SOCIAL
Eimskip recognizes its responsibility to work in partnership with the communities in which it operates. This partnership connects all stakeholders, employees, customers, shareholders, and society with the Company’s values of achievement, cooperation, and always trust in mind. These values serve as guiding principles for the Company and shape the Company’s culture and actions, both internally and externally.
OUR EMPLOYEES
Eimskip employs about 1,700 people across four continents and 20 countries. The employee group is diverse, with varied backgrounds and perspectives, bringing a wide range of talents, ideas, and views to the table that inspire creativity and innovation in the workplace. The Company is dedicated to maintaining a workplace culture characterized by dynamic communication, information sharing, and diverse development opportunities, fostering a sense of belonging, loyalty, and high employee engagement.
Aligned with its values of achievement, cooperation, and trust, Eimskip maintains comprehensive employee rights and welfare policies that reflect its dedication to human rights. These policies, including the Employee Code of Conduct, Human Resource Policy, Salary Policy, Equal Opportunities Policy, Policy Against Bullying and Harassment, Health Policy, and Occupational Safety and Security Policy, apply to all employees across Eimskip and its subsidiaries.
Eimskip monitors different drivers of employee satisfaction through an annual engagement survey. The survey serves as a comprehensive assessment tool for measuring engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty – key performance indicators (KPI’s) for Eimskip. By measuring and analyzing these metrics, the Company continuously strives to enhance the employee experience and foster an inclusive environment that facilitates collaboration, employee wellbeing, innovation, positivity, and growth.
In the 2023 survey, the overall engagement and satisfaction improved compared to 2022, with scores surpassing the True benchmark® set for international companies in similar sectors. The results are in line with previous trends, where the scores continue to improve year over year. The positive outcomes can be directly linked to the Company’s dedication to enhance employee wellness and foster engagement, driven by the understanding that elevated well-being translates into a better quality of life and greater employee satisfaction.
As part of its commitment to employee well-being, Eimskip offers various benefits that support the health and well-being of employees. To further promote these benefits the Company has introduced the Health and Happiness Bundle, which showcases a collection of grants, benefits, and opportunities available to employees. These concerted efforts underscore Eimskip’s dual focus on prioritizing its employees’ health and wellness while addressing employee turnover and promoting an environment that encourages employee satisfaction.
In 2023, Eimskip introduced a streamlined interview model for employee check-ins to facilitate more effective communication between managers and employees. This revamped approach aims to empower managers to better support their team’s growth by identifying opportunities for skill enhancement and professional development. Furthermore, these check-ins serve as a platform for building relationships and trust between managers and employees, creating a supportive environment where open dialogue and two-way feedback are encouraged. By providing a simplified platform for regular check-ins, Eimskip underscores its commitment to creating a culture of continuous improvement and employee growth within the organization.
Overall employee turnover was 23% in 2023, compared to 22% in 2022, particularly among crew members and warehouse employees. To further solidify its commitment to employee retention and align with the Company’s sustainability goals, Eimskip has implemented projects focused on enhancing employee wellbeing. These efforts are integral to the broader strategy of creating an employee-centered workplace that supports diversity and gender equality.
As part of the Company’s holistic approach, it leverages data analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs) through its Global HR dashboard. This enables constant monitoring of metrics such as full-time equivalents (FTEs), turnover rates, sick day trends, employee demographics, seniority distribution, and gender ratios across all organizational subgroups. This facilitates strategic decision-making for long-term organizational sustainability and success.
DIVERSITY
Eimskip’s commitment to diversity and gender equality is evident in the Company’s efforts to amplify women’s representation in leadership positions. Notably, the percentage of women in senior management has increased from 30% in 2022 to 33% in 2023. Women represent 31% of the total workforce and are up by 1 point since 2022. This upward trend reflects Eimskip’s ongoing commitment to maintaining an inclusive workplace culture that supports the growth and development of all employees. Diversity is also reflected in various types of jobs within the operation and number of nationalities, and employees come from 46 different countries.
GENDER DIVERSITY
By gender
A key driver of diversity and gender equality in Eimskip’s leadership is its Succession Planning process, which along with the Company’s Leadership program, aims to develop a diverse group of current and prospective leaders.
