This issue

- wicked and less wicked problems
- the future of work is hybrid
- system-shifting design
- governance of the COVID-19 crisis
- health impacts of the 2019/20 Australian bushfires
Plus what I’m reading. 

Wicked and less wicked problems 

Wicked problems are those that are complex, open-ended and unpredictable. They include global warming, social disadvantage and terrorism. These problems are often presented as so intractable that they defy definition and solution. A paper in Policy and Society proposes a more nuanced analysis, arguing that complex problems vary in their wickedness. 

Read our brief on the article

The future of work is hybrid 

COVID-19 has accelerated changes to how we work that were already occurring before the pandemic. A UNSW Canberra report explores the literature on home/remote and office-based work. It examines issues such as: 

• accommodation 
• digital technology 
• people capability  
• organisational culture 
• work health and safety 
• productivity.  

At a glance 
The future of work is hybrid. Employers, senior leaders and employees are expecting to work part of the week remotely, and part at their employer’s premises. The preferred amount of time to work at home is two to three days a week. 

Working remotely has traditionally been undertaken by older workers who are managers and knowledge workers. However, the demographics are changing to include younger people and those in a wider range of occupations. 

Teleworking and newer forms of working such as shared working spaces have differing impacts on various diversity groups. Younger workers experience difficulties working remotely, particularly around networking and career development.

Teleworking can also disadvantage women due to decreased visibility in the workplace; and regional and rural employees have had less access to these newer workspaces.  

Telework has the potential to be both positive and negative for work/family balance. It can lead to work/family conflict and increased stress levels or enable employees to manage work and caring responsibilities more effectively.

Telework enables increased autonomy, which can lead to increased employee motivation, commitment and job satisfaction. Yet research also finds that telework can lead to increased feelings of isolation. 

Organisations need to consider their employee value proposition. The research indicates employees might change jobs if they are unable to work in a hybrid work environment. 

ANZSOG is supporting research into the future of flexible working  in partnership with the ACT Public Service (ACTPS) and with commissioned input from the University of New South Wales’s Public Service Research Group (PRSG). The research will look at flexible working in the ACTPS and examine factors that can lead to more effective flexible working including the built environment, and managerial and organisational support.

System-shifting design 

This report from the UK Design Council sets out emerging practice from designers who are working to create new systems of health, wellbeing, homes and community.  It explores what ‘next practice’ around systemic design looks like. 

What it means to design for systems  
A system is a set of interconnected elements that function together to achieve a purpose. In a system, it is essential to acknowledge the relationships between elements as well as the elements themselves. These relationships lead to behaviours or properties that could not take place without the elements interacting. This means that a system is more than the sum of its parts 

Design can: 

• improve an existing system and its performance. 

• transform a system from ‘inside’: reorienting the purpose of its institutions and relationships, repurposing its resources and components, changing its operating culture. 
• create a new system from ‘outside’: assembling new elements and actors, nurturing relationships from which a new system with a new purpose can emerge. 

System-conscious design 
System-shifting design includes: 

• holding the fullest complexity. 
• designing for the collective such as neighbourhoods rather than isolated individuals. 
• engaging and convening multiple perspectives. 
• using prototyping as a means of sense-making to reveal where there is resistance or energy for change. 
• allowing for emergence and building the skills and capabilities in others to design.

Evaluating governance of the COVID-19 crisis in Australia

This is a pre-print of a chapter in a forthcoming book. It considers the key factors in crisis evaluation and applies them to Australia’s COVID-19 crisis response. 

Crisis evaluation is a difficult and inherently political activity, characterised by objective facts and subjective perceptions. The chapter uses the crisis management cycle of prevention, preparation, response, and recovery and learning to demonstrate the role of actors, institutions and policy design and tools across these stages. 

Evaluating a crisis 
Any crisis evaluation must answer these political judgments: 

• Where do we set the boundaries of evaluation? Crises draw in multiple actors, across layers of government, political parties and bureaucracies. 
• Success for whom? Crisis, and crisis responses, have uneven social impacts. 

• What success benchmarks do we use and how do we weigh outcomes? Benchmarks for crisis management, and evaluation of success and failure against them, are difficult to establish objectively and may vary across time or place. 
• How much weight do we give to shortfalls? Crisis management is rarely, if ever, completely successful on all possible measures. Weighing these shortcomings is another example of the political choices necessary to crisis evaluation. 
• How do we address lack of evidence? Crisis evaluations rely on evidence to establish ‘hard facts’, but that evidence may be unavailable, contested, or partial.  
• What period of time to evaluate? The COVID-19 response in Australia neatly demonstrates the difficulty of assessing crisis management across time. Australia was remarkably successful at managing COVID-19 in 2020 and the first half of 2021. The vaccine rollout and the emergence of the Delta variant has complicated that assessment of crisis success. 

Health impacts of Australian bushfires 

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) published the Australian Bushfires 2019-20: Exploring the short-term health impacts in 2020. This report examines health data sources to assess the short-term health impacts of the bushfires including emergency department visits, prescription and purchase of asthma medicines, mental health service use and GP visits. The report is being updated this month with new data.

What the report found 
The report highlights the higher use of inhalants and other asthma medications coinciding with bushfire activity or increases in air pollution from bushfire smoke. Asthma related emergency department presentations in NSW increased.

Sales of over-the-counter and prescription asthma medicines like inhalers also increased at local pharmacies

The large increases in the rate of sales of inhalers during the bushfire period aligned with high levels of pollution as indicated by air quality data for south-eastern Australia. Specific Medicare Benefits Schedule mental health items for people affected by bushfire were introduced in January 2020. The data showed that an average of 500 services per week were claimed between January and October 2020. 

This release includes a report with accompanying detailed data tables and a technical supplement. Selected data are provided in maps and interactive tables for users to explore by region. 

1. Storylistening: why narrative evidence matters  

Narratives can shape, guide and make sense of public policies. A London School of Economics blog post discusses the concept of storylistening: the theory and practice of gathering narrative evidence to inform decision-making. This rests on the definition of four functions of stories: creating new points of view; understanding different collective identities; extending the range of models available for reasoning; and enabling new anticipations of the future. 
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‘Til the next issue

Maria Katsonis