"The weird thing is that they are walking even slower than people in a funeral march"
Perhaps they are doing the "Pioneer walk" - rumour has it that they teach it at Pioneer School these days !
Like any job , management set the criteria to achieve what they want from the workers, If the objective was really to reach people, the reporting method would change. Instead, the idea is to put hours onto the annual report.
So, you send two workers out together to the same houses, takes twice the hours counted. A slow pace reflects that it is time, not people that count...
I used to be in a seaside area and we knew that some places were not occupied in the winter, but we diligently called time and again on the not at homes, in full knowledge that nobody would be there...it bumped up the report and gave the pubs an easy afternoon...