As a part of Eimskip’s efforts to promote gender equality and women empowerment, the CEO and male EVPs hosted Barbershop events, originally a UN Women initiative to promote gender equality. The initiative aims to engage men in promoting gender equality by creating a safe space for men to participate in gender equality conversations on topics such as positive masculinity, harmful gender stereotypes, and gender-based harassment. These discussions increase awareness about gender inequality and how it can affect individuals. It helps in breaking traditional norms and creating a more inclusive environment.
Additionally, Eimskip maintains a clear policy and a contingency plan to address instances of bullying, harassment, and discrimination. This commitment is further reinforced through comprehensive seminars conducted for all employees. These seminars cover essential topics such as identifying harmful behavior, understanding its impact, and developing strategies to prevent it, and they equip employees with the necessary knowledge and skills to create a safe and welcoming work environment while also promoting stronger relationships among colleagues.
CULTIVATING AND DEVELOPING TALENT
Eimskip believes that investing in employee development encourages individual growth and contributes to the Company’s long-term success. In line with this belief, Eimskip actively promotes a culture of continuous learning and growth, is committed to providing employees with opportunities for learning and development and offers a variety of on-site and online training programs and workshops throughout the year. Moreover, employees are supported in continuing their education and learning by attending external seminars or degree programs and obtaining professional certifications, facilitated through educational grants and scholarships provided by the company.
This commitment to continuous learning extends to Eimskip’s leadership development program, launched in 2022. The program aligns with Eimskip’s leadership model, prioritizing the development of modern skills in a dynamic business environment. The program empowers leaders with effective communication skills, adaptability, constructive feedback, and innovative thinking, fostering confidence and autonomy. Participants gain valuable insights into operations and cross-company expertise, facilitating a comprehensive approach to leadership development and equipping them with skills for new responsibilities and roles. In 2023, 30 employees successfully completed the leadership program. Overall, 105 participants from 14 countries have graduated from the program, with 53% of the participants being women. Following two years of broad leadership development 34 participants, including 20 women, have experienced career advancements. This quantifiable success underlines the effectiveness of Eimskip’s leadership initiatives.
Eimskip launched the Eimskip Academy, a digital learning platform in 2023. The Academy contributes to the Company’s efforts in building a diverse and inclusive work environment, providing equal access to learning resources and development opportunities for individuals to excel in their roles and contribute to the Company’s ongoing success.
Furthermore, Eimskip achieved a significant milestone by launching Iceland’s inaugural vessel management internship program. Notably, the program’s first participant in Iceland is a woman, highlighting Eimskip’s dedication to empowering women in traditionally male-dominated fields and in leadership roles.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Eimskip has a clear human rights policy that states everyone should enjoy equal rights. The policy is accessible on the Company’s website. Eimskip is a registered participant of the UN Global Compact, the United Nation’s initiative for social responsibility for human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. With its participation, the Company has committed to managing its business operations so that the UN Global Compact and its Ten Principles are a part of the Company’s strategy, culture, and day-to-day operations.
“Human rights touch almost every aspect of the Company’s activities, both its own workforce and workers in the value chain.”
Human rights touch every aspect of the Company’s activities, both its own workforce and workers in the value chain. Several policies support human rights matters. Human resources, human rights, equal opportunities, bullying and harassment, well-being and safety are covered through the Human Resources Policy, Code of Conduct, Supplier Code of Conduct, Anti-Money Laundering and Sanction Policy, and Whistleblower procedure.
Eimskip has taken significant steps to identify the risks to human rights in its own workforce, and the risks are monitored and mitigated as part of Eimskip’s holistic Enterprise Risk Management. Actions have also been taken towards employees in the value chain, and the Eimskip Supplier Code of Conduct and self-assessment for suppliers have been confirmed by 39% of suppliers that represent 80% of the Company’s total spend.
SAFETY AND SECURITY
The health and safety of employees is essential to Eimskip. The Company strives to offer a safe and healthy working environment and focuses on ensuring that employees protect themselves, their colleagues, external parties, goods, equipment, and the environment from harm. Eimskip has a zero-accident policy. That means that Eimskip’s goal in preventative work is to minimize any harm posed to individuals, goods, or the Company’s property.
Training programs are conducted on a regular basis to maintain high safety awareness. The training is on-site and through an online program available in Eimskip Academy – Learning Platform and Ocean Learning – Learning Platform for crew members.
