# Fieldwork teams across all 14 parishes

We recruit locally, train interviewers on your instrument, pilot, and supervise every day in the field.

A survey in Jamaica fails in the field more often than in the spreadsheet. Balcostics Research recruits the interviewers, trains them on the instrument you approved, and keeps a supervisor on the work until the dataset is delivered.

We have done this as prime field contractor and as a local partner. The largest training round on these pages is MICS 2022 for UNICEF Jamaica: more than 60 interviewers, CAPI in CSPro, all 14 parishes.

## Recruitment

We recruit for the job, in the parishes the sample needs. A national sample draws on the island-wide interviewer and supervisor pool. A six-parish study recruits to those parishes. Interviewers are contracted for the survey.

What we look for is practical. The person must be able to work in the parish, follow a script word for word, and use a tablet or a phone interview guide after training. Household work means walking an enumeration area and finishing the call-backs. If a donor protocol sets school subjects or years of experience, we recruit to that protocol.

Every interviewer signs a confidentiality agreement before fieldwork. Devices are encrypted. Access to respondent records is limited to the people named for that case. The [data protection](/data-protection/) page is the standard.

## Training and the pilot

Training is on your questionnaire, not on a generic course. We walk skips, rosters, consent and the refusal script. For a myVoice CAPI build we train the offline case, the household roster and Kish selection. For CSPro or SurveyCTO we train that package.

A pilot follows training. The pilot is where wording, timing and skip errors show up. We fix the instrument with you before the full sample starts. On MICS 2022 the fieldwork training was part of our prime-contractor role. More than 60 interviewers were trained for that survey.

## Supervision

Each team has a supervisor. Supervisors check completed work daily, assign call-backs, and escalate refusals and access problems.

On the myVoice field collector the supervisor sees GPS at the start and finish of the interview, a flag when the point is more than 500 metres from the address, per-question timing, and the contact attempts on the case. Manager, supervisor and enumerator are separate roles. The collector runs on Android and syncs after offline capture.

Progress tracking for the project team also uses Google Workspace field dashboards. Those dashboards are a management view for named staff. They are not a public map of respondents.

Vehicles are arranged for the job.

## Logistics and training rooms

Classroom training uses rooms in Kingston and Manchester, booked on demand. Field kits are the devices we own, plus paper where the mode is PAPI. In 2014 the team trained with the Statistical Institute of Jamaica on eDACS tablets. Current tablet work is the myVoice field collector, CSPro or SurveyCTO, as the [CAPI and CATI](/capi-cati-surveys/) page explains.

The parishes we field in are Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Thomas, Portland, St. Mary, St. Ann, Trelawny, St. James, Hanover, Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth, Manchester, Clarendon and St. Catherine.

## Join a field team {#join}

We hire interviewers and supervisors per project. We look for people who live in, or can work across, the parish, who will follow a consent script, and who can learn a tablet questionnaire in training. Prior household or telephone interviewing helps.

To register interest, email [research@balcostics.com](mailto:research@balcostics.com). Put "Field team" in the subject. In the message include:

- your name
- your parish
- a phone number
- whether you have interviewed on a household survey, a phone survey, or neither
- whether you can work on weekdays

We reply when a project needs people in that parish. We do not keep applicants on a marketing list. The [privacy notice](/privacy/) covers email you send us. Do not attach copies of other people's information.

Pay, days and parish are set per contract. The rate depends on the instrument, the terrain and the client protocol.

## At a glance

- Coverage: All 14 parishes
- Pool: Island-wide interviewer and supervisor pool
- Training rooms: Kingston and Manchester, on demand
- Transport: Vehicles arranged per job
- Past training scale: MICS 2022: more than 60 interviewers trained


## Questions

**How large is your interviewer pool?**

An island-wide interviewer and supervisor pool, recruited and trained for the survey. On MICS 2022 we recruited and trained more than 60 interviewers.

**Where do you train?**

Training rooms in Kingston and Manchester are available on demand. Training is on your instrument, followed by a pilot, before teams are sent to the full sample.

**Can a person apply to interview?**

Yes. Email research@balcostics.com with your parish, a phone number, and whether you have done household or phone interviews before. We write when a project needs interviewers in that parish. There is no standing vacancy list on this site.


Source: https://balcostics.com/fieldwork-enumerators/