The world of transport and logistics has traditionally been seen as a preserve reserved mainly for men. From the truck to the top management, the supply chain is a predominantly male sector. How is the incorporation of women in transport companies progressing?
To help us understand this situation better, we have used the Gartner report “2018 Women in Supply Chain Research”.
Women in transport companies
Among the main conclusions of the study, Gartner emphasizes that if companies want to attract and retain talent, they must do everything possible so that women gain presence. According to various surveys, one of the main obstacles to achieving the logistics objectives of companies is the lack of talent and training. For this reason, making the sector attractive to new layers of the population is an effective way of expanding the available talent.
However, despite these study recommendations, progress in this incorporation is far from fully accelerating. The report shows a slight increase in the percentage of women present throughout all stages of the supply chain, going from 35% in 2016 to 37% in 2018. However, as we move up in category, this growth is stagnating until practically flat. This is the case of women in senior director or vice-presidency positions, which in 2018 repeats the 20% that it already indicated in 2016.
Considering the possibility of attracting new talent: how many companies have formal objectives to increase the presence of women in leadership positions in their supply chains? Here a significant improvement is shown in the latest surveys. While in 2017, 11% of companies formally stated that they had these objectives, in 2018 the number had already increased to 18%.
How to solve it
If we want to attract more women to transport companies, another necessary question is to ask ourselves what we must do to make that happen. In the first place, the most repeated response -by 18% of those surveyed- is the change in the company’s cultural values, leadership orientation and behaviors, then -with 15% of those surveyed- there is visibility of women, promoting them and the use of success stories. In third place is achieving a greater scope of job offers and an improvement in the identification of candidates.
The future
If anything stands out from the report, it is that there is optimism about the future of women in supply chains. It may even be higher than what reality invites one to think, taking into account that, as we saw, currently only 18% of companies have formal objectives in this area.
This optimism leads respondents to predict that by 2023 the number of women holding vice-presidency or senior director positions will be 32%, which represents a rapid increase of 12% compared to current data. What seems even more complicated seeing that this 20% is the same percentage that already existed in 2016.
Overall, we can see that there is a willingness to increase the number of women working in supply chains and an awareness of how that would be a win-win by attracting new talent to companies and providing more opportunities for women. women. The pending tasks seem to be in developing specific initiatives so that this change becomes a reality.
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