Federal Workforce Strives to Embrace Data & Digital Literacy

Without a doubt, the current digital era is characterized by hyper precision. Moving forward, the government strives to significantly increase its resource productivity and value by aggregating, evaluating, and using the correct quality data at the right moment to analyze, anticipate, and prescribe actions. Ultimately, the core component of this journey to modernize and improve government services will be a data-literate workforce.

Acknowledging the Role of Data in the Public Sector

Several governmental agencies have experienced considerable breakthroughs in the accessibility, collecting, administration, analysis, and use of data in recent years, which has significantly contributed to the enhancement of services, the efficacy of government initiatives, and the efficiency of operations. Hence the experiences of citizens, beneficiaries, managers, and data experts are all changing as more and more data is used and integrated into decision-making processes.
However, agencies presently face several obstacles as they try to reskill and upskill their people using breakthrough data literacy tools and training. A recent poll of federal chief data officers indicated that finding opportunities to develop workforce data skills was a barrier for 95 % of respondents.
Many agencies consider that gathering data and passing it through a data visualization tool is sufficient. While the basic analysis may help you gain information on something that has already occurred, this sort of information, when linked with actual action and consequences, can help you estimate what can happen in the future and suggest what you can do about a problem before it happens.

Data Literacy Enhancement for Governmental Agencies

One recent study sheds light on how far behind businesses are in terms of educating their staff members in data literacy, an important ability for the age of digital advancement. According to Qlik, just one in ten workers in finance, marketing, and HR departments are provided training in data literacy. Although around 70 % of these staff members require these abilities daily, only one in ten employees get training in data literacy.
Overall, data literacy refers to the capacity of a professional to understand, interact with, analyze, and utilize data ethically to solve complex problems and create innovation. Notably, data literacy is a skill that may assist individual workers in enhancing their productivity and optimizing the effectiveness of their day-to-day job duties. Building a workforce that is data literate throughout a federal agency has the potential to alter mission-critical goals and enable data-driven decision-making, which contributes to the modernization and improvement of government services.

How to Implement a Data Literacy Program

To commence a data literacy program, Chief Data Officers (CDOs) require top agency backing. In conjunction with CDOs, agency leaders should promote data literacy and employ standards to explain individual roles and manage data initiatives successfully. Data literacy is a cross-cutting concern; thus, agency leaders should unite CDOs, human resources authorities, and portfolio managers to develop and sustain standards.
Moreover, agencies must analyze current data literacy to identify capabilities, knowledge gaps, and education priorities. In conjunction with data skill frameworks, data literacy indexes are widely used, so public-sector organizations may utilize them to perform evaluations and design data literacy programs.
Employees will likely adopt data literacy if a program’s objective, logistics, and growth metrics are clear. This requires agency leaders to convey goals and criteria for success. Federal employees should be able to discuss the data literacy program publicly, and data stakeholders should act on their comments.
Many data competencies are interconnected, such as ensuring that every employee is aware of ethical usage duties, privacy safeguards, and cybersecurity standards. For many issues, however, literacy training may be adapted to the specific demands of distinct labor sectors. A data-driven culture in the public sector embraces a variety of positions and abilities in the workforce.

Leveraging the Best Resources to Enhance a Data Literacy

Technology is pervasive and changing the fabric of our working life. Therefore, ensuring that government personnel develops and keep the technical and non-technical skills essential to thrive in a tech-intensive workplace is not an issue that can be postponed. Rather than employing thousands of new specialists, agencies seek to teach current personnel how to manage the new frontier. Governments must become contemporary workplaces that realize the potential of digital technology to revolutionize the public sector so that their workers can learn and prosper in a workforce where in-demand skills will continue to grow fast.

Enterprise Training Solutions (ETS), an industry leader with online training for the public sector, offers exceptional learning solutions for governmental agencies that support upskilling employees with the data literacy skills needed for the contemporary workplace. In this pursuit, their Productivity & Collaboration Course Directory delivers the essential digital platforms encountered by today’s workforce, including Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Acrobat. Moreover, ETS also offers a comprehensive suite of Business Courses, ranging from Business Analysis to Strategic Planning and Leadership courses that support the professional development of federal employees and the process of delivering essential services.