Protocol: Tech Companies Have a Data Literacy Gap

Original article by Amber Burton appeared in Protocol

Tech companies are drowning in data. And chances are, those fancy data analytics platforms they’ve invested in aren’t helping. But don’t blame the tech just yet. According to a recent survey by Tableau and Forrester, there’s a gap between what employees know about data and what employers think their employees know about data.

While 82% of leaders expect all employees to have basic data literacy skills, only about 40% of employees say they’re provided the data skills they’re expected to have on the job, according to the survey. The findings signal a persisting dearth of data training within organizations, and because all roads lead back to The Great Resignation, this skills gap could be a reason your valued employees find somewhere else to work. According to the survey, nearly 80% of data-trained employees said they were more likely to stay with their company, and 10 times more likely to voice high satisfaction with their employer.

Decision-makers are twice as likely as employees to say they’re adequately equipping employees with data skills they need, according to the survey, but that training is often confused with simply providing the tools.

“One of the topics that I talk about with a lot of our clients is the difference between purchasing tools and having staff who can handle it,” said Merav Yuravlivker, CEO and co-founder of Data Society, a provider of data-training programs for companies. “Every organization that I know has purchased licenses to specific software platforms that are data analytic platforms. And that’s great. That helps enable a lot of folks. But what we’ve seen in a lot of those organizations is they might buy 100 licenses, and there’s maybe five people who actually understand how to use this product effectively.”

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