As the world of work continues to evolve, driven by technology and the need to understand different technological platforms when securing new roles within the job market, many of today’s workforce are seeking ways to level up professionally. Many are driven to improve data literacy in hopes that it leads to a promotion or raise.
Digital literacy refers to the ability of an individual to use information and communication technologies in order to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information. This requires both cognitive and technical skills.
It also stands that with more sensitive information being contained within a company’s data system, the need for data literacy has also seen a rise in demand.
Looking at the career path aspects, a new study finds that 87 percent of employees who levelled up their data literacy added their new skill to their resume in hopes of finding a new career path.
The survey comes from Unsupervised, based on a poll of employees and business managers who were asked about their data literacy skills and expectations.
The types of digital skills that are sought after by employers include:
- Cyber and data security.
- Software as a service (SAAS) often known as ‘cloud software’.
- Storage and management of data.
- Communication and collaborative digital tools.
- Presentation of data.
- Mobile devices.
- Social media for business.
- Digital problem solving.
In terms of business growth and productivity, the same survey found that almost 1 in 3 hiring managers attributed increased revenue to managers offering increased data training to employees. When this does not happen, the business is sub-optimal and too many employees are left to learn how to interpret data by themselves.
With this, only about 1 in 5 employers was found to be offering data training to their employees. Many workers have been forced to go down the self-learning path in the absence of any structure training. This is to the extent that nearly 7 in 10 people have resorted to watching online tutorials to improve data literacy skills.
Furthermore, the review finds that 42 percent of employees said they learned how to manage complex digital data whilst carrying out their job without having received any previous experience or training.
Last year, based on findings relating to the U.S., 3 in 5 employees spent a median of $200 with no assistance from their employer on courses/training to level up their data skills.
In other words, in many companies’ data, and what is often sensitive information, is in many cases being left in the hands of individuals who are watching online tutorials to learn what to do.
