Despite it being a male-dominated industry, women who work in trucking overwhelmingly report mostly positive experiences.
A recent survey by Trucking HR Canada found that about 70 percent of women surveyed said their experience in the industry has been positive or “mostly positive” with a few challenges.
Close to 10%, said they felt they had to work harder than men to earn respect.
As reported by Truck News, the survey results were shared by Trucking HR Canada’s Tamara Miller during the organization’s inaugural Women With Drive Leadership Summit. Women with Drive is one of Trucking HR Canada’s initiatives, designed to raise awareness among women of careers in trucking, to raise employer awareness of how they can support the integration of women into the industry and to develop practical tools that can aid with this mission.
“On the whole, women like working in the trucking industry and that’s something we should keep in mind,” Miller pointed out.
The survey did, however, highlight somewhat of a disconnect between female workers and their male managers. The survey of 317 people, including 227 women working in the trucking industry, found that many of the female respondents cited flexible work hours as one of the top three things the industry could do to become more attractive to women. On the other, the few dozen make managers interviewed felt that was one of the least important benefits to women employees. Instead, men cited physical limitations as a barrier to entry for female drivers, while most women who responded felt that was a non-issue.
An interesting revelation that arose from the survey was that there’s a significant interest among drivers in mentoring programs, with 72% of responding drivers indicating they’d be interested in serving as mentors.
Women with Drive is looking to build on its initial findings, and has developed a five-step action plan. While this plan is still a work in progress and will evolve as more data and insight are collected, Trucking HR Canada CEO Angela Splinter outlined these priorities:
- Development mentoring, training and professional development opportunities for women in trucking;
- Developing a marketing and communications plan to promote career options and build awareness of workplace challenges for women;
- Developing workplace policies, procedures and best practices from the industry;
- Obtaining more insight from female drivers to get a better understanding of what they face on a daily basis;
- And to influence policy at multiple levels of government to affect systemic change.
Read full Truck News article here.