Talent Pillar

(Français: Pilier du talent) The Talent pillar is one of the 6 pillars of the ISED Data Strategy. To enable a data culture, ISED must have the talent and capacity required to manage, interpret, use and understand data. Knowing the current state of data literacy and data related competencies will help in understanding our skills gaps and identify strategic activities related to training, recruitment, and retention. Collectively this information will be used to help ensure our workforce has the data related competencies and skills needed to reach ISED data goals.

Initiatives of Talent

Identify data-related learning and development and offer CDO Learning Events:

Everyone in our department, on some level, deals with data. ISED's Chief Data Office hosts a virtual series of learning events, which include speaker-led discussions and interactive forums. These data-focused events aim to explore ISED’s role in the rapidly changing data landscape. Together, we can better understand how to evolve and meet the ever-growing need to use data, both strategically and ethically, in order to better serve Canadians and their businesses.

Measure Data Literacy in department and establish ISED Data Personas:

Widespread data literacy is critical to enable a data-driven culture that is open, shares by default and realizes business value from data holdings. A data literate workforce is one that can use data to improve the quality of decisions and services; knows when and how to question validity of data; read, comprehend and use statistical information ethically; explore data to generate new ideas, methods and understanding; and represent information visually and communicate it to an audience. Data Personas are a mechanism for which each person to characterise their own 'day to day' relationship with data.

Develop a data learning roadmap:

Work is underway to develop a data learning roadmap for ISED data personas that provide a path with various opportunities, learning options, and techniques to upskill the various data competencies.

Innovative ways to finding new talent:

CDO has supported, organized and participated in several new talent pipelines to find and attract 'data-skilled' talent to ISED. This includes multiple hackathons, speaking at university student events and creating direct connections with academic institutions.

Creating a Data Science job description:

The Talent pillar working group is supporting HR's efforts to lead the creation of a suite of standardized job descriptions for data scientists in ISED.