Item List

In Germany, employees are more likely to agree that their work depends on production and performance targets than to disagree; for the self-employed, the opposite holds true. In Poland, employed and self-employed show identical responses to this question, with more than half of all respondents agreeing that this is the case.
The type of targets named by respondents can be divided into several distinct categories (see Table 2). Meeting deadlines or a certain required pace of working are named by 20% (n=31) of those respondents who answered with yes – this is named by self-employed slightly more often than by employees. Sales-related targets are named by 14% (n=22). Other numerical targets, such as production numbers, orders, or general KPIs are named by 29% (n=45) – these are more likely to be named by employees. But also general targets, such as “getting the job done” and other targets, which cannot be described as necessarily numeric, are named by 32% (n=50) of the respondents.
The differences in response behaviour may be a result of translation. The English questionnaire speaks of “numeric” targets – the Polish translation of “quantitative” targets and the German one of “set” or “predefined” targets. In line with this, German and Polish respondents named more examples of targets in response to the probing questions (number of examples named: UK 39; DE 54; PL 55).
Examples for deadlines / work pace related numeric targets:

• “I have to stick to deadlines” (R13UK, self-employed)
• v“Harvesting and delivering on time” (R315PL, self-employed)
• “I have to stick to deadlines, whether they are required by the law or by the client” (R371DE, self-employed)
• v“Call handling times” (R83UK, employee)

Examples of sales and revenue related targets:

• “Sales targets” (R71UK, employee)
• “Commissions” (R378UK, employee)
• “Responsibility for revenue” (R325DE, self-employed)

Examples of other numerical targets:

• “A factory in which we work at the assembly line” (R367DE, employee)
• “Meeting caseload targets” (R247UK, employee)
• “The amount of orders and repairs” (R594PL, self-employed)

Examples of other targets:

• “Taking care of customers” (R85PL, employee)
• “Keeping my customer happy” (R232UK, self-employed)
• “Finishing the software that I am developing” (R352DE, self-employed)

However, several respondents who answer “no” or “not applicable” indicate that they have no numeric or production targets because they do not produce products or are not responsible for sales:

• “I do not work at an assembly line” (R1199PL, self-employed)
• “Sales targets- not applicable” (R187UK, self-employed)

Interestingly, considerably more German respondents say they are able to choose or change their methods of work (about 90%) than UK and Polish respondents (about 70% respectively). A closer look at the response distributions reveals that this difference is mostly due to the fact that employees in Germany are considerably more likely to answer “yes” to this item (83%) than employees in the UK (53%) and Poland (57%). It seems that the term “methods of work” is interpreted somewhat differently by respondents in Germany than by respondents in the other two countries. Given that the understanding of this term was not probed directly in this study, this issue should ideally be addressed further in the upcoming face-to-face cognitive pretest.
Similar to Item A, those who state that they are able to choose or change their methods of work mostly argue that their jobs involve a certain level of autonomy (about 90% of the cases in each country). Again, these respondents think about their jobs in general when answering Item B and not so much about specific tasks and activities:

• “I am free to decide how I do things.” (R105DE)
• “I can work how I like as I am the owner of the company.” (R44PL)
• “Similar to previous answer, if I find a quicker/more efficient way of doing a task I will do this. Not restricted.” (R8UK)

This reasoning is provided slightly more often by self-employed respondents than by employees.
Again, similar to Item A, of those who answer “yes” to Item B, a few self-employed respondents argue that their method of work depends on the urgency or priority of a given job. However, this reasoning is only provided by eight respondents in total (DE: 6, UK: 1, PL: 1).
The explanations of those who answer “no” to Item B are also very similar to the ones already documented for Item A. Most respondents argue that they have to follow specific procedures or guidelines (about 65% of the cases in each country):

• “There are set processes.” (R139DE)
• “We have to follow strict guidelines.” (R88UK)
• “The procedures are clearly defined and the system parameterized.” (R72PL)

Surprisingly, this explanation is again provided not only by employees, but also by self-employed respondents (DE: 1, UK: 6, PL: 7). It seems that these respondents do not interpret the item to refer to the general level of autonomy involved in their job but to a rather specific task or specific working conditions:

• “I could not change the way I translate documents.” (R13UK)
• “When we grow flowers, we have to stick to a specific pattern. Fertilizer, antifungal agents, it is important that nothing is overlooked.” (R98PL)

Finally, four respondents (DE: 2, PL: 2) argue that their method of work depends on their clients. This explanation is given by both employees and self-employed:

• “The methods are usually determined by the clients.” (R272DE; employee)
• “The client decides how a task is done.” (R268PL; self-employed)

However, in contrast to Item A, all of these four respondents say they are not able to choose or change their methods of work.

