Statisticians are mainly trained on statistics issues and, in their professional career, they rarely receive any support on issues like people management and leadership. However, as they progress in their career, they have to manage teams, sometimes large ones and they do it generally using their personal skills and instinct and building on their experience. Results may sometimes be very good but in general, there is a large room for improvement.

In its 2018 training work programme, MEDSTAT IV introduced a specific training course on “supervision and management” for middle management staff of the NSIs who was attended by 12 statisticians from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. During three days, participants were introduced to methods, techniques and tools to manage, develop and motivate their staff and team, so as to increase their performance in their services. Several key issues were thoroughly debated, based on the concrete experience of each participant, covering managerial roles and responsibilities, leadership in action, delegation and control, peer consulting, communication within teams and behaviour in tense situation. At the end of the training course, trainees had been exposed to very concrete issues and learned to better work as a team.

The organisation of the course allowed the participants to express themselves in French, English and Arabic so the debates were opened and very lively. The evaluation of the course showed that the topic corresponded to a crucial need in the countries. There will be a post-evaluation process 6 months from now to assess the impact the training courses had on the day-to-day work in the NSIs. The participants and their immediate direct management will be contacted and specific questions will be asked regarding the use of the knowledge and good practices acquired during the training course, individually by the participants, and more institutionally by the service they belong to.

The MEDSTAT IV project provides expertise and technical support to promote the harmonisation of statistics in line with EU and international standards in 6 domains: business register and business, trade and balance of payments, energy, labour market, migration and transport. It follows on the previous phase implemented over the period 2010-2013.

Read More

Press Release

MedStat IV