Soft skills are not as soft as you think
WE hear a lot about the looming technology skills gap in the Asia-Pacific, but a trend you may not have heard about is the rise of tech jobs requiring soft skills.
LinkedIn recently released an Emerging Jobs report in several markets in the Asia-Pacific, all listing data scientists as one of the top five emerging jobs. While most of these jobs are tech-focused, a finding from the report points to the requirement for an unexpected mix of technical skills and soft skills like management and communication.
LinkedIn found that data science roles were particularly popular across the region, being the only job to feature in the top five of all countries, and with staggering growth rates. This isn't surprising, as organisations of all sizes have started to realise the potential value hidden in data and are hiring people to help them uncover it. But what does it take to work with data, and why are soft skills important?
IT'S HOW YOU SAY IT
There is a misconception that data science is just an engineer's discipline. Data scientists do need technical skills, but it is also important for them to be able to communicate through their analyses. Without the latter, potential business outcomes could remain unknown.
Consider this scenario: A data scientist discovers a trend which, if acted upon, could allow the company to be first to market. The action would require C-level buy-in but needs to be acted upon quickly, before it is discovered by the rest of the industry. It is therefore essential to communicate the findings convincingly.
How can the analyst help the executive understand the insights and see what they see?
The answer lies in design. People once thought adding any artistic visualisation was a waste of time and distracting from the data, but that is rarely the case now.
Design can make a report compelling by drawing attention to the points that matter and making them understandable. This aids buy-in and faster decision-making.
FINDING THE BALANCE
However, while those with technical data jobs need to learn soft skills, it's a two-way street.
At a roundtable held earlier this year, Fermin Diez, an adjunct professor at Singapore Management University, noted that many of his Human Resources students feared anything related to data or numbers. In fact, we often see people who are good at either technical subjects or creative pursuits telling themselves they are good at one, but not the other.
This is an issue which must be addressed, as data skills are becoming increasingly essential in the workplace. Dr Diez noted: "No professional entering the field can expect to succeed in his or her career without a solid understanding and hands-on practice of analytical tools". He was talking about Human Resources, but this trend is prevalent in every industry, at all levels.
It is also true for government departments, where data is taking centrestage in improving the lives of citizens and ensuring nations remain globally competitive. Governments from many parts of the region are starting to put in place formalised programmes to train their public sector workforce.
In Australia, for instance, the government is training the public sector workforce with data skills in a number of ways, including e-learning and self-service education, tertiary study and short courses. A data literacy programme will also teach the core skills for using data in public service. This sets a strong example, but more needs to be done by governments in the region to furnish public servants with skills that will increasingly become crucial.
The growing necessity of data skills needs the urgent attention of educators, who play a crucial role in nurturing developing and preparing our youth for the workforce in the future. An important step for these educators will be to add analytics to the regular curriculum.
This is already happening in some places: for instance, Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University has just made modern analytics mandatory for all students in its Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Accountancy courses. This is significant because the courses recognise data skills as being essential - not a "nice to have".
In fact, across the Asia-Pacific, thousands of new students are learning analytics through Tableau's Academic Programmes, including schools such as Nanyang Technological University, University of New South Wales, University of Melbourne, Shanghai Jiatong University, University of Hong Kong and Tokyo University, among others.
The explosion in the academic programme's growth is a good indicator of the need to see and understand data. But greater action is required in making this mandatory for everyone to learn, and exposure from a young age for this to become second nature and truly foster the data literacy they will need.
Curriculums need to value the full range of soft skills, from encouraging curiosity and the asking of questions to storytelling and communication. Educators must also adapt their teaching in a way which does not allow the traditional stereotypes around hard skills and soft skills to develop in the first place - many jobs are now evolving to encompass the need for both rather than one or the other.
If the youth are allowed to leave the education system without an adequate mix of these skills, they will be inadequately prepared for the workplace. This not only has a negative impact on their employability, but on companies, industries and the wider economy.
To stay competitive, organisations and governments in the Asia-Pacific need to see that data is not black and white. As LinkedIn points out, the market values talent with a hybrid set of complementary skills. Creativity and communication are the underlying traits that will help organisations find the value in their data, and data will power the future.