Online Probing:
Self-employed are much more likely than employees to indicate that this statement does not apply to them (UK: 55% vs. 5%; DE: 48% vs. 3%; PL: 33% vs. 3%).
As a first step of the analyses, we examined why respondents answered that the statement does not apply to them or that they receive no/little help and support. 90 respondents claim that this statement does not apply to them. All but seven of these respondents are self-employed. These seven either explain that they are the only person with these responsibilities; one respondent explains that he is the boss, so he has people working for him, but no direct colleagues. All respondents who answer with “not applicable” (n=90) give as a reason that they have no colleagues. “I have no colleagues” and “I work alone” are the most common answers:

• “I am a freelancer, and don’t have colleagues in a strict sense, only in a broader sense, so other free-lancers” (R396DE, self-employed)
• “I only hire people when I need them. I work alone most of the time” (R237UK, self-employed)

Eight respondents answer that they “never” receive help or support from colleagues. Of these, five indicate that they have no colleagues; these people should have answered with “not applicable”. Two respondents claim that they have colleagues who, however, do not help them. For one respondent, the probing answer does not give a clear indication of the reason.
Twenty respondents answer that they “rarely” receive help or support, exactly half of which are employees and self-employed. The named reasons are evenly distributed between employees and self-employed. The most common answer (n=11) is that the respondent does not have colleagues or no direct colleagues (again, these respondents should have indicated that the statement doesn’t apply to them). The second most common answer it that they do not need help (n=3) and in two cases that they do not often receive help although they want it (n=2). In four cases, the probing answer is inconclusive.

• “We are all freelancers [freelance teaching] – we do our job. If I experience problems with a participant, I speak to colleagues about that. When I have problems with the equipment, I can ask other colleagues. But actually, we all try to do our job as autonomous as possible.” (R367DE, self-employed, “rarely”)

Next, we examined respondents’ understanding of the term “colleagues”. Most respondents who receive help and support from colleagues are referring to the team they work in, so people that they share their work place or work tasks with:

• “We’re a team in a doctor’s office; we help each other, for instance to take blood samples or do the accounting” (R38DE, employee, “most of the time”)

Of the 247 respondents who at least “sometimes” receive help and support from their colleagues, 216 (87%) either explicitly refer to their direct colleagues and team, or the answer remains unclear (but it is to be assumed that they mean their direct colleagues).
Six respondents, all of them self-employed, explicitly refer the statement to peers, but not direct colleagues. They are referring to other self-employed people who carry out comparable work and whose advice they seek. For the most part, they seem to be free-lancers:

• “I don’t have direct colleagues. We are several people doing this job in the region, but everyone is on their own” (R322DE, self-employed, “sometimes”)
• “I mostly work independently, but sometimes I ask my work colleagues for advice.” (R186UK, self-employed, “sometimes”)

More important, there are 13 respondents who explicitly name help and support from superiors or subordinates instead of referring to a peer group:

• “I make decisions about the tasks and the team then does what I decide” (R373DE, self-employed, “most of the time”)
• “I make decisions about the tasks and the team then does what I decide” (R373DE, self-employed, “most of the time”)
• “They work for me” (R228PL, self-employed, “always”)
• “I can always contact my team leader” (R129PL, employee, “most of the time”)

Finally, we examined respondents’ understanding of the term “help and support”. The majority of respondents refer to task-related issues when it comes to help and support. Next to direct tasks, such as lifting objects or work division, asking for and receiving advice is the most commonly named shared work:

• “We help whoever has the most to do” (R63DE)
• “Lifting or carrying heavy things” (R126DE)
• “We all have to complete targets so its handed over to another colleague at shift end” (R188UK)

However, 25 respondents (10%) name both task-related help and social support, and another 28 respondents (11%) only name social support as their understanding of the term. This dimension is described as follows:

