The analysts at Gartner last week release the results of its eighth annual Women in Supply Chain Survey, with the headline news that the share of women holding Chief Supply Chain Officers or equivalent roles rose to 26%, versus 22% in the 2022 survey numbers, and just 14% in 2018.
The survey conducted from February to March of 2023 was completed by 225 supply chain leaders. Gartner partnered on the survey with AWESOME, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization focused on advancing women’s supply chain leadership and boom!, a U.K.-based global community formed to support and link women in the supply chain profession.
The survey also showed that women now make up 41% of the supply chain workforce, up from 39% in 2022. However, frontline representation continues to lag, with women filling just 31% of those roles.
The chart below from Gartner shows the trends of women in supply chain by various types of roles.
“It’s particularly encouraging to see women make gains at the senior executive level, as we know that when a woman holds the top supply chain position this has a positive correlation with more women in leadership and in all roles through that organization,” said Caroline Chumakov, Director Analyst in the Gartner Supply Chain Practice.
Gartner also notes that in increase in corporate goals around gender equality since 2020, as well as growth in the number of supply chain-owned initiatives, are clearly having a measurably positive impact on women in supply chain.
Source: Garter
The Gartner data would seem to indicate a “virtuous cycle” is possible as more women reach top leadership roles in their supply chain organizations, with a clear finding this year that a woman in the senior-most role leads to more women in leadership and all roles within the organization.
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Gartner adds that CSCOs routinely report challenges with attrition broadly for female frontline roles (on the floor) in manufacturing and logistics, particularly when compared to roles at desk-based jobs. The ability to attract more women to frontline roles - and especially in leadership roles in the physical operations ranks - could form a material competitive advantage over those who are unable to do so.
Gartner’s research found that providing flexibility was the most effective initiative in attracting and retaining women to frontline roles, significantly outperforming other areas such as benefits, employee engagement programs and even a focus on pay equity.
Currently 41% of supply chain leaders have implemented an initiative dedicated to workplace flexibility at their organizations.
SCDigest suspects the share of female representation, especially at the executive level, is probably overstated in the Gartner data/
Why? Because women belonging to organizations such as AWESOME, to whom the survey was promoted, are more likely than non-members to be senior leaders. Also, companies with low levels of female representation in supply chain were probably less likely to take the survey than companies with strong results.
But while the numbers in absolute terms may be high, SCDigest suspects the growth trends are in fact very real.
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