Empowering Your Teams to be Digitally Fluent & Data Literate
Sparkline’s HR & Education Director, Sarah Ann Rebello, shares her thoughts on the importance of upskilling teams on the topic of data analytics.
I’ve written pieces before on the topic of Learning & Development, Talent Shortages and the ability to upskill from within. When reviewing my previous content it struck me how right now these topics have never been more relevant and even more crucial to a business’s success & even it’s fight for survival in our current climate.
So as we near the end of 2020, it’s time to look forward, onwards & upwards and as us Brits like to say ‘Keep Calm & (Insert any number of cliche phrases here)’. On a serious note, we are starting to enter a more positive time it seems. With hope, as we leave behind last week’s Diwali, festival of lights, we will see some of this light at the end of a long tunnel for so many — Globally. Never before have we lived in a time like this and never before has Technology played a part in enabling our businesses to continue as effectively as many have been able to. Simply look at the way in which our default new normal of ‘WFH’ has been a successful form of BCP through the enablement of Tech and the surge in VC platforms (along with the ever increasing use of the phrases ‘you’re on mute’, ‘sorry you just dropped out’ or my own personal favourite ‘sorry I have a crying child in the background!’….fun times!?!
So what next? What can we start to do to better empower our teams’ businesses further? Let’s explore the ways in which we can build our skills from within thus enabling Digital Acceleration and ensure we can compete in today’s Digital world….
Let’s break it into 3 areas to look at starting with:
1 . Why do Businesses need to digitise?
Because our consumers are digital & our data is a resource, this fact alone demonstrates the value that data can hold for companies and it is growing markedly in recent years.
Look at the growth of data consumption here and the huge incline in only 15 years where we are (almost) today!
Data is a common denominator, that can bring many business functions and roles together to enable a more holistic offering. This can start with internal functions such HR, Ops & Finance being able to use data to streamline, save costs and implement efficiency and aid retention across their business.
To the marketing teams that are running and delivering campaigns and KPI’d to ensure maximum ROI data is their oil! Continuing right through to our IT teams that work with Data platforms and Architect Tech Stacks, to ensure Data Protection — for example. The use cases for Data Literacy and fluency are pretty much endless and still growing!
For further visualisation of this and in keeping with our data theme let’s look at some more examples of just how much data is being created and consumed Globally on a daily basis with this awesome infographic from Raconteur & Weforum:
2. You can build the skills from within!
The first initiative that an organisation needs to take towards digitisation is by investing in wide data fluency skills. Next steps, would involve investment in data infrastructure, data tools, improved processes and agile organisational structures.
However, building talent from within is a great first step to ‘levelling up’
It may or may not fit your business needs to try and hire a ‘new’ team of data scientists and analytics consultants full time. In this instance it is better to equip the existing employee group with knowledge on data fluency. In a nutshell, it is mandatory to have appropriate digital fluency to leverage success in digital transformation.
As previously mentioned the roles to upskill could be many across a business with several use cases it’s simply a case of working out what the benefits would be, what problems are we solving and then what skills do we need to start building?
3. Marry Hard & Soft Skills
We can’t stress this enough, the marriage between these two will result in the most effective upskilling outcome. For example, at Sparkline our team are Digital Analytics Consultants so typically to excel in supporting our Global Clients with their Data Analytics Projects & Training Needs they would look at developing two pillars of skills:
Hard Skills + Tools: Google Analytics/Adobe Analytics/Tableau/Data Studio/Qlikview/Power BI/SQL
Soft Skills to Enhance: Storytelling/Consulting/Insights/Presentation/Communication
These are just some examples & would be a good starting point and typically encompass the basics of what an Analytical skills shift would need to cover, learning wise.
Finally, now we have looked at these 3 areas let’s finish up with another ‘3’ this time the core capabilities and outcomes we believe that upskilling your workforce with Digital Fluency & Data Literacy skills will enable:
- Ability to understand your customers and/or your stakeholders.
- Ability to understand your peers & teams within the business — speak the same language.
- Increase ROI on any project through making better business decisions thanks to the proof points within your data.
At Sparkline, we are Analytics Consultants that LOVE to train.. we have programmes designed to help both enterprise-wide skills development and individual learning opportunities. Some of which we run in partnership with the Singapore Govt.
Sparkline aims to provide data accuracy, comprehension and consolidation, and most importantly, tangible insights for businesses. Get in touch if you’d like to learn more.
