People Analytics Deconstructed

Are you responsible for understanding an employees’ experience? Have you tried to incorporate people analytics in your organization but have struggled? Have you ever wondered what it means to have a data culture? Would you like to make more data-driven decisions? These are the kinds of discussions you can expect to hear on People Analytics Deconstructed. Co-hosts Ron Landis and Jennifer Miller are co-founders of Millan Chicago, a data science consulting company dedicated to helping organizations make the most out of their data. Each week, they will ‘deconstruct’ modern and contemporary topics in the People Analytics space.

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People Analytics Deconstructed

What is Data Literacy?

February 04, 2022 • Season 1 • Episode 6

In this episode, co-hosts Ron Landis and Jennifer Miller deconstruct data literacy. Data is increasingly important to driving important decisions. While many organizations have access to even more data than before, most organizations could gain significant benefits better using their data to its fullest potential. One of the primary reasons for not maximizing the use of data is that many employees do not have key data literacy skills.

In this episode, we had conversations around these questions:

What is data literacy?
How can we assess data literacy?
How can organizations consider data literacy in the context of so many different roles and positions?
What are some examples across users in which aspects of data literacy would be useful?

Key Takeaways:

Organizations must have a robust data culture to make efficient and effective use of their data. Fundamental to data culture is ensuring that everyone is data literate. Gartner defines data literacy as "the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to describe the use case, application, and result value." Recent studies have demonstrated that data-driven organizations have a higher enterprise value of 3-5%. In our view, data literacy differs based on the role of the employee in the organization from general users to data scientists to executives.
At the end of the episode, Jennifer and Ron recommend steps for folks just starting out in this space all the way to the more advanced HR professional.