Bonnie Rowe - Deloitte Access Economics
About Bonnie Rowe
Bonnie Rowe is currently a Director at Deloitte Access Economics in the areas of Health Economics and Social Policy. Bonnie started her journey at Deloitte as a vacationer in 2008 in Human Capital Consulting and proceeded to study a postgraduate Diploma of Psychological Studies. Passionate about social science and influencing people on a macro level, Bonnie also has a Masters degree in Politics and Policy with experience working with the Department of Health and Human Services.
Q1: Tell us about your role at Deloitte Access Economics
While I was still working in the Human Capital team and at the same time, completing my Master of Politics and Policy, I had the chance to do some work with Deloitte Access Economics around real-time prescription monitoring (RTPM, now known as SafeScript) in Victoria.
SafeScript is an initiative by the state government in Victoria to attempt to curb the opioid epidemic. Deloitte worked with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) over a number of years on this, including on the workforce action plan, the Legislative Impact Assessment and Regulatory Impact Statement.
“This project really touched my heart for the reason that that was the first time I interviewed someone's family who was talking about a family member of theirs that had passed away. Through this, I saw all of the work that we were doing had a human face and a human element.”
This project really touched my heart for the reason that that was the first time I interviewed someone's family who was talking about a family member of theirs that had passed away. Through this, I saw all of the work that we were doing had a human face and a human element. I felt quite impassioned about the subject area.
Importantly, doing this work led me to meet my colleagues in Deloitte Access Economics (DAE). I got to know them and they got to know me and it was a coming together of like minded people. I was partially through my Master's degree at that point and I really felt like I had found my people, given their focus on policy in a health and social policy context.
In contrast to a broader range of clients across different parts of Deloitte, DAE predominantly works with the public sector. In my team in particular, our clients are typically DHHS or the federal health or social policy departments, the Department of Social Services, and the Department of Health for example. We also work with not-for-profits and the like. So it was through that SafeScript project that I found the DAE team. I’ve been here for the last four and a half years now, and I couldn't be more rapt with that outcome.
Q2: What role do you think NFP private sector companies or larger corporations play in influencing public policy?
My view is that everything exists in an ecosystem because different players has strengths and weaknesses that they bring to particular policy problems. For example, with DHHS, they have somewhat limited resources and due to scarcity, they tend to focus on core policy areas or even in systems which are often in a quasi-crisis mode (family services, family violence, mental health etc.).
“everything exists in an ecosystem because different players has strengths and weaknesses that they bring to particular policy problems”
Yet being in the private sector through Deloitte, we have access to our global network and can generally find more ‘bandwidth’. We have many more tools than otherwise would be available to the public sector at our disposal. So often partnerships between the public and private sector can be a good way to create an opportunity for the public sector to leverage the capabilities and opportunities available in other sectors. And for that reason, I think that these things are complementary.
More importantly, when like-minded people come together to pursue a common purpose, ‘the Victorian public purpose sector’ as Kym Peake, who's the secretary of the DHHS likes to call it, resources are able to be optimised.
“when like-minded people come together to pursue a common purpose… resources are able to be optimised.”
I think people have different drivers as well. As individuals, we recognise that people want individual or certain things from their work, whether it be work life balance, opportunity for travel, larger networks or whatever it may be. We need to provide career opportunities for people to pursue that. That's why it's good to have a range of organisations involved in this space.
I would say that the private sector can be more agile, responsive and generally has access to a broader depth and depth of capability development opportunities - for example, the Deloitte Graduate Program. So it means that we can be more dynamic and work with the public sector to support them where they otherwise might not have access to those sorts of things, for a range of reasons.
Q3: How do you measure and quantify the social impact of your work?
There's several economic analysis approaches to measuring social impact, whether it be qualitatively or quantitatively. One quantitative example includes the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology. As a methodology, it's similar to a cost benefit analysis in that it considers both sides (costs and benefits) but it takes a broader approach to thinking about some of those social benefits and the quantification of those.
