Big plans for the 2020 Women in Trucking conference

The 2020 Women in Trucking Accelerate! Conference and Expo will, for the first time ever, be a virtual event.

On Nov. 12, Women in Trucking’s Accelerate! Conference & Expo will feature more than 40 educational sessions across five educational tracks including leadership, professional development, human resources and talent management, operations, and sales and marketing.

Elaine Chao, U.S. secretary of transportation, is scheduled to give the expo keynote address.

Expo session topics:

• Futurenomics: An Economic Snapshot & What to Do Next.
• Awake Leadership: Lead with a Balance of Clarity and Creativity.
• A Strengths-Based Workplace Approach to Building Resiliency in the Age of COVID.
• Women Elevating Women.
• Mixed Up On Misclassifications Where ABCs Are Not So Elementary.
• Electric Trucks Enabling Driver Diversity.
• Owning Your Power to Transform Yourself, Your Community, and Your Industry.
• Inclusive Leadership: How to Mitigate Unconscious Bias.
• Top Women To Watch: Successful Careers through Productivity and Performance.
• Taking Transportation Forward: The WIT Diversity and Inclusion Index
• Unlocking New Business as a Diverse Supplier.
• Anticipating the Hazards Ahead: Onboarding and Recordkeeping Best Practices for Employee Driver and Owner-Operator Fleets.
• Voice of the Professional Driver: Challenges on the Road.
• Creating a Culture that Embraces Gender Diversity.
• Cargo Theft Trends, Methods and Prevention.
• Drive to Engagement: The Road We’ve Taken.
• Change Redefined: Strategies To Turn Uncertainty To Competitive Advantage.

WIT members and nonmembers can learn more about the conference and register here.

Diversity & Inclusion Index 

In a recent news release, Debbie Sparks, WIT’s vice president, announced the launch of a new program to collect and share best practices in diversity and inclusivity across the industry. Sparks, along with a task force of WIT members from both fleets and industry suppliers, report working for months to develop the Diversity & Inclusion Index.

The program will collect details from participating fleets about diversity and inclusivity efforts across the entire fleet, from management desk to driver. Company representative interviews and anonymous employee surveys will be used to capture feedback on the overall effectiveness of the effort.

The program will be discussed during the session titled “Taking Transportation Forward: The WIT Diversity and Inclusion Index.”

The new program is intended to promote and share what carriers are doing to support and expand the needs of our evolving workforce. This session will identify gaps in the status quo, and explain how the Index will help to identify best practices to help other organizations improve decision making and encourage creativity and innovation.

The first edition of the D&I Index is scheduled to open for applications in March, with results unveiled in fall 2021 at future Accelerate! sessions. LL