As an impact-driven organization, we regularly conduct in-depth surveys of the jobholders who work for our partner companies. The goal is to understand how the jobs our partners create are improving the lives of their jobholders. The findings of our surveys help inform our work to further increase our impact.
Last summer we realized that we would be unable to conduct our normal baseline impact surveys with jobholders since things were far from “normal” in 2020. It wasn’t the right time to be asking jobholders probing questions about their finances, families, and job satisfaction when many of them were uncertain about the status of these things.
Instead, we shifted gears and connected with jobholders to learn what they were experiencing during the pandemic, specifically as it related to their jobs with Upaya’s partner companies. The survey process looked very different than in a typical year, but hearing directly from jobholders was the priority. In May of 2020, we released the findings of what jobholders had experienced India’s sudden lockdown.
Going into 2021, we were optimistic that we could return to administering our standard baseline surveys, as we watched people return to work and resume normal schedules. We were eager to hear from jobholders, and even began conducting surveys over the phone. It wasn’t long into March of 2021, however, when the second Covid wave hit India, and we were forced to rethink our approach once again. We recently shared findings and anecdotes from interviews we conducted with a select group of jobholders to understand how they fared during the latest Covid wave.
Rethinking our survey approach for 2021
The decision to administer another round of Covid surveys was one we made thoughtfully. Upaya’s Impact Management team used the challenges we had been facing with our baseline surveys as learning points rather than inserting new questions into our existing methods. We also didn’t simply ask the same questions we asked in the 2020 Covid surveys, because we sensed that this “second wave” posed new risks and concerns for jobholders.
Quality Over Quantity
Like our first round of Covid surveys, these surveys were conducted over the phone due to the pandemic, but we opted to dive deeper with fewer jobholders this time around. We chose to construct qualitative surveys, rather than quantitative, so that jobholders could speak freely, and on their terms. Given the sensitivity of the situation, we wanted to go into the conversations with few assumptions and few prompts so that jobholders would have the opportunity to openly share what was most important to them.
Partner Company Cooperation
Qualitative surveys would take more time to conduct, transcribe, and analyze, so we set a goal of just 60 surveys across six partner companies. The companies we selected represented both rural and urban areas across numerous regions of India. To ensure that our survey efforts didn’t create an extra burden for companies during an already challenging time, the participation of each company and jobholder was completely voluntary. Bastar Se Bazaar Tak, Haqdarshak, Hasiru Dala Innovations, Manikstu Agro, ONganic Foods, and Shoegaro Fashions all expressed a willingness and interest in participating in these surveys. These companies joined not only to help Upaya in our efforts, but also for their own learning and development. The surveys simply would not have been possible without their support and active participation.
Augeo Took the Lead
Since Upaya’s survey experience is primarily in creating and analyzing quantitative surveys, we put the survey design and analysis into the hands of our research collaborator, Augeo Advisors. Having worked closely with Augeo over the past few years, we trusted their guidance and expertise in building and conducting qualitative surveys that would be well received by jobholders. Upaya’s Impact Management Team presented Augeo with a few key themes that we wanted to learn about, and they designed a survey to capture that and more. This would also be an opportunity for Augeo to lead the analysis.
Our Findings
While we hypothesized that the jobholders would be most concerned with getting access to healthcare during this more severe wave of Covid, we were wrong. Only 10% of our respondents reported getting ill or taking care of a sick relative, while 90% shared that, at some stage in the past year, they faced economic impacts due to the pandemic. You can read more of our findings here >>
What’s next?
Looking forward, we remain hopeful that the pandemic will continue to retreat and our partners will be able to continue supporting their jobholders with steady work. The Upaya team is in constant dialogue with partner companies, and we are regularly checking in on the status of their operations. We intend to share survey results with each company who participated in these interviews, and will talk through findings and implication with them.
In addition, we are happy to share that our usual baseline surveys have begun again, and we are working towards our initial goal of conducting 700 surveys in 2021. The findings we drew from the 2021 Covid surveys will serve as a guide for analyzing baseline surveys this fall. We know what jobholders are struggling with the most right now, and we can look at those specific themes in upcoming surveys to ensure that jobholders are on the path to economic stability.
Our jobholder surveys were conducted with the support of our participating portfolio partners: Bastar Se Bazaar Tak, Haqdarshak, Hasiru Dala Innovations, Manikstu Agro, ONganic Foods, and Shoegaro.
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