Employment
We are all data scientists now
Henry Tapper, chief executive officer of AgeWage , foresees fundamental change and asks whether we are up to the challenge
P ayroll is an industry that is data are driven by data and science. Indeed, the daily briefings would suggest that scientists are running the country. It’s a mark of how we’ve had to ‘grow up’, that an argument which in January was confined to actuarial papers is now the ‘best read’ on the BBC’s website. In January, I was introduced to the driven. We have grown accustomed to government claiming its decisions various versions of ‘R’ which theoretically determined the spread of the virus. At the time scientists were split between those who thought that the way forward was mitigation (social spreading) and those thinking it was suppression (lockdown). The testing programs in China, Asia and Europe quickly settled the argument. Suppression (or lockdown, as it quickly became known) is now the social and business normal for all densely populated countries. It seems increasingly likely that those countries that have the most comprehensive data (such as Germany) will be the winners. (If we can call countries with limited excess deaths ‘winners’.) The thirst to understand the data is insatiable. In the UK, academic organisations such as Imperial College, ISARIC (International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium) and the ONS (Office of National Statistics) have become hugely influential. Data really has become more powerful than money as it influences government decisions on where our money is best spent. What is important to payroll may be the reaction of the public to the information that it can glean from the data gathered. Deciding what is real and what is ‘fake’ news is dependent on our trust in the
data supporting assertions. Obviously, fake news – such as the supposed danger of 5G masts – have been dismissed by the lack of science backing the conspiracy theories. Our acceptance of lockdown is based on our understanding of concepts such as ‘R1’ (the reproductive transmission rate for Covid-19). Though the power of government depends on the data it can martial, it can be undermined by data gathered against it. For instance, the gathering disquiet over the treatment of those in care homes is based not just on the rapidly rising death toll within the homes but also on evidence that those dying many have had many more years life in them. For those of us involved in pensions, these data issues are critical. It seems that there is a potential variance between confirmed Covid-19 deaths and ‘excess deaths’.
between science and politics is going to be won by those who can verify that their data is evidenced. Integrity in the argument will be based on the outcomes of whatever is really going on. As I wrote last month in the May issue, by the time you read my article the evidence will be clearer and public opinion will have crystallised around facts – specifically the mortality and morbidity statistics. It is likely that there is a societal shift going on, evidenced by the BBC article which quotes ‘R1’ as a key measure, that we are moving towards a better understanding of data. To quote the title of this article, we may all become data scientists. This may mean we see people being more confident in doing the simple things we ask them to do, such as: ● read their payslip ● download and login to the HM Revenue & Customs app ● understand our entitlements from the state. In our day to day work we deal with change as do our customers. They have to understand big changes around being furloughed (or not). They need to understand the consequences in terms of salary, pension, benefits and understand the complications caused by flex in terms of tax and National Insurance. In short, people are going to have to grow up fast and become scientists of their own data. In that process, we will be presented – as pension and payroll professionals – with a new challenge. We will be encountering customers who are better informed, more engaged and considerably more confident in their ability to challenge us. Are we up to that challenge, and how, in practice, will we meet it? n
...have to grow up fast and become scientists of their own data
At the time of my writing this the government had confirmed deaths to be around 26,000 while the data scientists have found that the excess deaths are 46,000. This variance in data will – by the time you read this article – be resolved. But since the 26,000 figure is a political construct and the higher figure a scientific construct, the variance suggests a power struggle to follow. What does this mean for payroll? It seems likely to me that the power-struggle
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 61 | June 2020
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