12 Ways To Cultivate A Data-Savvy Workforce

Protecting your enterprise data is often referred to as a technology issue, but most cyber attacks

Organizations aspiring to become data-driven need to take a close look at their HR practices. If your company's hiring and retention standards aren't keeping up with the times, you may be losing valuable job candidates and employees. To minimize the pitfalls of building a data-savvy workforce, consider these tips.

Cultivating a data-savvy workforce can be a challenging proposition if your company is not among the rarefied ranks of data-first organizations such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

For starters, attracting top talent is a competitive sport and becoming more data-driven over time. For example, HR departments are able to track and analyze more types of data than ever. Using sophisticated software tools, they're gaining deeper insight into job candidates, employee performance, and the overall effectiveness of their HR practice.

Yet, even as data-driven human capital management is becoming a core element of the hiring and retention process in HR departments, many companies don't seem to really understand what it means to build a data-savvy workforce. That's partly because doing so can involve complete organizational transformation.

"Data-savvy workers think differently, ask questions, challenge the establishment, and demand improvements," said Kathy Marshall, director of recruitment quality and client engagement at Decision Toolbox, a recruitment products and services company, in an interview.