“There is No Doubt We Have a Problem at Sea,” Says Maersk CEO Søren Skou, Who Opens Up For the First Time About Sexual Abuse

Via: Børsen.DK

June 23, 2022

By: Leonora Beck and Jesper Kongskov

Translated from Danish to English via Google Translate

Søren Skou has a problem. A problem with men violating women at sea. That much is clear to the top executive of A.P. Møller-Mærsk, in the wake of two women suing the shipping company and accusing the company of not doing more to stop sexual harassment on the ships. 

Subsequently, the company says it has made an effort to dig up the experiences of female seafarers on the ships, and the data speaks for itself. 

“There is no doubt that we have a problem at sea,” said Søren Skou when Børsen met him on the Esplanade. The outside world also became aware of this when cadet Hope Hicks in an anonymous blog post in September of last year told about how she, as an 18-year-old and only woman on board a Maersk ship, was subjected to sexual harassment and raped by her boss, a man over 40 years older than her. 

Last week, she went public and, along with a second woman, filed a lawsuit against Maersk. According to the complaint, the 2nd woman was sexually harassed, groped and forced to sleep in her locked bathroom with a knife in her hand because the crew was holding a master key. 

The cases of rape and sexual harassment emerge at a time when Maersk has put the finishing touches on the company's overall purpose for existing–what is also called purpose. Maersk's newly formulated purpose is that the company will “improve the lives of everyone by integrating the world.” 

This purpose applies to customers, the communities around Maersk, the shareholders, and the employees. However, in light of the recent cases of sexual abuse in Maersk, it is probably not all female seafarers in Maersk who can recognize themselves for that purpose. 

“It is by no means the company we want to be. It's a breakdown in management. The purely human in it is terrible,” says Søren Skou.

Skou says he is aware that the responsibility lies on his shoulders. And for him, it is therefore also important to have it condemned so loud and clear that it resonates down in all of his captains’ cabins. That message must seep in if Maersk is to have a chance to rectify the culture that prevails on some of the group's more than 730 container vessels, he says.

“For me to see it is a management issue. It is, of course, a management issue with me and the management here, but it is also a management issue out on the individual ship,” he says.

Should you have known something more, or should you have done something earlier to change that culture?

“Yes, you can always speculate about that. It is difficult to act if you do not know that it is happening. We have a few female captains too. Of course, we also talked to them. But if you've had an entire career, then you’re relatively robust, if I may say so. I also think there have been changes in what people accept. It may well be that a female captain my age says, “Ork, my God,” whereas a 30-year-old officer aspirant looks at it quite differently–and looks at it much more correctly.”

The question is whether Maersk and Søren Skou actually received a hint that there could be problems on the ships. In a master's project from DTU, 65 women at sea were asked whether they had experienced unwanted sexual attention. Where 37 percent answered that they had experienced it within the past year, 78 per cent answered that they had experienced it at some point in their career at sea.

In a survey conducted by Danske Rederier and WIS-Denmark in 2021, 38 per cent answered of the 180 female employees surveyed in the shipping industry that they have experienced sexism in the workplace within the past five years.

“There have been various such studies over time, and on behalf of the industry, I think one can question whether they are statistically significant for seafarers,” Skou says. “On behalf of Maersk, we have access to our own data and input directly from all our employees, which also shows that we have a problem and provides a deeper insight. That is what we base our initiatives on.” 

Maersk obtains data on employees' experiences of sexual abuse through several different surveys and employee surveys that the company has initiated. But if you look through Maersk's CSR reports, it says that the seafarers in the group were not included in Maersk's semi-annual self-evaluation against the rules of the Global Employee Relations principles until 2019, which include bullying and sexual abuse. 

Only in 2020 was “harassment” included as a complaint category. 

It seems a little late? 

“I do not know. You have to consider that. We thought we should have it back then. I do not quite remember how it went. The realities have been that we have had a hard time getting hold of the sailors because half the time they are at work and the other half they are not and then there are some of them who are not employed by us. Among other things, this is a problem with the cadets.”

After Hope Hicks anonymously told about her experiences on the ship Alliance Fairfax, Maersk has fired five employees. According to the complaint, a culture prevailed here where the crew, despite a ban on alcohol, got drunk. Several also looked through fingers with the repeated sexual harassment she was subjected to. In addition, she was ordered to log in on behalf of a number of male crew members and complete their mandatory anti-sexism course.