So an example that comes to mind for me is a social return on investment study that we did for the Morwell Neighbourhood House.
The Morwell Neighbourhood House is a neighbourhood house that's in Morwell in Latrobe Valley, an area with entrenched disadvantage which has existed over several decades. The house itself is in North Morwell, which is right in the midst of some of the most significant disadvantages within the area.
Through some of our previous work, we had the opportunity to meet Tracie Lund, the coordinator of the Morwell Neighbourhood House. She approached us to see if Deloitte would do a pro-bono piece of work with them to enable them to advocate and communicate with stakeholders in terms of the impact that they were having. While it's nice to have individual case studies which always pulls the heartstrings, when you are thinking about communicating to the government and advocating for investment, you need to speak the language of the decision makers. Undertaking a SROI study can be one way of doing this.
SROI involves going through and determining the range of benefits that are derived from the initial investment in a certain timeframe and you need data that demonstrates the benefits, as well as the costs. Within Not-for-Profits data is typically quite limited (as data is not their core business). So you have to make sure that you are working closely with them to pull together the data because they might not have ever thought about it in that way before, or understood how valuable that type of data can be (particularly in relation to outcome data).
Via the SROI methodology, we then worked with MHN to develop a report that communicates the impact that they're having in a structured way and they have got a lot of traction with that report – and rightly so. They are making a really big impact and it was satisfying to help them communicate in a way that others could understand.
Q4: How do you think a pandemic such as COVID-19 affects the social impact space?
Wow, it is hard to say at this point because the whole thing is still unfolding, although it’s likely to be fairly significant and sadly quite devastating, particularly if you think about people in social care arrangements.
It's clear there's been a health service response in place whether it's through hospitals or primary care they've probably got better emergency management plans in place and like to have some form of business continuity planning in place, for example.
I suspect there's a big risk that people are going to slip through the cracks in the broader social service system. So whether in disability or aged care, in child protection, family services, domestic violence and family violence, mental health, those types of areas – I would anticipate we are likely going to see a side spike in demand for those services and hear about some pretty devastating outcomes for people.
I think these service providers, which are typically underfunded and just trying to do their absolute best work are going to be disproportionately and devastatingly impacted at this time. The exact impact of that is not clear. Those people are in my thoughts absolutely.
Q5: Do you think COVID-19 may impact women and men differently in the sense that we may revert back to a household structure with a single breadwinner as well as disrupting female empowerment in the workforce?
I have a personal story to that effect. That’s the only way I can answer that question, because I haven’t really thought about that at a more macro level, although I can muse society might kind of fall back to more traditional gender roles during this time of crisis. Sadly, it may just be the easier go-to at this point because people just kind of revert back to what they know and whatever the easiest road is (that is, husband stays working while the mother has to stay at home to home school). Not saying that is right or that I agree with that, I am just guessing that that may happen, although let’s see what the data shows over time.
Although of course there's going to be examples where that just becomes more challenging, for example, in my own situation. I'm a single mum, I have my kids almost entirely full time and so things like changes to school and having to home-school introduces a whole range of issues because I have to think about how to do that now, while working full time. How do I maintain my job and make sure that I'm able to do good work and help people through my role while maintaining my role as a primary caregiver and potentially as an educator as well?
It's not clear at this stage, but there are certainly a whole range of gender issues. You know, for women, I would suspect when those more traditional gender norms come into play. There’s been some discussion about economic interventions or measures and some of them have been of the mind that there are typically two parent households. You might have even seen Scott Morrison making commentary to the effect that at least one person in the household is maintaining an income. ‘One out of two isn’t bad at this point’ is along the lines of what he said. His view, as I understood it, was that in these times, the more people maintaining employment the better. It's in households that are not exactly ‘traditional, two parent households’ that might play out in different ways.
In saying all this, I hope that the lasting impacts of COVID-19 are absolutely not the undoing of years of progress in relation to the advancement of women in the workplace. We’ve got enough consequences of all this, without adding that into the mix also!
