WOMEN IN TRUCKING Ellen Voie
Eight Wishes for 2019 This year, we’d like to share our hopes for the coming year with eight ways to support the Women In Trucking Association mission to increase the percentage of women employed in the trucking industry. 1 We think more carriers must start monitoring their percentages of female drivers and set targets to increase those levels. They should hold recruiters, dispatchers and everyone in management accountable for not only hiring more women, but retaining the ones they already have. Ten years ago, carriers insisted they didn’t care about the age, gender or race of their drivers. Now more and more companies are understanding why we should focus more on diversity. The WIT Index tracks progress in the percentage of over the road female drivers and although it’s increased to 7.89 percent in 2018 (up from 7.13 percent in 2017), we still have a long way to go. 2 Companies should strive for more diversity in their management team. Women comprise only 23 percent of leaders in trucking companies in 2018. While this is slightly higher than in the past, we still have a long way to go. For publicly traded
28 • OVER THE ROAD
trucking companies, only eight percent of women are promoted to the executive level and ten of the sixteen publicly traded carriers have NO women in management. 3 We would like to see more women serve on trucking company Boards of Directors. California recently passed a law that requires publicly traded companies to place at least one woman on the Board. While quotas seem so gratuitous, we do know that more women should have a seat at the table, especially in trucking companies. Of the 17 publicly traded trucking companies, four of them have NO women on their boards. Women comprise only 15 percent of directors in our industry, compared to over 22 percent for women serving on the board of Fortune 500 companies. 4 Recruiting ads should be more inclusive. In a recent DriverIQ survey, 35 percent of carriers reported that they did not have ANY programs aimed at attracting female drivers. Only nineteen percent said they had recruiting ads specifically targeting women. The old ads showing a wife and two kids at home with a picket fence is long gone. It’s time to start using graphics and words that target female drivers.
FEBRUARY 2019