SIA Shares Industry Benchmarks and Practices

Mountain View, California – October 12, 2021 – Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), the global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions, has published a new report on Women in Leadership in the US  Staffing Industry: Benchmarks and recommended practices for better business. The report provides insights into the representation of women in leadership at staffing companies, in particular at the executive, CEO, and board levels. It highlights data from an extensive study led by the Women Business Collaborative (WBC) Staffing Council, with a detailed analysis provided by SIA. In addition, the report presents data from recent SIA-led research and outlines specific strategies and initiatives for advancing women in the staffing industry, along with successful practices currently in use by a range of private and public staffing firms.

Key findings shared in the report indicate that women are underrepresented in staffing leadership, especially women of color, with women of color within US staffing firms accounting for only 5% of executives and 5% of board members on average despite accounting for 36% of the entire US employed workforce. While recently enacted state laws to increase representation along with trends in the investor community, like the NASDAQ’s diversity requirements, may help to increase board-level representation, the report shows the at-large gaps in the US staffing industry, and presents initiatives and best practices that can help firms to advance women as leaders and build more diverse, better performing organizations.

“This comprehensive look at female leadership in staffing and recruitment, along with the Nine Action Initiatives identified by the WBC as accelerators to change, gives the staffing industry a more robust way to track progress and drive accountability,” said Barbara Bruno, chair of the WBC Staffing Leadership Council and President, HR Search Inc. “The collaborative and committed approach to this research is integral to bringing forward diversity, equity and inclusion in our organizations, for women professionals, and in the involved and informed conversations that we all need to have.”

“For the first time, the staffing industry has access to aggregated data that provides a fuller picture of where the industry is making progress in elevating women, and where it is falling short. The data and findings consider gender diversity across industry segments and how an organization’s size may correlate to representation of women at executive and board level,” said Ursula Williams, COO at SIA and member of the WBC Staffing Leadership Council. “In looking at real-time attitudes and prevailing trends, this report puts a critical analysis into the industry’s collective consciousness and amplifies the call to action for industry-wide awareness. With metrics and insights from this report, we can more definitively address and advocate for representation in more areas of our business, as well as provide future comparisons.”

The full Women in Leadership in the US Staffing Industry report is available as complimentary research from SIA.

About Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA)

SIA is the Global Advisor on Staffing and Workforce Solutions
Elevating the Workforce Solutions Ecosystem
Founded in 1989, SIA is the global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions. Our proprietary research covers all categories of employed and non-employed work including temporary staffing, independent contracting and other types of contingent labor. SIA’s independent and objective analysis provides insights into the services and suppliers operating in the workforce solutions ecosystem including staffing firms, managed service providers, recruitment process outsourcers, payrolling/compliance firms and talent acquisition technology specialists such as vendor management systems, online staffing platforms, crowdsourcing and online work services. We also provide training and accreditation with our unique Certified Contingent Workforce Professional (CCWP) program.

Known for our award-winning content, data, support tools, publications, executive conferences and events, we help both suppliers and buyers of workforce solutions make better-informed decisions that improve business results and minimize risk. As a division of the international business media company, Crain Communications Inc., SIA is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in London, England.