The City of Cape Town is investing in its employees through training courses that provide practical skills to better understand and use data in their everyday work. For the same, the City has organised six-day Data Analytics Fundamentals for the Workplace programme which is a good example of a course that has been designed to help employees analyse, interpret and communicate data more confidently.
The programme ultimately aims of supporting better decisions and improved service delivery. The Training and Development branch of the City of Cape Town launched this training programme for its staff over the past week and plans to have nearly 80 key professionals trained by mid-September 2026.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Corporate Services – Alderman Theresa Uys stated that the first Data Analytics training programme course will be offered to the staff which kicked off this month. Uys said that she believe this is a great practical investment in the employees and the future of the City.
Every day, the City of Cape Town generates and receives a significant amount of information, so the opportunity here is to make sure that the employees have the skills and confidence to use that information effectively. By combining data with the professional experience of the employees, they can make better-informed decisions, improve efficiency and ultimately strengthen the services they provide to the residents.
According to Theresa Uys, they want to get the most value from the wealth of information the municipality already has. When employees are better equipped to work with data, the City is better positioned to understand challenges and identify opportunities. This is most definitely becoming a priority for all organisations.
The training is particularly relevant because the City of Cape Town works with large amounts of information every day, from customer service requests and financial information to water and electricity consumption, traffic patterns and infrastructure maintenance. Therefore, the key is to simply have access to this information and being able to understand it and use it to identify problems, spot trends and make better decisions.
Furthermore, the City recognises that data does not replace professional experience, it strengthens it. Employees already have valuable knowledge and experience in their respective fields. This training gives them an additional set of tools to combine that experience with reliable information and evidence when making decisions.
The intention is also not to make every employee a data specialist. Rather, it is about helping employees become more comfortable and confident in working with data and using it to improve how they perform their jobs.
Notably, the programme provides practical skills in areas such as Microsoft Excel and Power BI, allowing participants to work with information, identify insights and present data in a meaningful way. The expectation is that employees will be able to apply these skills directly in their respective areas of work; whether that means identifying inefficiencies, solving problems or supporting planning.