WEIRD SCIENCE

Unfortunately, science needs time to get results, says Steve Gale.

Steve Gale is Head of Workplace Strategy at M Moser Associates. SteveG@mmoser.com

Since March last year, ministers have never missed an opportunity to claim that they will always be ‘guided by the science’. It sounds obvious and has such a sensible ring to it. But what science exactly?

This is much less clear, mainly because there are a couple of holes in the idea that science is front and centre for all to see, and these holes affect our clients, who need to plan, and the design industry, that wants to describe the workplace of the future – as well as government ministers. So far, a clear direction has not emerged. Not enough time has passed.

The first hole in the concept of pandemic science is the lack of testable hypotheses. It would be great if a consensus of scientists and politicians could agree that if you do X, then Y will happen in due course. That would be actual science.

The scientific method is founded on a principle of repeatability, which requires us to demonstrate that the same results will be obtained each time certain conditions exist, and actions are performed – but we have not had time for these experiments. We haven’t had this pandemic before.

Instead of experimental proof, the government has selected examples from the past for comparison. For example, how the BSE prions were discovered, how conscientiously people observed restrictions to contain foot and mouth, and how influenza viruses have mutated. Useful lessons can be learnt, but it’s still not science.

The other hole is complexity and, like economics, this pandemic is driven by human behaviour, not hard science. The infinite variables that this adds to the mix requires judgement and intuition more than testing and analysis. No amount of respecting the science will help with this.

How have our clients dealt with the voids in understanding, and the lack of reliable tested data?

Most business leaders prefer a definitive direction rather than a holding position. Sometimes, any direction is better than none, even if it turns out to be wrong. Stasis breeds discontent, especially around a boardroom table.

So, they have taken up a wide range of positions in the absence of a consensus. Our year of living dangerously has not spawned much enlightenment.

Some businesses have decided that remote working is the future, like Twitter and Microsoft, while others hold on to the belief that the office is the best place to work and offer overt incentives to return. Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, and Advent International are known examples.

Between the extreme positions is a large cohort of middle-grounders who admit that no one knows the future and are betting on a hybrid solution – a mix of both remote and centralised workplaces. This is not necessarily a fudge, but a practical way to avoid getting too burnt if things turn out differently.

It is a stance that they hope can be tweaked and refined by experience as expectations unfold in the future, but it’s not really guided by the science, because there is not enough of that yet.w