Data professionals' training challenges in dynamic work environments

The use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) by various data professionals like data scientists, data curators, data librarians, data archivists and others has been the focus of researchers worldwide in the past few decades. Workspaces, workplaces and workflows are evolving daily and oftentimes struggling to cope with the emerging technologies. In their various functions in workplaces where career advancement is a sign of progress, it is required that data professionals be further trained, and with enhanced skill, move up the career ladder. Training of data professionals to meet the expectations of the work environment is a thus a challenge. The challenges faced by data professionals in the course of training themselves are the focus of this paper. Using extensive literature review, and survey methods of gathering data, ten data professionals working in different types of work environments were interviewed about the challenges they faced in training. The challenges they identified and described as well as solutions to the challenges proposed are discussed. Recommendations are made on ways in which future challenges can be surmounted especially in the face of the dynamic nature of the technology driven work environment