ECS 2009 - Questionnaire

The survey was conducted by computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The companies to be interviewed were selected at random among those with 10 or more employees in each country.

A management representative and, where possible, an employee representative was interviewed in each company.  For each category of respondent a separate questionnaire was developed. The duration of the interviews was on average 20 minutes for management representatives and 15 minutes for employee representatives.

The employer questionnaire covers the following:

• Background information
• Challenges the establishment is faced with
• Working time arrangements
• Contractual flexibility and geographical mobility of employees
• Variable elements of pay
• HRM Practice and forms of work organisation
• Social dialogue and employee participation
• Social dialogue practice
• Performance and productivity indicators

The employee questionnaire covers:

• Composition of ER
• Role and place of the ER inside the establishment; industrial relations climate
• Competencies - information, consultation and negotiation rights and practices
• Competencies and practices – industrial action
• Resources
• Collective agreements on pay and performance-related pay
• Other topical questions
• Background variables

The questionnaire was translated into all official national languages of countries participating in the survey. In total 38 different country versions were produced. The translations were carried out by native speakers with experience of translating survey documents. For verification purposes, the national versions were back-translated into English by a different translator than the one who did the initial translation. These translations were than compared with the original English questionnaire in order to produce a final version. Translations of the questionnaires are available on request.

For further information about the European Company Surveys, contact Sophia MacGoris.