The Low Pay Commission (an independent body that advises the UK Government about the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage) tasked FieldworkHub with finding garment factory workers based in Leicester who were paid the National Living Wage or below, for two online focus groups via Microsoft Teams. This is a challenging target audience for market research because they are under-represented in most online panels and the ones who are first-generation immigrants may have limited command of English.
This project called for an innovative approach to recruitment and study logistics. We managed to partner with a local community centre in Leicester which had good contacts with the target group respondents and was trusted as an organisation which respected their interests.
Although the client was moderating the groups remotely from London, we suggested that the participants should actually meet at the community centre where staff were on hand to explain what was going to happen and ensure there were no technical issues with joining online. We also suggested a number of other precautionary measures to ensure that these respondents would feel comfortable sharing their opinions in the focus group. The centre staff were able to set up a laptop for video streaming via Teams but FieldworkHub supplied an audio conferencing device to ensure that the audio quality was high enough for the client research team. We tested the audio with the team, and ensured the room set up meant all respondents could be seen clearly on camera for the focus group. The client was very pleased with the way that the groups worked out.
More on how FieldworkHub arranges high-quality online focus groups
The team did a great job, FieldworkHub were organised and provided excellent support and communication throughout.
