Training staff

All MRP-EURASIA interviewers go through a basic training course focusing on market research,
interview technique and communication. This training covers the basics of market research such as sampling and questionnaire wording, and goes into some detail on the subject of interview technique: how to correctly conduct an interview and how to deal with different issues and situations that may arise.

As a supplement to the basic training all interviewers receive an interviewers’ manual upon starting at MRP-EURASIA. This covers the information on rules and techniques for interviewing in the basic training course as well as addressing and giving more in-depth information about market research and the different types of study we conduct.

We offer further training courses in the fields of recruitment and face to face interviewing to a chosen few of our interviewers who are especially experienced and/or shows special talent.

Interviewer Briefings
In addition to this, briefings are either held face to face or given in writing, or both, for each study. We also aim to give the interviewers some additional input by “theme of the week” presentations focusing on a different aspect of advanced interview technique every week.

Experienced interviewers
On average, MRP-EURASIA interviewers have more than 500 hours of interviewing behind them. We view the experience of the interview staff as one of our most important assets, and reward interviewers who work frequently and those who stay with us over time through our salary systems.
We are concerned with keeping employee turnover at a low level, and among the measures we take to this end are our annual employee survey to keep track of interviewer satisfaction and our quarterly web-based survey addressed to former employees tracking reasons for leaving the interviewer job. The 2007 work climate survey shows that 94% of our interviewers find they are satisfied with their job overall.

High quality supervision
Our supervisors generally have academic backgrounds from colleges or universities, and most of them are quite familiar with survey method even before becoming supervisors, since we generally recruit our leaders from our competent interviewer staff. We put emphasis on further educating our team leaders through external courses as well as a thorough in-house training that is company specific. For reference the supervisors also have manuals describing the different procedures, systems and routines in use in our field departments.
Example: Preparation of local field executors for the
“…………………………” multi-country socio-poll project.

The Preliminary Preparation will be divided into 2 main parts.

Basic training on the content, aims and logistics of the project (on-line)
Coaching for Communicative skills in a concrete project (on-line)

The Basic Training for the Senior and Junior interviewers and supervisors
on the content, aims and logistics of the project
Description of the target groups: interviewers, supervisors
The main goals includes the following:

Provide insight into definition of the term “…………” in the general population poll (GPP)
Presentation of the The ………………………………………. Survey
To form an overview about the methods and the ethic of marketing research and opinion polls
To train the special communications skills
To find out the most suitable interviewers
To analyze the concrete situations and possible mistakes and find the suitable solutions
To answer all the questions

The communication skills include:

Contact establishing
Neutral audition
Why is it important to follow the instructions
How to answer typical questions
Why don’t you have to argue with the respondent

The methods of the skills training:

Test job (paper, situation description, the interviewer should choose the correct model of behaving)
Exercises

The Training plan:

Opening speech and welcome.

Opening speech, distribution of study materials. Short overview of the main purposes of the training.

Interview understanding

The specific of conducting an interview and its varieties. External and internal factors, that influence the interview. Interview ethics, ethic principals

Sampling methods. Gender quota, age intervals, wealth intervals.
Household survey. Technologies achieving quotas and hard-to-reach respondents in F2F and CATI surveys.
Random selection of households and respondents. Random route procedures
The job of the interviewer and his most required skills

Appearance. Sociability. Benevolence. A healthy curiosity. Voice, talking speed/temp. Honesty. Privacy Policy.

The main stages of the study and the interviewers place.

Finding out the problem and the goals of the training. The choice of the program and of the study plan. Selection of respondents for the study. The preparation and the preliminary quality control of the questionnaires, piloting the questionnaires. The survey process and the role of the interviewer. Interview coding and result processing. Result analysis and report preparation.

The main types of the studies.

Public opinion analysis. Sociological study. Marketing study.

Design and Implementation of …………………………. Survey

Survey Scope, Country Coverage and Implementation schedule.

The roles, responsibilities and communication among participants in the region and particular country.
What is target group of the project.
The main kinds and types of the questions.

The process of questioneering. Interviewing and survey.
Peculiarities of phone, outdoor and door-to-door interviews. Interview steps and the problem of establishing and keeping the contact between the interviewer and the respondent.

Field data quality control.
Interviewer’s relation with the Local Director, Supervisor.

The interim and final methodological reports. Job presentation.
Test feed-back

Responsible: Alexandru Trotiuc.

Performed by: Moderators (Viorelia Moldovan-Batrinac, Raisa Evsiukova); Account Administrator (IT-specialists of MRP-EURASIA)

Required technical resources in the head office: Computer, operational system Windows 7, broadband Internet connection, software solutions for webinars, IP od WEB-camera, microphone, audio speakers or headphones.

Required technical resources in local offices: Computer, operational system Windows 7, broadband Internet connection, software solutions for webinars, IP od WEB-camera, microphone, audio speakers or headphones.

Translation of methodical materials: into English and Russian

Terms of implementation: 1 days (10 hours)

Methods: on-line remote e-learning form

Materials: electronically given material.

Test Coaching (for the interviewer).
Description of the target groups: interviewers, supervisors
The main purposes of the instructions include the following:

Preparation for the concrete study
Management principles and communication with local Director(and supervisor)
Specific points of questionnaire filling
Behavior norms
Examples of how to overcome the disagreements
First editing of the received data, electronical registration
Monitoring the performance of individual tasks, timing, reporting and control

Coaching methods:

Questionnaire analysis
Analysis of the interviewers’ opinions about some concrete respondents (acquaintance, personal information, personal experience, market behavior particularities, problems of establishing the contact)
Training interview demonstration. Formats:
Moderator and then interviewer play the role of a „difficult respondent” and the moderator explains the ways to overcome the situation
The ideal interview: the moderator plays the role of interviewer.
Interview practicing in pairs among interviewers.

Following the coaching results (the interviewer has to have the answers to the following questions):

What is the goal of the survey
How to conduct a preliminary discussion about the interview.
How to conduct the respondent selection and recruitment process and what from is composed his motivation.
How to ask questions and fix the answers best.
How to work with the auxiliary materials.
How to execute the final documents and present
What ways of controlling the interviewer will be applied and what sanctions.

Documents offered after the instructions:

Interview instructions “Manual”
Blank application forms (questionnaires) in the required amount.

Responsable: Alexandru Trotiuc

Performed by: Moderator (Viorelia Moldovan-Batrinac), Account administrator (IT-specialists of IMG-EURASIA)

Required technical resources in the head office: Computer, operational system Windows 7, broadband Internet connection, software solutions for webinars, IP or WEB-camera, microphone, audio speakers or headphones.

Translation of methodical materials: into English and Russian

Terms of implementation: 1 day (8 hours)

Methods: on-line remote e-learning form

Materials: electronically given material.

The online program is structured so that the participant’s answers to the text-entry practice are captured „behind the scenes” and a summary report of these responses can be printed at the end of the program for the moderator, supervisor and HR resource and regional manager of the project to use as key learning points in future. There is also an option for the participant’s supervisor, the facilitator, and HR resource, etc., to have a copy of the participant’s responses automatically emailed to them. Besides being „take away” reference point for the participant. This format is designed to discourage „passive participants” from entering nonsense responses or not taking the course seriously if they are aware that someone else will receive a copy of these responses.