Q6: We have seen a rise in companies celebrating their CSR and become more invested in the impact space. Why do you think that has happened? And on a broader scale, what do you think companies are getting wrong?
“companies are becoming more acutely aware of the role that they play in society and that we're in this together”
I think that businesses as leaders in the community, and actually, the community more general, are becoming more socially conscious. You can see this in things like increased investment and commitment to diversity and inclusion agendas within their own organisation.
But more broadly, in terms of corporate social responsibility, companies are becoming more acutely aware of the role that they play in society and that we're in this together. I think if I'm being somewhat coy, it's also driven by the expectations of the graduates that are coming through, there's certainly much more social mindedness in the graduates we're seeing. People are looking for employment that is fulfilling to them that sits well in terms of the social impact that they're intending to have.
Therefore, it's a business impetus in that regard in that employees have to provide a workplace that is fulfilling those needs for their graduates. But I do think that organisations in general are more socially aware and more attuned to focusing on making an impact that matters, for example in relation to things like climate change. Organisations are happy to take on and do their bit to the extent it's possible. People want to work in a place that's aligned with their values. But more importantly, it's also just the right thing to do.
If anything, an area of corporate social responsibility that I think people could do more on is a focus on a responsibility for employee mental health and well-being and recognising the role of the organisation in facilitating improvements in this area. This will possibly be the number one issue of workplaces over the next period and into the future.. I think a lot of organisations can provide opportunities for people with mental illness as well and making sure that their workplaces are conducive to providing them a safe and inclusive workplace. I think that's something that we can all continue to do better.
Q7: Nowadays, many graduates have a desire to make a strong, profound social impact. How can they balance this sense of purpose whilst also making money and being financially well off?
There's a huge number of ways that you can contribute to the world and work is but one of those.
I'm involved in a nonprofit through the Institute of Public Administration Australia, I donate blood, I volunteer in other ways. So there are other ways, not just through my work, that I look to participate civically. Work does not have to be the only way that you can satisfy that internal desire to do good. For me, outside of work, just being a good parent and participating in their Primary School where I can, and doing all those sorts of things are really fulfilling to me in terms of leaving the world a bit better than I found it, hopefully.
It's just a constant point of balance and people can put together their own list of pros and cons for where they want to work. Yes, Deloitte is a for-profit organisation. This is something that I've thought about a lot, for example “do I work here, do I work in the public service, do I become a politician or quit my job and volunteer full time?”.
Obviously, each of those options have significant trade-offs and it's just up to me or the individual to decide which of these are the most satisfying. Remember, work is not the only place you can give back.
A final point I’d make here is that the benefit of some of the large businesses, like Deloitte, is that they have significant CSR agendas. For example, at Deloitte we are truly focused on having an impact that matters - we have a large corporate giving program, we do a lot of pro/low bono work, we are active in a lot of important social policy issues (like advocating for an increase in Newstart), so I feel like if I can contribute my skills in this way, to these problems, while working at Deloitte, I am doing a good thing. I am proud of the work that I do and the impact I have.
Q8: Do you have any general advice that you would give to young people who have an interest in having a career in social impact. What would be some points of advice you could give them?
Read a lot! Just be intellectually curious. I think that the best thing that you can do is just learn learn learn and whether it's through twitter, Linkedin, university, conversations, networking etc., I think that's where we will solve some of these bigger problems. For example, when the economists, the psychologist, the policy people, the politicians, the doctors, whatever discipline people come from, come together and actually recognise the synergies across different schools of thought, that will lead to the best outcomes for the community. And how we can individually do that is to become more informed, take an interest, challenge our own thinking, look for new information and broader our minds. That would be my absolute take-home point.
“when the economists, the psychologist, the policy people, the politicians, the doctors, whatever discipline people come from, come together and actually recognise the synergies across different schools of thought, that will lead to the best outcomes for the community”
Bonnie Rowe - Director at Deloitte Access Economics
Big thank you to Bonnie Rowe for taking the time to answer our questions.