Shaver: Creating leadership paths in trucking that actually work for family life

What is one bold change you’d make in trucking?

That was a question I was asked ahead of a panel discussion at Women In Trucking’s Accelerate! Conference & Expo last month, where I was to join my three fellow finalists for the Influential Woman in Trucking award. (Congrats to DeeDee Cox of Old Dominion, who won this year’s award!).

As someone who’s worked in trucking for nearly 25 years and as the mother of a three year old, my mind went directly to a topic that’s been top of mind the past few years: We as an industry need to dramatically rethink how we define access to opportunity in trucking—for women, for working parents, for young people, and for new drivers who enter our industry.

I wrote here in FleetOwner in 2022 about how we must ditch the “earn your stripes” mentality that’s so pervasive in our industry. In that time, I’ve only become more committed to that ideal and how it not only applies to incoming drivers but also to anyone who comes knocking on the door of trucking seeking a livelihood, a career with growth opportunities, and advancement into leadership positions at our companies.

Expanding opportunities for women and working parents

We often put working parents, particularly working moms, in a position where they must choose between succeeding in their careers and being present, contributing members of their families. We make it a binary decision: your career, or your family life.

It's the same for drivers, who enter our industry and are generally limited to the toughest, lowest-paying OTR jobs for one to two years before being able to pursue the multitude of other opportunities our industry offers.

Women in our industry can excel in both areas: They can be outstanding contributors to their companies and leaders in their fields while also being present mothers and family members during the most critical years of their motherhood journeys. If we truly want people to grow and thrive into future leaders, we must lead with compassion and empathy and develop ideas and resources to accommodate and support working parents. Often, leadership tracks in our industry punish parenthood, and that’s something I’ve heard so many times over the years in conversations with women (and men, too) across our industry.

Working parents are often required to move (usually multiple times) as part of an experience requirement at different locations, or to work overnight shifts or second shifts as part of leadership track requirements. This often puts them in the position of either sacrificing being present mothers or sacrificing growth in their careers.

Creating supportive paths for new drivers entering trucking

Likewise, with driving jobs, new entrants are often placed in the toughest over-the-road roles with low pay, little home time, and high attrition. We force newcomers in our industry to, as I’ve said, “earn their stripes.” This practice also prohibits people, especially women of child-raising age, from joining or staying in our industry, which perpetuates the climbing average age of drivers. If we want to build a sustainable, satisfied workforce, we need to broaden access among early-career drivers to jobs that promote longevity, understanding, and family contributions, not rites of exhaustion.

So, my questions are: What is your fleet doing to truly prepare to hire women, younger people, and working parents? How are you working to identify obstacles presented to them in terms of career development, career pathing, and leadership trajectory? How are you making space to have open conversations internally at all levels of the organization about what these paths have always looked like versus what they can and should look like in today’s environment?

Those questions are the key differentiators between the idea of “We hire women. We have opportunities for working parents,” or “We have leadership tracks at our company and are open to women pursuing them” and actually being prepared to see women, working parents, and younger people enter our industry and your organization and thrive, grow, and excel.

These things can be done. At NTI, we work regularly with fleets that are designing leadership tracks that accommodate life’s responsibilities with flexible scheduling, remote or hybrid options, and childcare support for those critical early parenting years. Like our company, they encourage parents to thrive by ensuring they are not penalized—via paycheck or otherwise—for attending their childrens’ after-school activities, appointments, field trips, games, or any other area where they want to be present in their family lives.

As I’ve written here in FleetOwner before and talked about many times on stage at events, behind the mic on SiriusXM, and in meetings at fleet offices, thereis no one answer. The answers will look different at every fleet, for every situation, for every one of your people.

But that doesn’t mean the questions—and the answers—of how we can make these ideals a reality should be blanketed by one-size-fits-all policies and rigidity that are disconnected from our people’s lived experiences, and from empathy and support for all of the ways they’re trying to thrive in their careers and their family life.