Almost half of Paradox employees experience “abuse”

Swedish tech news site Break it report some grim news from the Swedish publisher Paradox. A leaked document, created by the unions Unionen and Sveriges, suggests a discriminatory workplace in Paradox, where nearly half of the employees say they have suffered “abuse / improper treatment”.

The survey, carried out by Swedish unions, reached 133 of the company’s 400 employees and says 44 percent said they had suffered some form of “abuse”. Of those polled, 26 percent were women, where the statistics are much worse: there 69 percent said they had “suffered abuse,” according to the report.

Break it goes on to say – translated by Google Translate – the leaked poll results affirm a “culture of silence” in the company, with “hardly anyone who has suffered abuse” believing that the issues have been satisfactorily resolved.

It all comes a few days later the surprise resignation of the CEO of Paradox, Ebba Ljungerud, although new (and former) CEO Fredrik Wester denied that there was any connection between the results of the investigation and his decision to go. She saw the report before she left, however, according to Break it, and according to Paradox’s very brief statement when he left, went due to “divergent views on the company’s strategy for the future”.

Break it goes on to report that Paradox is responding to the news by conducting its own internal investigation. The site says that a company-wide email informed staff that the company was “in the process of bringing in an external, neutral company to conduct a thorough review of our process and an investigation. complete with employees “. Paradox communications manager Loïc Fontaine told staff they would combine the results of this survey with the union survey and are “ready to act”.

We reached out to Paradox to find out how they intend to respond to this survey, beyond just carrying out another one. We will update if they come back to us.

[Update: 10.34] Paradox responded to us with a statement. They say,

“Obviously, the results of this investigation are of deep concern. The management team wants to make sure that this data is taken into account, but taking immediate and direct action is legally difficult due to the informal nature of the investigation (which is not to say that it is dismissed from the outset). ‘straight away by all means).

“As stated at Break it, we decided last week to hire an independent company to audit our processes for reporting and handling cases of discrimination and harassment. We’ll also ask them to conduct a full investigation to provide us with clearly defined and actionable data that we can use to make impactful changes.

“At this point, we are in the process of hiring an independent, neutral company that specializes in this process; beyond that, I don’t have more details I can offer at the moment. I appreciate you reaching out.