Progress in gender equality in supply chain has stalled. CSCOs need to step up.

Here at boom! Global Network we get excited when the annual Gartner/AWESOME Women in Supply Chain survey results are released. There’s very little data out there recording year-on-year how the supply chain profession is progressing in terms of women’s representation, so we look forward to seeing what’s changed in the last twelve months.?

?The headline results were shared earlier this week in a webinar stoically titled ‘Holding the Line’, which is now available on demand here along with a deck of slides with the key stats. The full report will be released soon. ?

Taking in the 2024 trends, I find that my excitement has been misplaced – there’s a little bit of good news and whole lot of, well, pretty depressing news. We’ll start with the good news: there has been an increase of approximately 5% in the number of women working in ‘frontline roles’ (roles where you can only do your job on-site e.g., manufacturing, warehouses, truck drivers) across all levels of the hierarchy. The number of women in manager, senior manager and director levels have also all increased by 1% in the last year.??

That’s it. That’s your good news.?

Now for the bad news.??

In the past I have looked at the data in the Gartner/AWESOME Women in Supply Chain reports and said that women’s representation in our profession is increasing but at a glacial pace. This year set a new low.?

• The overall number of women working in supply chain has decreased by 1%. This may seem like a small amount until you know that the number has increased by only 1-2% since this survey started in 2016 (ignoring the Covid blip in 2021-2022).?

• The number of women at VP level has plateaued.?

• The number of women of underrepresented races and ethnicities has plateaued.?

• The number of respondents reporting an improvement in diversity, equity and inclusion at leadership level has decreased by 3% overall.?

• The number of companies which have no plan to close the pay gap has increased by 6%.?

• The number of companies which publicly set targets to close the pay gap has decreased by 6%.?

Why??

The results point to the following:?

• A?5% decrease in the number of companies with gender equality initiatives.?

• A 3% increase in companies that have gender equality initiatives, but they are NOT owned by supply chain.?

• A 3% decrease in companies where there are no goals or accountability within supply chain. ?

In other words, fewer companies are working at increasing female representation in supply chain and those that are, responsibility does not sit within supply chain.?

It’s useful to overlay these results with the fact that 70% of the report’s respondents are from North America, and that the USA is currently experiencing a backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives. In June 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action college admission initiatives aimed at addressing racial inequalities are no longer lawful. These policies had been in place since the 1960s and were introduced as a result of the US civil rights movement. Elon Musk, the Governor of Texas, a billionaire investor and others all jumped on the bandwagon and labelled DE&I initiatives ‘racist’, throwing a stone into a pond that has not surprisingly created significant?ripple effects.

Don’t think that this backlash is limited to the USA; it’s happening in Europe too.?

So what can we do??

We know that women and minority groups face greater barriers in the workplace (and in all other areas of society) and that DE&I initiatives help bring down those barriers. CSCOs need to step up and own their DE&I metrics and take responsibility for increasing the diversity of their teams because it’s the right thing to do and because of the myriad of benefits it brings to their business. We also can’t assume that someone else will fix this disturbing and misguided backlash against DE&I initiatives. Hold your senior leadership to account and ask what they’re doing to address the findings of this report. Because when you do #EveryoneWins?

This edition of the Supply Chain 50/50 newsletter was written by Melanie Salter, Director of Supply Chain Research at boom! Global Network.