Women in the Trucking Industry – from Drivers to Executives

With International Women’s Day taking place March 8, we’re looking at the topic of companies adding women to leadership roles.

I’m reminded of a quote from Warren Buffet, “The closer that America comes to fully employing the talents of all its citizens, the greater the output of goods and services will be.”

The Women In Trucking mission includes this sentiment: “encourage the employment of women working in the trucking industry.” We understand there’s a need for professional drivers, and women are underrepresented in this area, but what about women in management?

You should strive for more women in your
leadership roles. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but because it affects your bottom line. Pepperdine University found a correlation between high-level female executives and business success. The Harvard Business Review reported firms with the best records for promoting women outperform industry medians with overall profits 34 percent higher. Catalyst research found that companies with the highest representation of women leaders financially outperform, on average, companies with the lowest.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, women comprise just 14 percent of management roles in transportation. Consider that women make up nearly half the labor force, more than half of all bachelor’s degrees, and more than 50 percent of management roles on average – why is the trucking industry lagging in diversity?

Research by Hewlett Packard found that men would apply for a position when they feel they meet 60 percent of the requirements, while women wait to apply when they believe they meet 100 percent of the criteria.

Apparently, we do have some inherent bias toward the way women should act. Yale University psychologist Victoria Brescoll found that male executives who spoke more often than their peers were rated 10 percent higher in competence, while female executives were rated 14 percent lower in competence, by both men and women.

A study at Harvard Business School gave students a case study of a female entrepreneur, Heidi Roizen. Half of the students received the same study with the name Howard instead of Heidi. While both groups found Heidi/Howard to be competent, Heidi was viewed as “selfish” and “not the person you would like to work for” by both male and female students.

How can your company ensure greater diversity and avoid some of these limiting practices? Value women’s contributions (team building, collaboration) and reconsider what characteristics you’re looking for in a leader. Create a gender-neutral environment, and identify and promote more women into management roles. Make your current C-suite team accountable for promoting women and set targets for future hires and promotions.

When possible, offer networking and mentoring opportunities for the women in your current and future management team. Make sure your current female leaders are visible as well.

You know that creating a more diverse leadership team is the right thing to do and you know it can increase your company’s profits as well. Let’s see if we can move beyond 14 percent in the coming year and change the image of the trucking industry into one that’s more welcoming for women.

Written by Ellen Voie, Founder of Women in Trucking

Ellen Voie is founder of the Women In Trucking Association, womenintrucking.biz. Ellen’s background in the trucking industry began in 1980, when she earned a diploma in Traffic and Transportation Management while employed as Traffic Manager for a steel fabricating plant in central Wisconsin.