Field research has changed. Yesterday’s blue rinse brigade has been pushed aside by young, career-orientated professionals. What does this mean for the sector? Liz Sykes has some answers.

On my first forays into research back in the 1980s, field managers and directors were a very different breed to those of today. It was a time when full-time working mothers were a rarity and interviewers worked for pin money, fitting in their job around husbands and young children. They were larger-than-life characters who had clawed their way up into the boardroom, rising from field interviewer to supervisor and area manager to a position at head office.

They would have had little formal business education, but would have won their status through grit and determination. These are not qualities to be sneezed at. However, their experience often left them with an attitude similar to that of consultants towards junior doctors, namely, ’I survived bad working conditions and unsocial hours and so will you if you want to prove you are up to the job’.

Boot camp

Field directors often ran their departments like a cross between the army and a school. Being sent to the field director was like being sent to the head teacher; within their domains they had absolute power. There was a very clear division between the role of a field controller and a researcher, and never the twain should meet. The researcher gave the instructions and the fieldworker complied. Teamwork outside individual departments was not encouraged.

However, the fear of being sent to the field director did mean that researchers planned their projects carefully and ensured that they had thought things through: failure to present a sound project or idea resulted in being told where to go in no uncertain terms.

Out to lunch

But there were more positive aspects to the system. There was camaraderie between filed managers across companies. They would meet regularly for lunches to discuss current issues. Such meetings were also a general opportunity to network and catch up socially, as well as an informal arena for problem-solving. This mutual support seems to have disappeared as the business has become more competitive and the structure of the industry has changed. Now people are more secretive and less likely to share information.

Market research organisations themselves were very different too. They were not the lean, streamlined, cost-effective machines we are all familiar with now. There was little competition as there were only a few fieldwork agencies. The field department had to do the job, whatever the cost. It was considered a loss of honour for the field director not to get the job done well.

Field of dreams

On-the-job training for new researchers was seen as key to their development. After several weeks in the field department, recruits were sent out straight into the field. Everyone had to pay their dues and spend time interviewing in deprived, inner city areas. This was particularly valuable for young researchers who could learn from bitter experience how difficult it is to find people to fit a quota and then administer a long questionnaire to them on a wet, dark doorstep. Even field controllers had to get out into the field to increase the bond they had with the field force. Sadly, with the rapid development of technology, increased time constraints and the added pressure of tighter margins, this type of apprenticeship model for training has largely disappeared. Researchers are pushed at a much greater speed and are expected to perform quickly. They are then promoted rapidly to reflect their enhanced status and responsibility. The same is largely true for client-side researchers. Gone are the days of the research manager who would spend 30 years in the research department and would therefore have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the brands or services.

Mind the gap

This has left a knowledge gap which has increasingly been filled by the field people, who are becoming the hub of the research process. Not only is more and more information being retained at this level, but a growing number of clients are also doing research for themselves through customer listening sessions, workshops and accompanied visits.

Working directly with clients to provide their interviewing or recruitment needs had further changed the role of field research. Clients need support and advice which only the field can provide. Instead of researchers just booking out their projects, they are relying more on field to advise them on their sample structures and logistics at the proposal stage and then help project manage the job when it is running.

Pastures new

The route into field has also changed. There are an increasing number of people who have missed the interviewer and have come either directly from other departments within organisations or from a secretarial or administrative capacity.

This means that the profile of these researchers is much younger. But they will also have different skills, not having had the apprentice-type training of previous generations. They therefore have a less partisan relationship with interviewers and recruiters, which often means they have more rapport with researchers and clients.

There are more graduates now, too, who are keen to develop a career rather than just have a job. It is essential that these people are encouraged to stay in field. In the past, the only career progression was to move over on to the research side or take their skills to another occupation entirely.

However, the changes in working women’s rights have meant that more and more field people are returning to work after childbirth.

One step beyond

However, these days men make up an increasing number of field managers across qualitative, quantitative and particularly, telephone research. The people involved in running telephone centres are responsible for maintaining huge operations with great people resources and expensive technology.

As with all female-dominated professions, the recruitment of men does seem to have helped raise its profile, which for years was considered one step up from the print room or the typing pool. The skills required for working in field were not recognised or appreciated and it was seen as simply an administrative role, which was an irritation when things went wrong. Another development is the increasing number of field managers who are working independently. With the developments in technology, they can be based anywhere, which offers them a more flexible way of working.

From the industry’s perspective, this means that there are people available by the hour or on a project-by-project basis to help out field departments if they become over-stretched, whether because of illness, maternity leave or simply winning a large new piece of business. As everyone within research is facing a difficult time, it is essential that all members of staff utilised to their full potential, whatever their role. Field has probably changed more than most areas over the years.

It is key that these changes are maintained so that when economic upturn swings round, field isn’t pushed back into a more subordinate role.

Liz Sykes is managing director of Field Initiatives, chairperson of the VFA and a committee member of the AQR.

Special Report - Research, July 2003, Issue 446