Significance of Data literacy

DATA LITERACY

Why is Data Literacy important?

First of all, let’s understand what data literacy is.

In simple words, data literacy is the ability to read, understand, create and communicate data as information.

 It is not similar to the reading ability of the text; it requires specific knowledge and skills to interpret the data and understand it better for communicating the information presented by it.

 Not only knowing what the data communicates it also requires knowing what data is appropriate to use for a particular purpose. Interpreting data visualizations such as graphs and charts. 

Critical thinking, understanding of analytical tools and methods to use them, recognizing misinterpretation of data, communicating information about data in simple form sometimes referred to as data storytelling.

Now coming to the importance. Why is data literacy important? Today is referred to as the golden age of data. Companies are privileged with the collection and storing of an ever-increasing amount of data in various shapes and sizes. That’s impressive but do we ever wonder how good are companies at extracting information from that data.

About 70% of the data remains unused by the company. Why so? One of the major reasons is the lack of data skills that hamper companies' productivity. According to Accenture, employees feel overwhelmed while working with data. Half of them is very uncomfortable with data tools; others feel burnt out while extracting information from data. The reasons are simple: employees are not being made comfortable with data. It should be the company's initiative to make their employees work-friendly with data and enjoy extracting information from data. They should be provided with specific pieces of training. The company can do its best to thrive in this modern data world.

Achieving data literacy should be a really important step in a company's roadmap. It would help employees make more data-driven decisions, effective data governance, and take ethical data decisions.

Unsurprisingly, inculcating data literacy in all employees can open up a pool of benefits for the company. This can benefit companies in numerous ways. The workshops or boot camps here play major roles for the companies for upskilling or reskilling their employees, whether it be in-house camps or any program, this is seen as the better option today.