“Obviously we can not get into people's heads, but we can do something to create an environment where such things are just not acceptable, because it probably does not start with a rape. It probably starts with something much smaller. The problem is, after all, that it has been allowed to slip. On this ship, they have so obviously had a culture that the captain saw through his fingers that they drank. And we all know that when alcohol is inside of them, people sometimes do stupid things.”

While Søren Skou does not believe that the company with the almost 100,000 employees has a definite cultural problem with sexual abuse on land, it is something else at sea. The employees who sit with him at Maersk's head office can go to his boss's boss if there are problems. There is an ombudsman function, a whistleblower scheme and a lot of female employees to talk to. And most importantly, they have the opportunity to go home when the workday is over. 

“It is a very special situation on board a ship,” he says. “You have been discharged for a period, typically two months, and there are 20-22 people on board. They each have their own room, but they live together, and if you're in the middle of the Indian Ocean, what good is it to complain if you do not trust the captain?” 

In order to solve the problem and ensure that women can move safely on the tires, Maersk has made a number of changes. 

Firstly, the management, led by Søren Skou, has become extremely active on internal social media in condemning sexual harassment and drawing attention to the fact that you are out of the group if you offend someone.

Secondly, the company no longer sends women alone on the ships. In the future, they will be gathered in groups of three or four. 

Thirdly, Maersk is in the process of talking to all 350 female seafarers, in an attempt to uncover how extensive the problem is, where it is, who the sharp vessels are and whether the women are aware of their opportunities to shout. 

Fourth, Maersk has commissioned a company to conduct an inclusion survey among all employees globally. A semi-annual engagement survey is also used to identify where there are problems in the organization.
Fifth, the group is in the process of putting all captains and chief engineers on a course on how to create and maintain a good culture and environment on a ship. 

Sixth, a dedicated team at Maersk is now working to ensure that sexual abuse is a thing of the past. 

And seventh, in addition to the whistleblower system, Maersk is setting up a hotline where female employees at sea can apply.

Is it enough to actually create a good culture on the individual ships?

“We expect that we can quietly change the culture that way. Then there are also concrete initiatives with women, which we now have on board the individual ships, so we certainly expect that we can change the culture in that area.”

Cultural changes take a really long time. How will you work with it?

“That is why we must own the problem. By that I mean that it is the management that should own the problem. We need to do all the practical things we can. This is about how many women you have on board, it's about having some opportunities to complain and draw attention to things that are not right, in a good and easy way, so we get things to the surface. But then there is also the thing with culture. It is from the management first and foremost a question of standing up and saying in all possible forums that this is not acceptable. We cannot live with that. And also create consequences–firing people, basically.”

Several have pointed out the fear of being blacklisted or frozen out if one opens up about these cases. Is that fear justified?

“I can only say that what I say internally, and as I also say to you, is that we are happy that it has come out. If they do not, it will be harder for us as management to do anything about it.”

These are two strong American women who have come forward with lawyers behind them. What are you doing to uncover the dark numbers that may be there in the form of some women who may come from the Philippines and who may work lowest in the hierarchy, and then may not have the same courage to present themselves?

“We talk to them all. We have currently spoken to 233 out of 350 female seafarers. So interview them, reach out to them and say we would like to talk to you about this. Is it something you experience? And are you aware that there are these opportunities to complain? We reach out to them, each and every one,” he says and emphasizes that Maersk will also regularly have a chat with the women at sea in the future.

He acknowledges that cases of sexual assault and rape on board ships can make it even harder to recruit women than it already is.

“I even have a 23-year-old daughter. I want her to have the same opportunities that my two boys have to make careers. But I want even more to make sure she is not exposed to unwanted attention. If she were to choose to go to sea, then I would wish I was 100 percent sure that she can do it calmly and that nothing will happen to her. ”

Do you want to safely send your daughter out on a ship today?

“I definitely think I would. Especially after we've got this on the table, I do not think anyone is in doubt as to what our position is on it. We do not change the culture overnight, but over the last year we have been actively working on this issue, and therefore I am also sure that there is no one on board who is in doubt about what we think about it, and what we do.”