Global skills and literacy shortfalls in data and analytics

Global skills and literacy shortfalls in data and analytics are a problem tech leaders everywhere face. According to Gartner® Top Trends in Data and Analytics, 2022, data and analytics leaders responsible for strategy and innovation need to take action in three sections: Activate diversity and dynamism (I.E., sharing data, AI and meta-driven data fabric), Augment People and Decisions (I.E., skills and literacy shortfalls, context-enriched analysis, business-composed data & analytics and decision-centric data & analytics) and Institutionalize trust (I.E., connected governance, AI risk management, vendor and regional ecosystems and expansion to the edge). 

We want to focus on the global skills and literacy shortfall and how to solve it.  

Let’s examine why global skills and literacy shortfalls are a problem. In short, the issues tech leaders face when the data is unclear in workforce planning are bottlenecks and roadblocks.

Skills and literacy shortfalls are one problem related to workforce planning. Leaders require formal processes to understand which skills their teams possess and what their teams need to acquire. More often than not, tech leaders run into workforce allocation and recruiting issues. At the same time, individual contributors struggle to understand the starting point to increase their expertise, apply those skills on the job, and move up in their careers. Objective tech skills data is required to move the needle forward in workforce planning. Without objective tech skills data, skills and literacy shortfalls are a roadblock.

Secondly, the developer experience is impacted by a lack of objective tech skills data. When leaders do not have this objective data, they cannot:     

• Ensure adequate engineering efforts are aligned with the most critical initiatives
• Pinpoint where roadblocks are most prevalent
• Identify how to make work pattern improvements. This friction creates wasted efforts, demotivates teams/increases attrition, and puts project delivery at risk, thus becoming both a bottleneck and a roadblock. 

Our global survey of tech leaders uncovered eye-opening insights regarding international skills and literacy shortfalls. Industries such as Finserve and Health face significant roadblocks when realizing the total value of a tech investment when skills and literacy shortfalls are present. 

Why?  

Because organizations invest in new technologies before the right skills are in place to tend to the latest technology. 

Without the proper skills in place, organizations cannot realize the full potential of their tech investments. That’s why organizations must invest in their people and processes first, then look at their objective tech skills data before making any new investments in tech. So, one of the processes organizations need to invest in is workforce planning. 

According to the National Institutes of Health, “Workforce Planning is the process of analyzing, forecasting, and planning workforce supply and demand, assessing gaps, and determining target talent management interventions to ensure that an organization has the right people - with the right skills in the right places at the right time - to fulfill its mandate and strategic objectives.” 

Workforce planning enables organizations to fill roles when hiring takes too long. Workforce planning does this by helping you find the existing right people for projects or identifying those that can skill up when hiring takes longer than anticipated— which is a great way to solve that bottleneck.  

Workforce planning also offers mental health benefits. Employees feel increased satisfaction in their jobs when their skills and expertise match their assigned projects and experience higher levels of satisfaction when they have a clear career path, which helps solve attrition. 

Workforce planning will help you understand your organization's skills to supply better the talent your organization needs tomorrow. And when it comes to the global skills and literacy shortfalls happening, objective tech skills data specific to workforce planning is critical. With workforce planning in place, your organization can have precise, accurate tech skills data, quicker ramp times for new roles, positive mental health benefits for individual contributors and lower attrition. 

Learn about the top trends in data and analytics technology and practices that can help you anticipate change and transform uncertainty into opportunities.