In 2023, on-site training sessions or training drills were held for all target groups in Iceland, vessel employees, terminal employees, and truck drivers. The Company continued to provide training on IMDG (The International Maritime Dangerous Goods) for global offices in dangerous goods transported by sea. The IMDG training aims to strengthen existing knowledge of dangerous goods further and ensure professional and safe transport of dangerous goods in Eimskip’s transport chain. For land transport, ADR (Accord Dangereux Routier) training was conducted for truck drivers to maintain secure transport of dangerous goods. Safety Week is held each year with diverse courses for all employees to further support safety awareness.
The Company continued strengthening its cybersecurity position with a stronger partnership with key IT security partners. A newly implemented learning platform is in place to raise security awareness, and an enterprise risk management program is active.
Eimskip has a First Response Team, whose duty is to respond to various incidents on sea and land. The team aims to ensure and assist with proper first response and limit accidents to people and damages to properties, cargo, and the environment. Also, it is the team’s responsibility to respond to cyber incidents. Furthermore, the Company’s Loss Prevention Team meets regularly to investigate losses, damages, and accidents and follows up on necessary changes, training, and improvements.
CUSTOMERS
Eimskip is renowned for its excellent service. The Company has a broad customer base and provides various solutions to meet diverse requirements. A global team with local expertise provides customers with holistic services designed specifically for their needs. The Global Service Policy aims to align the service approach, goal setting, and measurements between different units within Eimskip to ensure that the Company is offering its customer base excellent customer service.
The Global Service Policy contains three pillars: Global Team, Proactive, and Simplify. Eimskip sends out a Net Promoter Score (NPS) customer survey each year to measure and monitor customer satisfaction for customers globally. Eimskip’s NPS continues to be strong at 29,2, reflecting the strong satisfaction and loyalty of its customer base.
The changes to container sailing in Eimskip will, in the first quarter of 2024, implement essential changes to container sailing to further increase the service level and reliability. The changes include improved services with shorter transit time from the UK, Monday arrivals in Reykjavík for import from Denmark and Sweden, and weekly coastal service in Iceland with increased service. Sailings on the North America route are simplified and support the fresh fish services. Also, there is increased service from northern and western Norway to the Faroe Islands and to North America and a direct connection provided from the Faroe Islands to Germany.
The digitalization and automation of processes are key elements in the continued development of Eimskip’s services. The Company continues to adapt to customers’ needs in a fast-changing technical environment where self-service elements are increasingly important. A strong focus on information technology and potential synergies between systems and teams plays a vital role in Eimskip’s proactive commitment to service excellence.
Eimskip continues to invest in technology platforms to support customer service strategically better. This includes a Microsoft Customer Engagement solution, new liner and forwarding operation systems, container management system, global financial reporting, planning platform, and more.
SUPPORTING OUR SOCIETY
As a company, Eimskip wants to contribute to a better and safer society wherever it operates, and responsibility towards the community is an integral part of the sustainability policy.
The Company supports various projects, charities, sports activities, culture, innovation, and projects centered on preventive measures. The Company is very proud of the bicycle helmet project, which began in 2004. Ever since, Eimskip, in cooperation with Kiwanis, has given all six-year-old children in Iceland bicycle helmets and safety reflectors to contribute to youth safety. Around 80,000 children have received a helmet.
Eimskip and Landsbjörg (Icelandic association for search, rescue & injury prevention) signed a cooperation agreement making Eimskip one of Landsbjörg’s main sponsors. Eimskip is very proud to take part in Landsbjörg’s critical association, and through the years, the Company has often relied on their service and therefore knows firsthand the importance of their work. The agreement focuses on supporting rescue work and prevention at sea and on land, as Eimskip places great emphasis on safety and prevention in its daily activities. Eimskip and Landsbjörg held a family event at Sundahöfn to encourage increased usage of helmets. Many cheerful kids and their families came to the event where they, for example, tried on helmets and learned how to adjust them correctly. Eimskip also supported transportation of the rescue ship “Sigurvin” to its destination in Siglufjördur, a small town in the north of Iceland.
Eimskip Denmark has for the last 7 years cooperated with the Youth Center, a part of the job center in Aarhus municipality by offering internships to young people who have been on the margins of the labor market. The target group comprises activity-ready young people who are furthest away from the labor market. The interns get a job in Eimskip’s warehouse in Denmark where they have their mentors and follow an individual career plan. With the partnership with Aarhus municipality, Eimskip supports the important personal development of these young people in this untraditional program.
