According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, if the workforce gap between men and women is closed by 2030, the GDP would increase by 12%. This statistic was shared by the president and CEO of Women in Trucking, Ellen Voie, on a recent episode of FreightWaves NOW Net-Zero Carbon. Voie was promoting WIT’s Accelerate conference this week in Dallas from Nov. 7 – 9.
“The conference is about empowering women and helping women move to the next level in their careers, whether they’re entry-level, midlevel, senior level,” said Voie. “The No. 1 reason people tell us they come to our conference is to network and meet other women in their roles. Maybe they’re an engineer at an OEM or a safety director, but they’ll meet other women who are doing what they do at other companies.”
Women In Trucking, a professional and trade organization, boasts 6,000 members in 10 countries, 85% of whom are women working in all facets of the trucking industry. In alignment with Convoy’s push for diverse carriers to become certified, Voie said that bringing more women into trucking often offers a more altruistic and collaborative approach to leadership.
“We totally support diversity, especially gender diversity,” she said. “In fact, we launched our diversity and inclusion index this year, so we want to measure the diversity at member companies and then also to establish best practices. We hope to identify those carriers that have a high percentage of women in leadership or female drivers or women on their boards and ask what they are doing differently to attract and promote women.”
WIT also is launching its new driver ambassador tractor-trailer, which will travel across the country to expose students and prospective drivers to the skill sets required to work in the trucking industry. For more information on the Accelerate conference or the traveling schedule of the driver ambassador truck, go to womenintrucking.org.
