National Women’s History Month has been a time for us at Advantage to celebrate the accomplishments of women in this country and around the world. It’s also been a time to reflect on the role of women in our corporate culture, applaud their accomplishments, look to the future, and build on a strong and growing foundation.
Our senior leadership has made promoting women into leadership positions a priority. Several team members have been promoted over the past five years to senior posts. We’ve developed a mentorship program, and, as has always been the case, we have an excellent leadership training program.
Today, we have women in key leadership roles, and overall 65 percent of our team members are women. Women direct our Sales, Operations, Marketing, Finance and Service and Support roles.
While we are proud to have made these moves, there is still much room for improvement in the business world and sciences in general, and especially in the automotive industry. Today, women account for 47.7 percent of global workforce, yet for the past 20 years, the number women software engineers has increase just 2 percent. Some 42 percent of women in the workforce claim they have been discriminated at work because of their gender, and an astonishing 72 percent of women report that work-life balance causes them conflicts.
The automotive retail and related industries have traditionally been male dominated, but over the past 20 years there has been progress. Attending conferences, expositions, online meetings, and more, one can easily see a shift, though small, to having more women in the room, and more women sharing their expertise as leaders in their fields.
Still as late as 2020, women held just 26.1 percent of jobs in the motor vehicle and motor vehicle equipment manufacturing industry. In the U.S., women represent just 21.1 percent of automobile dealers and 9.0 percent of automotive repair and maintenance employees.
While there’s a long way to go, we at Advantage are committed to having a diverse, strong, and powerful team. Advantage, of course, is a sales-driven organization, and we’re proud that women hold sales leadership roles here. We’d like to thank all of our team members for their dedication and hard work, and creating success. We’re proud supporters of Women in Automotive organizations, and we look forward to seeing more women in leadership roles in our industry.
