Jun 28, 2022
Danske Finds Sexual Harassment Cases Among Bankers in Survey
Bloomberg News
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(Bloomberg) -- Danske Bank A/S said it found examples of bullying and sexual harassment after conducting the first comprehensive employee survey for its entire staff.
The survey, which included replies from 13,000 of the bank’s 22,000 employees, showed that 2.7% said they had faced bullying, discrimination or harassment, while 0.7% had experienced sexual harassment during the past 12 months, Danske said on Tuesday.
Denmark’s biggest bank is working to restore its reputation among customers and its own staff in the wake of a number of scandals, including what may be Europe’s biggest money laundering case. The Copenhagen-based lender has been a pioneer in Denmark for allowing its staff to work remotely, and has offered employees as much as 8,000 kroner ($1,100) in financial aid to set up work stations at home.
The bank said the results are in line with what other, less comprehensive, surveys for the financial sector have shown in the past and are better than results in other industries. Still, Danske said that just 30% of the incidents had been reported to the bank. The lender will use the findings to map out plans to improve working conditions, especially for women and minorities.
“Even though the survey shows that employees in our organization experience relatively fewer incidents than others overall, even one incident is one too many,” Danske’s chief people officer, Karsten Breum, said in the statement.
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