know how to do that, call me on my mobile and I will suggest a remedy. Let us see whether that remedy works.
All the best!
Dinesh Divekar