• “I have kind colleagues who are always there for one another” (R406DE, self-employed, “always”)
• “Because they help and support me. Even just showing the will to support is what helps, because I feel the support” (R935PL, self-employed, “most of the time”)
• “I was thinking that I can always rely on their help, for instance when answering Emails, for instance when I have no energy left of when they support me psychologically” (R1188PL, self-employed, “always”)

Cognitive Interviews:
In Germany, all respondents except one (DE03) gave an answer to this question. In Poland, two self-employed respondent chose “not applicable”, while all others gave answers.
Employed respondents had the least cognitive difficulties answering the question. However, they, too, make decisions on whom to include in their set of colleagues. Most refer to direct team members in terms of the organizational structure and/or the people they carry out most of their daily tasks with:

• “There are closer colleagues and ones further away in the company structure. But it’s difficult, because there are colleagues that aren’t directly part of the same team as me, but with whom I work very closely, and the other way around. So it’s hard to choose exactly who this refers to“ (DE01, “most of the time”)

“I was referring to the people who are closest to me in terms of our work structure, so the people who are officially in the same team as me, as colleagues, and not necessarily the people with whom I work the most” (DE01, “most of the time”)“Then I talk to my colleagues who do a similar job [giving guided tours]” (PL02, “always”)

Three employed respondents spontaneously reported difficulty differentiating their answer to item A (help and support by colleagues) from their answer to item B (help and support by boss) because both are the same person:

“In my case, my boss is my colleague, so it’s the same answer for the first and second item” (DE05, “always”)“We’re only two people, so my colleague and my boss are the same person“ (DE14, “always”)

• v“My colleague is also my boss. We’re a team of two, so to say” (DE15, “always”)

Self-employed respondents have to make their own interpretation of colleagues. Freelancers (without employees) tend to think of other freelancers in the same area or other people that are geographically close to them.

• “I thought about other authors” (DE02, “most of the time”)
• “When I have a patient, and am uncertain about the diagnosis, then I get the advice from a colleague [another doctor], and we discuss therapy together” (DE10, “always”)
• “In the building where I have my business there are people I could call colleagues. They are not directly linked to my company, but they sometimes support me in my job” (PL01, “sometimes”)

However, not all self-employed respondents interpreted the term “colleagues” in this sense. This was the case for the self-employed respondents who chose not to answer the question:

• “I have some friends who deal with similar things but this should be excluded” (PL09, “not applicable”)

Self-employed respondents with employees of their own tend to think of the people who work for them, or even their clients or business partners and contractors:

• “Colleagues – the question is who is meant by this. I would say those are my employees” (DE08, “most of the time”)
• “Certainly, when my employees have time, so aren’t at a client, then they support me” (DE09, “most of the time”)
• “Contractors who are usually designers in the other fields” (PL10, “always”)

Another decision respondents have to make when answering the question is whether receiving support means that colleagues (or the boss) are willing, or whether they are capable of doing so:

• “When I need help, regardless in which matter, there are always people, colleagues, who are around to help me” (DE05, “always”)
• “I was thinking of my employee; she just isn’t always around.” (DE08, “most of the time”)
• “Certainly, when my employees have time, so aren’t at a client, then they support me” (DE09, “most of the time”)
• “Employees and people who perform assigned tasks” (PL13, “most of the time”)
• “I was thinking about my colleagues and their character […] I cannot imagine that they wouldn’t be willing to help me. It’s a big difference whether you can’t help because you don’t know the answer or whether you don’t want to. I chose my answer assuming that as long is someone is able to help me, they would“ (DE07, „always“)

Again, self-employed are much more likely than employed to indicate that this statement does not apply to them, though this difference is most pronounced in the UK, followed by Germany and then Poland (UK: 48% vs. 5%; DE: 43% vs. 13%; PL: 31% vs. 5%).

