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Why Women CXOs in Supply Chain Are So Few?

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Increasing the number of women in leadership positions in companies improves profitability. Men and women work in different ways, bringing different strengths to the table, so it is obvious that gender diversity would mean better business decisions. However the supply chain sector is still struggling to attract, retain and recognize female talent. A new study by Gartner shows women comprise to 41% of the supply chain workforce in 2021, that’s a moderate rise from 39% in 2020, but concerns persist around declining representation in executive leadership.
In 2021, women account for 15% of executive level roles, down from 17% in 2020, says the Women in Supply Chain Survey 2021 which Gartner conducted jointly with Awesome, and  surveyed 223 supply chain organizations from February through March 2021. The findings showed the highest percentage of women in the supply chain workforce since the first edition of the survey in 2016.
“Contrary to other industries, supply chain’s mission-criticality during the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that many sectors did not reduce their workforce, but rather continued to hire and even faced talent shortages, especially in the product supply chains,” said Dana Stiffler, vice president analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice.”This resulted in many women not only standing their ground in supply chain organizations but increasing their representation in organizations. We also recorded a record number of specific commitments and supply chain-led actions and saw existing programs starting to pay off.”
Women in Supply Chain Leadership Roles

Source: Gartner (June 2021)

Retaining Mid-career Women Poses Biggest Challenge 
The pandemic does not appear to have disrupted supply chain gender equality efforts, according to the survey. Eighty-four percent of responding organizations stated that COVID-19 had no discernible impact on their ability to retain and advance women.However, 54% of survey respondents said that retaining mid-career women is an increasing challenge. Lack of career opportunities is the top reason that midcareer women left a supply chain organization or provider.
The second-most selected option was development opportunities.”Supply chain leaders who are serious about their gender equality efforts must create tailored leadership development programs and explore flexible work policies that cater to the needs of mid-career women,” Stiffler said.
More Organizations Are Setting Goals for Gender Diversity and Start InitiativesPrevious years have shown that setting goals and having stated objectives are crucial drivers for improvements in pipelines and other DEI outcomes. In 2021, the proportion of supply chain organizations with any type of goal jumped to 73% from 64% in 2020. Within the subset of respondents (29%) who have stated objectives, 68% said the supply chain organization had a targeted initiative focused on women, a huge step up from 46% in 2020.”It’s encouraging to see that the larger share of this jump was for more formal targets and specific goals on management scorecards. For these respondents, there is greater accountability for results — and we see the correlation with stronger representation and inclusion showing up in pipelines,” Stiffler concluded.
Tags :GartnerGender Diversityhpbsupply-chainwomen executives
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