This issue

– behavioural insights teams in Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand 
– robots and policy design 
– managing divergent recoveries
– why emissions need to plummet this decade 
– workplace innovation 
Plus what I'm reading.

Research brief: Behavioural insights teams in Australia and Aotearoa - New Zealand 

Governments around the world are using behavioural insights in the design of public policies and services. A paper in the Australian Journal of Public Administration compares the practices of behavioural teams in Australia and Aotearoa - New Zealand. While the work of these teams has produced benefits, complex issues have not yet been tackled. Read our brief on the paper.

Robots and policy design 

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and automation have seen robots in public spaces such as supermarkets, airports, hospitals and parks. Their functions include cleaning, delivering food and providing security. A paper in Policy Design and Practice discusses the policy implications of robots in public spaces and presents a policy design checklist. 

Key policy issues 

The paper identifies a range of policy issues that needed to be considered when governments deploy robots in public spaces. These include: 

1. Safety: Robots can create safety risks to the public due to physical design features and how operators design and control their functionality. 
2. Privacy and ethics: Robots can raise privacy concerns because they collect unique information during their interactions with people and the environment. 
3. Co-creation: Robot designers could develop robots without considering whether they are acceptable to the communities where they will be deployed. 
4. Equitable access: Greater use of robots in public spaces could produce benefits only enjoyed by affluent communities while imposing unwelcome challenges for poorer ones. 

Policy design checklist 

The paper outlines a policy checklist which includes: 

1. Ensuring safety: Regulation and monitoring could reduce public safety risks prescribing specific features of robots and requiring operators hold licenses.  
2. Addressing privacy and ethics: This could be done by specifying appropriate uses of the information robots collect and monitoring to reduce the risk that privacy breaches go undetected. 
3. Advancing productivity: Regulations could ensure that robots only operate in public when they are deemed to enhance productivity.  
4. Encouraging co-creation: Incentives could be provided to encourage robot designers to work with citizens in developing robots for use in public spaces. 
5. Promoting equitable access: Deployment of robots could be monitored to assess who benefits most from their use in public spaces. Provision of subsidies could increase the likelihood that the benefits of robots would be enjoyed by all members of society. 

Managing divergent recoveries 

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic and the global community still confronts extreme social and economic strain. A report from the International Monetary Fund has found economic recoveries are diverging across countries and sectors. This reflects the variation in pandemic-induced disruptions and the extent of policy support. 

Improved outlook 

The global economy is projected to grow at 6 per cent in 2021, moderating to 4.4 per cent in 2022. The COVID-19 recession is likely to leave smaller scars than the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. However, emerging market economies and low-income developing countries have been hit harder and are expected to suffer more significant medium-term losses. 

High uncertainty surrounds the global outlook 

Future developments will depend on the path of the health crisis, including: 

• whether the new COVID-19 strains prove susceptible to vaccines or they prolong the pandemic 

• the effectiveness of policy actions to limit persistent economic damage 
• the evolution of financial conditions and commodity prices. 

The ebb and flow of these drivers and their interaction with country-specific characteristics will determine the pace of the recovery across countries. 

Working together to give people a fair shot 

Policymakers will need to continue supporting their economies while dealing with more limited policy space and higher debt levels than prior to the pandemic. This requires better-targeted measures to leave space for prolonged support if needed. With multispeed recoveries, a tailored approach is necessary. 

The emphasis should be on escaping the health crisis by prioritising healthcare spending on: 

• vaccinations 
• treatments 
• healthcare infrastructure.

A report from Swinburne University of Technology investigates the role of learning and collaboration on workplace innovation. This involved a survey of working Australians aged from 18 to over 65, ranging from bus drivers to salespeople to tradespeople to healthcare workers to CEOs. It included diverse workplace settings and organisations. 

The link between learning, collaboration and innovation 

Survey results showed a strong positive relationship between learning and collaborating at work and a workplace culture that supports innovation. Worker-driven learning and collaboration diversity are the most ideal workplace settings for generating new ideas. 

• Worker-driven learning is where a worker or team is empowered to take charge of the learning required to progress work. 
• Collaboration diversity is where workers of diverse experience, expertise and vantage points come together to produce something new. 

A new innovation architecture 

The report proposes an innovation architecture where organisations can create value while responding to the transforming nature of work. Innovation becomes the responsibility of every worker, not just the leadership team. There are three dimensions and each operates at worker and organisation level. 

1. The learning workplace recognises the convergence of work and learning, and supports the continual growth of an organisation’s capability. 
2. A system that constantly steers the organisation towards disruption and drives value creation. 
3. An adaptive innovation culture which cultivates the organisational values that drive the innovation behaviours in workers.

Why emissions need to plummet this decade 

This Climate Council report argues Australia must triple its emissions cuts within the next decade and reach net zero emissions soon after to protect Australians from the impacts of accelerating climate change. 

At a glance 

• There is no safe level of global warming. Already, at a global average temperature rise of 1.1°C, there are more powerful storms, destructive marine and land heatwaves, and a new age of megafires. 
• Australia’s response must match the scale and urgency of this worsening situation. The lion’s share of the effort to get to net zero emissions needs to happen this decade. 

• Governments, business and industry are committing increasingly to net zero targets. However, timeframes for these commitments are too long. The world achieving net zero by 2050 is at least a decade too late and carries a strong risk of irreversible global climate disruption at levels inconsistent with maintaining well-functioning human societies. 
• Australia has unrivalled potential for renewable energy, new clean industries, and clean jobs. Climate leadership from states and territories has shown what works, and the benefits from decarbonising our economy such as regional jobs, cleaner cities and cheaper power.  
• Despite our natural advantages, Australia is being left behind in the new, clean economy race. Many of our strategic allies and major trading partners (including the US, EU, UK, Canada) have strengthened their climate commitments for this decade. 

1. Give yourself a break: the power of self-compassion

This Harvard Business Review article looks at the power of self-compassion when we experience a setback at work. Instead of blaming others or berating ourselves, research shows that we should respond with self-compassion. Self-compassion boosts performance by triggering a growth mindset.  

2. Populism is merely a symptom. Treatment must target the underlying disease 

An article in Prospect Magazine argues populism is a symptom of the political ecosystem’s dysfunction, not the cause. To grasp the nature of populism and how to address it, we need to understand what it means to govern well. Government needs to be legitimate, effective and provident. 

‘Til the next issue

Maria Katsonis