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ECS 2019 – Methodology

In its European Company Survey (ECS), Eurofound has developed a unified methodological approach and quality assurance system to provide comparable and reliable data in all European countries. Over the years, the survey methodology has been improved, new concerns have been integrated and the geographical scope has expanded with the enlargements of the European Union. Despite the innovative methodology that was used for the ECS 2019, many elements of the approach developed in previous surveys could be applied to this survey as well.

General information

Contractor	Ipsos NV, Belgium
Coverage	27 EU Member States and the United Kingdom
Fieldwork period	January to July 2019
Type of survey	The fourth edition of the European Company Survey (ECS 2019) is a survey of establishments in Europe. It is the first large-scale, cross-national establishment survey to use a push-to-web methodology. Establishments were contacted via telephone to identify a management respondent and, where present, an employee representative respondent who were subsequently asked to complete the questionnaire online (’push to web’).
Questionnaires	The questionnaires were prepared in cooperation with Eurofound's stakeholders and experts in the relevant fields. The questionnaires for the ECS 2013 were used as a starting point and adjustments were made to cover Cedefop’s interest in skills use and skills strategies, to broaden the analytical scope of the survey, and to ensure the questionnaires were suitable for online administration. ECS 2019: Questionnaire
Target population	Senior managers in charge of personnel and, where present, official employee representatives in establishments with 10 or more employees in all sectors involved in ‘market activities’ (NACE Rev. 2 categories of sectors of activity: mining and quarrying (B), manufacturing (C), electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (D), water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (E), construction (F), wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G), accommodation and food service activities (I), information and communication (J), transportation and storage (H), financial and insurance activities (K), real estate activities (L), professional, scientific and technical activities (M), administrative and support service activities (N), arts, entertainment and recreation (R), and other service activities (S)).
Sampling	Procedures differed between countries, using the best quality sampling frame that was available. Sampling was always stratified by establishment/company size and broad sector of activity (manufacturing, construction and services). In countries with an establishment-level sampling frame, stratified random probability sampling was applied. In countries with a company-level sampling frame, stratified random probability sampling was applied and subsequently a screening procedure was used to randomly select up to three establishments in multi-establishment companies.
Sample size	A total of 21,869 management interviews were completed, ranging from 122 in Cyprus to 1,498 in Italy. A total of 3,073 employee representative interviews were carried out, ranging from 3 in Cyprus to 467 in Finland. Finally, for 1,835 establishments both a management interview and an employee representative interview were completed, ranging from 2 in Ireland to 284 in France.
Weighting	A weight was constructed to ensure that the findings of the survey are representative of the target population in terms of the distribution across sectors, size classes and countries. It corrects for any disproportionalities in representation due to sampling design and non-response.
Quality assurance and control	Strict quality assurance and control measures were applied. A quality assurance framework was established in advance which covered the survey design and implementation. A designated quality control report was compiled. In addition, an external data quality asessment was carried out.

Further information is available in the Technical and fieldwork report

European Company Survey 2019: Technical and fieldwork report

English (2.87 MB - PDF)

Sampling and weighting

Sample sizes

In the European Company Survey (ECS) 2019, a total of 21,869 management interviews were completed, ranging from 122 in Cyprus to 1,498 in Italy. Data were collected from 3,073 employee representatives in total, ranging from 3 in Cyprus to 467 in Finland. (For more details, see Table A2 on p. 150 of the ECS 2019 overview report)

Sampling approach

Sampling of establishments followed a multistage random sampling approach stratified by establishment or company size (10–49 employees, 50–249 employees, 250+ employees) and the broad sector of activity (production, construction, services). The approach aimed for a balance between representativeness at the level of the number of establishments and representativeness at the level of the number of employees working in these establishments. In countries with a company-level sampling frame, a screening procedure was used to randomly select an establishment within the company.

Contact strategy and respondent selection

Establishments were contacted via telephone. Interviewers asked to be put in contact with the most senior person in charge of personnel (in large establishments, the target was ‘a senior person in charge of personnel’). Once in touch with the target management respondent, the interviewers proceeded with the identification and selection of respondents for the employee representative interviews, based on a series of questions designed to match the institutional structure in each country.

The national-level experts from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents were asked to indicate which employee representation bodies could potentially be involved in workplace-level discussions on work organisation practices, and what the appropriate terminology was in the language(s) of their country. (For more details, see Table A3 on p. 152 of the ECS 2019 overview report)

The identification and selection questions were put to the management respondent as part of the screening interview. A further attempt to identify a respondent for the employee representation questionnaire was made at the end of the management questionnaire, at which point the manager was prompted once again to provide the contact details of an employee representative.

Weighting

Weighting needs to be applied to ensure that the findings of this survey are representative of the number of establishments in terms of distribution across sectors, size classes and countries. It corrects for any disproportionalities in representation due to sampling design and non-response.

The weighting procedure for the ECS 2019 was carried out in four steps.

Design weighting to correct for the fact that the sample was designed to overrepresent larger establishments.
Non-response weighting to correct for differences between establishments that did and did not complete the screener interview, and then between respondents that did and did not complete the questionnaire online.
Calibration against distributions found in the population statistics.
Adjustment to reflect the relative size of the population in each of the countries in the survey.

An additional stage was required if the sampling frame was at the company level to correct for the fact that some companies consist of multiple establishments. After weighting, the deviations between population targets and the management respondent data by stratification cell remained below five percentage points for all cells.

Detailed information on sampling and weighting can be found in the Sampling and weighting report.

European Company Survey 2019: Sampling and weighting report

English (947.77 KB - PDF)

European Company Survey 2019: Workplace practices unlocking employee potential

English (173.27 KB - PDF)

Coding

For some questions in the European Company Survey (ECS) 2019, respondents were given the option to answer either with an exact number of employees or select a percentage category. To harmonise these answers, the answers given in numbers were converted into percentage categories, using the total relevant number of (non-managerial) employees reported by respondents.

Detailed information on the coding process can be found in the Coding report.

European Company Survey 2019: Coding report

English (778.98 KB - PDF)

Quality assurance and quality control

The quality assurance framework for the European Company Survey (ECS) 2019 monitored and documented the various phases of survey preparation and implementation, ensuring that the survey would meet the quality criteria of relevance, accuracy, coherence, comparability, timeliness and punctuality, and accessibility, as identified in the European Statistical System. Quality control measures covered sampling, translation, pretesting and piloting, interviewer selection and training, fieldwork implementation, data processing and storage.

Detailed information on quality assurance and quality control can be found in the Quality control report.

A specific aspect of quality control are the data validity checks that were carried out during and after data collection. In collaboration with the contractor an approach for data validation was developed. The approach combined the programming of warning messages in the questionnaire scripts, that were shown to respondents when they entered contradictory information with a set of data validity checks that were run after the data collection. These checks identified around 1% of interviews that did not meet the quality standards required to be included in the final dataset.

Detailed information on data validation and data editing can be found in the Data editing report.

An external quality assessment of the ECS 2019 concluded that the ECS 2019 is a unique, nationally representative survey on workplace practices across establishments in the EU28 (since January 2020, the EU27 and the UK) that adopts best practices in terms of survey methodology.