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EDITORIAL
The second annual Women with Drive conference, held in Mississauga on March 3, was not just a great network- ing event, it was also inspiring. We heard from women who are true leaders in the trucking industry and I had the opportu- nity to moderate a panel of female drivers (as well as a corporate trainer and an ap- prentice technician), dubbed Women on the Road.
These ladies gave a frank, candid as- sessment of what it’s like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry and also shared some insights into how this in- dustry can be more inviting to women.
I was taken aback by some of the sto- ries I heard. Alison Theriault, for exam- ple, applied to nearly 300 trucking com- panies before finding one that would hire her as a driver. And we claim to have a driver shortage? She said some managers bluntly told her the job wasn’t for a wom- an; unless she wanted to marry a nice man and drive team with him.
This was in 2008, not 1968! When she introduced her partner Katrina to the profession and told her carrier at the time
There have been several projects in recent years that I’ve been particu- larly proud to be involved with – our partnership with SmartWay to edu- cate fleets and owner/operators on fuel efficiency and GHG reduction, the start of our Newland Transport Graphic Series focusing on the chal- lenges faced by ethnic minorities working in our industry and our work with the Healthy Fleet Challenge pro- moting healthy lifestyle options, to name a few.
Moderating the Diversity panel at this year’s impressively successful Women with Drive conference was the latest and focused on a cause I want to continue championing. Why? Because for our industry to succeed in the fu- ture, it must embrace the need to have a diverse workforce.
And the largest and most obvious need when it comes to embracing a
TRUCK NEWS
April 2016
7
We can do more to attract women
Editorial Comment
JAMES MENZIES
that they wanted to drive team, they were told the mileage rate would be divided
in two. Twice the miles for the same pay. How does that math work?
Today, they’re happily driving team
for Clarke Road Transport and doing their best to promote the career to other women, whether it be by reaching out on Facebook to women considering the ca- reer or blasting the air horn when a little girl in the car next to them gives them the universal signal.
For Jennifer Duval, the path into trucking was equally difficult. She had
to surrender custody of her two young children while she pursued a career as a professional driver – a necessary sacrifice to pay the bills and become financial-
ly stable. Every mile she put in was with the intent of becoming financially secure and gaining back custody of her children. This is a goal she accomplished, and with the over-the-road experience under her belt she was then able to transition to a local driving job so she could spend more time with her kids at home.
Despite the high cost of getting into
the industry, she too is an advo-
cate for other women in trucking.
She is now a driver-trainer with
Kriska and her daughter works
there as well. I found it interest-
ing that while we hear so much
about the separation that a truck-
ing lifestyle creates, it can also
bring loved ones closer together.
In Katrina and Alison’s situation, they’re sharing each day together
on the road. For Jennifer, she now
gets to work at the same company
as her daughter, albeit in different roles.
We make it hard on women who are trying to get into this business. I believe there are many progressive companies out there that have gone to great lengths to lower the barriers to entry for women but as we heard at the conference, there are still dinosaurs among us who think of trucking as a man’s job. That needs to change. There’s still so much more we can do to promote this industry to wom- en and make it more welcoming to them.
The Women with Drive Summit, now in its second year, shines a spotlight on
this issue. It’s encouraging that atten- dance nearly doubled this year, to about 180 people.
As Lou writes below, this is an impor- tant cause to get behind, as making this industry more attractive to women is the most obvious and immediate solution to the driver shortage.
James Menzies can be reached by phone at (416) 510-6896 or by e-mail at james@new- com.ca You can also follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/JamesMenzies.
willing to unlock that value. As one of my panelists, Jennifer Laidlaw, who is in charge of diversity inclusion with CIBC advised, to unlock the value of diversity an organization’s leaders have to fight the temptation to take those differences and mold them into sameness.
Women and people from different backgrounds than what we have be- come accustomed to for several de- cades now, will bring new perspec- tives, new approaches to old problems. Company leaders will need to get comfortable with hiring people who may challenge them from the board- room to the operations room with new ways of thinking.
They have to be ready and willing to create a company culture of inclusion where new employees are encouraged to bring new ideas to the table.
It’s that kind of thinking that will drive our industry into the future.
Lou Smyrlis can be reached by phone at (416) 510-6881 or by e-mail at lou@new- com.ca You can also follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/LouSmyrlis.
Prepare for the future; embrace diversity
The view with Lou
LOU SMYRLIS
diverse workforce is to include more women at all levels of trucking organi- zations.
Consider that women account for 48% of Canada’s labour force, yet they represent just 3% of Canada’s truck drivers, technicians and cargo work- ers. They are also under-represented in other industry careers, accounting for 11% of managers, 13% of parts tech- nicians, 18% of dispatchers, and 25% of freight claims/safety and loss pre- vention specialists.
I don’t have statistics on the per- centage of senior management posi- tions in Canadian fleets held by wom- en but I’m sure it’s lower than the 29% figure for Canadian business overall. (That in itself is a pretty low bar given that women make up almost half the Canadian workforce).
In the past when I’ve raised the is- sue about the need for more women in
trucking, there have been many who reasoned the real problem was that women simply didn’t want to be in- volved with trucking.
To that I say, have we considered how welcoming we’ve made the in- dustry to women? For an industry fac- ing a demographic tsunami, how long can we afford to ignore half the labour pool?
This is important beyond just the obvious need to be drawing from the entire labour pool. Not only do we need more women in our industry, we need to welcome more women from the variety of ethnic backgrounds that make up our country.
I’m not talking about simply check- ing off boxes here. Just adding more women of different ethnic back- grounds to the payroll is not enough. Diversity on its own has limited val- ue because an organization has to be
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