Data illiteracy plaguing Singapore firms

Data illiteracy is a growing problem that’s plaguing Singapore’s workforce as only three in 10 of c-suites and directors have expressed confidence about their ability to read, comprehend and work with data.

Despite the dismal figure, the survey by data analytics platform Qlik found that Singapore ranks amongst the most confident in the Asia Pacific region about their data literacy levels.

India (64%) and Australia (39%) topped the list of tech-savvy executives.

Senior HR executives in Singapore  need to upgrade their skills and knowledge in big data, according to Janina Sarmiento, organiser of the upcoming HR Tech Summit in Singapore, which will be held on 28 March 2018.

"HR leaders in Singapore today really need to understand how to use relevant HR data to make better strategic decisions" said Sarmiento.

"The event will feature a ted-style 'tech talk' specifically on strategic decision-making using big, deep data" she said.

Compared with company’s leaders and HR executives, employees are even less confident about their skills to analyse data for work-related matters, with only 15% being defined as 'data literate'.

“We can see a clear gap across Asia Pacific whereby business leaders are demanding that their employees leverage day-to-day to drive actionable insights,” said Paul Mclean, data literacy evangelist at Qlik.

“At the same time however, there is a noticeable gap in the level of support provided to empower employees with the skills and training required to succeed.”

Almost half of workers (42%) in the region believe the training provided to them is inadequate. However, almost double that number have expressed their interest to invest more time into improving their digital skill sets as long as companies offer proper training programs.

“Both employers and employees need to take ownership and be more proactive in bridging this skills gap,” Mclean said.