Swedish technology news site Break it is reporting some sad news from the Swedish publishing house Paradox. A leaked document, created by the Unionen and Sveriges unions, suggests a discriminatory job at Paradox, where nearly half of employees report experiencing “abusive / incorrect treatment.”
The survey, conducted by Swedish unions, spoke to 133 of the company’s 400 employees and alleges that 44% said they had experienced some form of “abuse”. Of those surveyed, 26 percent were women, where the statistics are much worse: 69 percent said they had experienced “abusive treatment,” according to the report.
Break it he goes on to say, translated by Google Translate, that the leaked results of the survey claim a “culture of silence” in the company, with “almost no one having experienced abusive treatment” feeling that the problems were resolved satisfactorily.
All this comes a few days later the surprise resignation of the CEO of Paradox, Ebba Ljungerud, though new (and former) CEO Fredrik Wester denied there was any connection between the survey results and his decision to leave. However, he saw the report before leaving, according to Break it, and seconds The brief statement of Paradox on leaving, it was due to “divergent views on the company’s strategy in the future.”
Break it continues to report that Paradox is responding to the news by conducting its own internal survey. The site says an email to the entire company told staff that the company is “now in the process of hiring an external, neutral company to do a thorough review of our process and a full employee survey.” Loïc Fontaine, communications manager for Paradox, told staff they would combine the results with the union survey and that they are “ready to take action.”
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We contacted Paradox to find out how they intend to respond to this survey, beyond conducting another one. We will update in case they contact us again.
[Update: 10.34] The paradox has come back to us with a statement. They say,
“The results are obviously very worrying. The management team wants to make sure that this data is acted upon, but taking immediate and direct action is legally difficult thanks to the informal nature of the survey (which does not mean that it is being ruled out in any way).
“As has been said in Break it, we decided last week that an independent company would audit our processes to report and manage cases of discrimination and harassment. We will also have them do a full survey to provide us with clearly defined and actionable data that we can use to make impactful changes.
“At the moment, we are in the process of hiring an independent and neutral company that specializes in this process; beyond that, I have no more details that I can offer right now. Thank you for contacting me. “