Diversity, equity and inclusion

We launched our new People strategy at the beginning of 2022 with diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) at its core. The goal was to create an inclusive workplace with diverse teams across all career levels and many dimensions including diversity of thought, culture, and gender - among others. Measuring our near and long-term DE&I progress is a key part of this approach, so we can understand our performance and address any gaps.

Across every area of our business, from employee engagement to performance and talent reviews, we monitor gender and nationality statistics to ensure we keep a sharp focus on maintaining a diverse and equitable workforce. What’s more, we embed clear inclusivity standards into our Leadership development programmes. This enables us to lead with care and empathy and provides our leaders with the tools to drive our DE&I agenda.

As a result, our leaders take full responsibility for the People Strategy’s DE&I agenda. They continue to set the highest standards for DE&I and champion its importance in our organisation’s culture.

Global inclusion survey

As an outcome of the first edition of the 2021 Inclusion Survey and to support a Human Rights assessment that prioritised action to mitigate any harassment at work, we launched a global Anti-Discrimination, Harassment and Bullying Policy followed by mandatory training to strengthen A.P. Moller - Maersk’s (Maersk) commitment to a Zero Tolerance Code of Conduct.

The survey also revealed the importance of equity in our DE&I agenda and how it can be affected by internal procedures. This insight is being used to drive equity awareness in our leadership training and process changes to ensure that all employees have fair access to opportunities, fair treatment and fair decision outcomes.

Progress on gender diversity in leadership

We worked towards our women in management and leadership target in 2022 by strengthening the pipeline of women leaders and engaging women earlier in their careers. This includes dedicated programmes for all levels of seniority to provide the skills, tools and techniques to maximise the potential of our underrepresented talent pool. Our programmes provide women with opportunities to develop key leadership skills in a unique environment that supports networking and builds career paths. In 2022, around 800 women employees participated in these programmes.

Acting on retention and improving transparency

One of the ways we aim to proactively address employee retention is by ensuring our values and DE&I commitments are transparent to all. In 2022, we also revamped our career site with the goal of sharing credible data and DE&I actions.

Attracting a more gender-balanced workforce at sea is a key focus for improving diversity, equity and inclusion.

Addressing attraction challenges

As Maersk continues to grow, it is important that our employee diversity grows with us as part of our journey to become the global integrator of container logistics. Our goal is a workplace where everybody can thrive and bring their best selves to work, regardless of gender, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.

This means that we proactively address attraction challenges that stem from male-dominated working environments in new activities like warehousing and trucking. We are working on creating toolkits and programmes to equip our leaders to integrate DE&I throughout our People processes, from hiring, onboarding to career development. Attracting female seafarers is a particular challenge, and building a more gender-balanced workforce at sea is a key focus to unlock an even broader talent pool and help retain our employees. We are working to improve gender diversity among our seafarers by taking part in dedicated maritime organisation events aimed at attracting more women. We are also building equity into our recruitment and retention efforts through a series of projects that include seafarer Pride, Personal Protective Equipment in women’s sizes, and vessel design improvements such as dedicated female crew accommodations.

In markets like India, where female Indian seafarers at Maersk make up just 0.5% of the workforce, we launched the ‘Equal at Sea’ campaign which aims to achieve equal gender participation in its cadet pool in India by 2027. Maersk will work towards this ambitious goal through awareness sessions in schools and local NGO support programmes. This includes the launch of a Maersk Women Cadet Program in collaboration with AMET University, Chennai, which will provide skill training and a psychologically and physically safe environment with maternity benefits and ‘speak-up’ channels.

Direct action on harrassment at sea

Creating the right environments on our vessels to attract and retain female seafarers, and all colleagues at sea, requires a culture of zero tolerance for discrimination, assault, harassment or bullying of any kind. We continue to commit ourselves to eliminating sexual assault and harassment – including cases which came to light in 2022. By increasing awareness through ‘speak-up’ campaigns and allyship, we have created increased openness related to harassment issues throughout Maersk. This has allowed us to take the necessary actions to improve our approach to dealing with workplace harassment, together with new training, reporting and accountability, with zero tolerance for inappropriate behaviour.

During 2022, Maersk settled two sexual assault and harassment cases involving cadets on a US-flagged Maersk Line, Limited vessel. Over the past year, we have significantly ramped up our efforts and initiated a cultural transformation programme to support a speak up culture and ensure a safe work environment in our global fleet, but we are aware the work here has just begun.

In addition to these common measures, in the US specifically we are working across the ecosystem with labour unions, the Maritime Administration, maritime academies and the US Coast Guard. More needs to be done to prevent sexual assault and harassment in our industry. Maersk is fully committed to being part of the solution and welcomes all industry partners to work together on this critical issue.

Leveraging employee reference networks

Internally, we have several affinity groups dedicated to different DE&I areas, like the Maersk Inclusion for Excellence networks, Pride@Maersk, and Maersk Power Women’s Network. Beyond employee connections, these groups work as brand ambassadors and sounding boards, providing input and feedback on DE&I topics and initiatives to help us understand what we are doing well and how we can continue improving.

These groups have created strong momentum through awareness campaigns like International Women’s Day, Summer of Pride, Mental Health Month, and International Day of Persons with Disabilities. They also create opportunities to partner with our customers on activities based on our shared values.