Good health and well-being

As a caring company, we take our responsibility for the health and wellbeing of everyone who comes on board our vessels, enters our ports or terminals, and visits our offices very seriously. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our people went the extra mile to keep our vessels sailing safely. Good health and well-being are also about protecting everyone’s right to be who they are, without limits.

2021 saw a change in the way we approach good health and well-being. To help us focus on specific targets and measure our progress more accurately, we now treat the area as two different but related concepts. Good health is defined using two dimensions: physical and mental, and our definition of well-being is ‘a state of feeling good, happy and content’. Together, these definitions help us support our people to be the best versions of themselves, in work and in life.

Annual initiatives in collaboration with our unions, on the two dimensions of health: physical and mental.
Investigate and support relevant Group-wide health packages.
Offer flexible working opportunities for all our people, depending on role and responsibilities.
Raise Stena Pulse (employee survey) targets for stress, respect and motivation by 8% by the end of 2026.
Reduce overall Group sick leave to below 4% by the end of 2026.
Reduce lost-time injury frequency (LTIF) to below 1.0, which measures time away from work due to work-related injury per million hours worked (seagoing employees).

We completed our new Stena Pulse employee
survey in 2021.
Nearly all employee indicators are above benchmark, namely for engagement, team efficiency, leadership, organisational and social work environment (benchmark based on multiple companies and total of 600,000 surveys).
Additionally, we received a positive eNPS (employee net promoter score) of 9 points on a scale of -100 (detractors only) to +100 (promoters only). This means that, overall, our employees would tend to recommend Stena Line as an attractive workplace.
In 2021, our sick leave average (sea and shore) was reduced from 5.2% in 2020, to 4.2% in 2021, getting us closer to our 4% target by 2026.
We take safety seriously and we follow the LTIF closely. In 2022, we have an increased focus on safety, with new recruitments in health, safety, environment and quality to address causes and prevent future occurrences.

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Sick Leave 4,2%

In 2021, our sick leave average (sea and shore) was reduced from 5.2% in 2020, to 4.2% in 2021, getting us closer to our 4% target by 2026.

Employee survey

We completed our new Stena Pulse employee survey in 2021.

Safety first

Back in 2017, we put together our onboard infectious disease manual. This meant that, when the pandemic hit, we were one step ahead when it came to protecting our passengers and crew.

We swiftly introduced a range of procedures, and we kept on updating them as things changed. With different regulations in different nations at different times, it was a job to stay on top of them. But we did.

’I am very proud of our colleagues’ commitment to keeping passengers and each other safe. They have been very flexible and careful in implementing procedures,’ said Jörgen Lorén, Safety and Security Manager at Stena Line.

As the world now exits the pandemic, many of our safety protocols are staying in place. We’ll carry on disinfecting cabins with a fogging machine at the end of each sailing, and cleaning high-traffic passenger and crew areas several times a day. And because some of our crew come face to face with hundreds of people every day, they’ll still be protected with safety screens and shields.

The solution we’ve been looking for

Most people know that salty water is a natural disinfectant. But at Stena Line we’re taking it one step further. New generators on board our vessels use electrolysis to turn salt and water into an electrochemically activated solution.

The solution kills up to 99.99% of all viruses, bacteria and fungi, without exposing our people or passengers to harmful chemicals. And because we make the solution on board, we eliminate the need for plastic bottles and transportation of cleaning products, helping to further reduce CO2 emissions.

Norris McLean, Regional Onboard Service Manager for Irish Sea
North, says: ’We’ve replaced five products with a solution that’s better for the environment, our people and our bottom line.’

Keeping teams healthy and happy… the holistic way!

Every year, we survey our employees to identify how they feel about working at Stena Line and ways we can improve their well-being. The response in 2021 was positive: most would recommend Stena Line as a place to work. But there is always more we can do. In 2021, we identified stress and respect as two areas to focus on, and we’re already working to improve things.

Flexible working

We trialled flexible working for office employees: not only to help them work more productively and in ways suited to their personal circumstances, but also to reinforce the trust and value we have in all our team members. We are now evaluating this and exploring ways to extend it into other business areas.

Digital tools

We are rolling out Quinyx, a digital tool that gives our people more independence over their work schedules, while reducing the stress and hassle of admin tasks.

Setting a new bar for sick leave

We care about keeping our people healthy, and encourage everyone to take time off when they don’t feel well. We also want to keep sick leave as low as possible, a goal we hope to reinforce by nurturing a workplace culture where everyone feels empowered to get the support they need to look after their health.

Of course, during the pandemic, our target to reduce employee illness became more of a challenge. As we move forward, we hope to see continued improvements in our colleagues’ health and well-being.