Having completed more than ten enumeration areas and 2,818 questionnaires, 38-year old Victor Sousa is one of the more productive enumerators in Rio de Janeiro. His average number of questionnaires is more than 60 per day. He entered the IBGE incidentally, due to a job opportunity, but soon he realized the importance of the work.

Although I knew the IBGE, I did not have the idea of the dimension of the work: “It made me dedicate even more. By means of these important data collected, all the administrations can provide improvements and development to the entire Brazilian society,” stated him.

Sousa is a technician in transportation logistics, he has experience in administrative management and in production areas. For him, knowing how to talk, being educated and respectful was mandatory for a good result in the areas he worked, but he also considers that he has an important correlation with his work as enumerator.

The technique begins in the approach: when arriving at a household, after the identification, Sousa immediately says: “Can you help the Census? It will take few minutes only.” After that, the attention is automatic, because the interviewees understand that the survey will not take so long.

For Sousa, there is no secret in his success as an enumerator. The important thing is to deal with the local reality and plan:  “In Japeri, for instance, housewives take children to school and schedules are very tight in the households; for these reasons, I only arrive after that.”

The advice for other enumerators is simple: stay focused, be educated and pay a lot of attention in the answers. “Familiarity with the mobile device is also key to the good development of the work and significant increase in the production. Since the beginning of the training up to the work in the field, I had the privilege of working with the best supervisors and coordinators, key to my good performance in the work,” highlighted Sousa.

Break of refusals

Not always residents want to give an interview, yet Sousa broke almost all the refusals with education and a friendly tone of voice. He had only one refusal in his enumeration areas: he always returned to that house until he found the person and talked: “I managed to go nine times until I found him. In other cases, he went to the house of relatives nearby. It was exhaustive, yet it was the only way to get all the information.”

The idea is making the interviewees feel as they were making a favor to answer something very quickly: “Many times that attitude makes the interviewees call their neighbors to answer the questionnaire. And I speed up the production that day,” completes him.

Retired Jorge Madeira, 58 years old, is also good to break refusals. In the six enumeration areas he went, he has made nearly 1,000 questionnaires and had only seven refusals: “I have experience in dealing with people. I do not have any problem to deal with people. After 34 years working in Banco do Brasil, I know how to deal with different types of people.”

Madeira has a previous procedure: he introduces himself, provides the display with his identification, teaches how to check the QR code with his identification in the free-phone number either with residents, porters or administrators: “After that, I stay at the reception to answer any question.”

Another trick is using the group of instant messages of the condominium. Madeira asks the administrator to introduce him in the group, with the identification display. Then he requests residents who have already responded to share their experience with the neighbors or make a testimony in the group.

In addition, he also returns as much as possible to the places of refusal, though without jeopardizing the closure of the enumeration area: “I have already managed to go 18 times up to find someone at home.”

The message is also another tool to get the interviews: “Many times, people read the message and open their doors. Other times I get the phone number with the administrator.” Madeira has already interviewed a resident while she was in vacation at Disney World: “between an attraction and other”, explains Madeira.

“As a last resort, I inform about Law no. 5,534: enforcement to provide statistical information. Most of the times, the residents respond soon. You have to run after that, never give up in the first attempts,” complements Madeira.