• “I determine my own goals because I work alone” (R147DE, self-employed, “never”)
• “Because I make my own goals, for instance a book project – who could consult me beforehand?” (R342DE, self-employed, “never”)

However, the majority of both employees and self-employed answer this question in a manner that they are at least rarely consulted. The answers were coded according to two dimensions. The first dimension depicts who the respondents are consulted by or who is setting their objectives. Interestingly, a total of 16 respondents, all of whom are self-employed, explicitly answer that they set their own objectives. They give answers ranging from “always” to “never” being consulted regarding work objectives:

• “Because I’m a freelancer, I can decide for myself”(R370DE, self-employed, “always”)
• "As the owner, I make all decisions” (R698PL, self-employed, “always”)
• “I determine my own goals and implement them on my own”(R328PL, self-employed, “some-times”)
• “As I set my own goals, for instance a book project – who should consult with me in advance?” (R342DE, self-employed, “never”)

One respondent is actually answering that he consults with his employees before setting their objectives:

• “I always consult with my employees and teams regarding projects.” (R268UK, self-employed, “always”)

When answering this question, it is also only self-employed who state that their objectives are directly set by their clients:

• “The client determines everyday work” (R593PL, self-employed, “always”).

Unsurprisingly, only employees specifically name their boss as the person who sets their objectives (n=15), regardless of whether and how often they are consulted before the objectives are set:

• “My boss always runs through work that needs doing and how to complete the task before setting it” (R382UK, employee, “most of the time”)
• “There are requirements for the upcoming fiscal year and targets are set. Employees are allowed to contribute to this. But in the end, the management decides” (R61DE, employee, “sometimes”)

“The employer sets the goals” (R93PL, employee, “rarely”)

The second dimension of coding refers to the type of objective. Most of the objectives that are named consist of generally worded goals, such as “getting the job done”, “daily/ weekly/ monthly chores” or “project work” (n=158, 43%). They differ according to the industry the respondent works in, and range from concrete chores to more abstract, strategic business goals:

• "The chore of the day, for instance which meal should be prepared today and which other products there are” (R51DE, employee, “sometimes”)

“That all orders and jobs are done before I leave” (R57DE, employee, “sometimes”)“Pupil attainment” (R24UK, employee, “sometimes”)“Quality objectives” (R92UK, employee, “most of the time”)“Increasing efficiency” (R333PL, employee, “sometimes”)

Meeting deadlines or a achieving a certain work pace is named by 22 respondents and sales targets are named by another 16 respondents. These answers apply to employees and self-employed alike.
There is no indication in the answers that being consulted before objectives are set is viewed negatively.

Cognitive Interviews:
Respondents used the entire scale from “always” to “never” to answer this question. In Germany, three respondents (DE05, DE09, DE13) felt that this statement did not apply to them and chose “not applicable”; in Poland, this was the case for two respondents (PL01, PL08). Four of these five respondents are self-employed. Though the case numbers are very small, self-employed respondents seem to either agree with this statement or decide that it does not apply to them.
The probing question examined respondents’ understanding of the item. Employed respondents name a wide range of objectives, referring to daily tasks (DE01, DE05, DE12, DE14, DE15), project goals (DE07, DE16), or also long-term or yearly goals (DE01, DE06). Two respondents specifically name their annual employee appraisal interviews, in which goals are written down (DE04, DE11). Examples of objectives include:

• “For instance, which bicycle I wish to repair. So whether I would prefer to carry out an inspection for five bikes or spend my entire working day with a more complex automation” (DE14)
• “So, for instance, whether I want to plan a new type of seminar, or how many courses I have planned for the upcoming year“ (DE04)
• “We get our tasks from the priest, so how he wants a certain event to be organized” (DE15)
• “I work in a big company. The objectives there are varied, both global ones of the entire company, and the objectives of my unit. […] This is usually set by […] upper level managers and that’s why it hardly involves a graphic designer” (PL03, “sometimes”)

Self-employed respondents generally recall situations that make it clear that they make their own objectives; however, they don’t state this explicitly. They also refer to specific work-related tasks or customer satisfaction, but are much more likely to focus on goals related to business development:

• “My objectives are my orders, my clients” (DE08, “most of the time”)
• “I have to make a profit, so I can pay my assistants. So I need to decide on measures to make this profit. Those are my objectives” (DE10, “most of the time”)

Self-employed respondents who did not answer the question directly relate this to their self-employed status:

• “When I heard objectives, I thought of the personal goals that I decide on with and for my employees. But that obviously doesn’t count for me, as the owner” (DE09, “not applicable”)
• “I do not know who I could possibly consult objectives of my work or who could consult it with me” (PL01, “not applicable”)
• “I understood them as objectives the client sets and his expectations. They are not consulted with me in that I define them with a client myself” (PL08, “not applicable”)

One respondent in multi-activity (DE16) again refers to both of her activities when answering the question, instead of focusing on her main paid job only.