Recruitment Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Proving Your Value in Recruitment – Key Recruitment and Staffing Metrics for Recruitment Strategies

Do your employers know how much value you provide to them? Do they know how much more value your staffing services offer over your competitors? How do they know for sure the strategic value that your company provides?

Measuring the impacts to your efforts to your employer’s bottom-line is one of the most credible ways for recruitment professionals to gain respect as true strategic business partners. Quantifying your value demonstrates your strategic value especially at the executive level where important decisions are made. Also accurate and consistent measurement allows you to set goals, chart your progress, and improve your processes to achieve better results. Despite all the strategic benefits of measuring your recruitment value, many recruitment professionals do not engage in these important activities. There are many key measurements related to recruitment. We will focus on a few major measurements that can help you demonstrate your value as a staffing agency to your employers.

The message that you want to communicate to your employers with these measurements is that you help them find quality candidates, quickly and in a cost-effective manner. The goal is to show the employer that you can provide a better staffing service than your competitors and maybe even better than the employer themselves. While this may appear daunting, here are a few simple measurements that can help support your case:

Quality of hire

In today’s war for talent, it is important for you to show the employer that you not only put bodies in seats but that you place quality candidates in their organization. The quality of hire is one of simplest measurements to demonstrate the quality of your candidates. This measurement can be obtained from surveys, screening ratios and acceptance rates..

Screening ratios can indicate the quality of the candidates you send to the hiring manager. This ratio can be determined by looking at the number interviews granted per application sent. The goal is to prove that you provide better candidates based on the num

The offer and acceptance rates can also be telling of quality. The purpose of this metric is to show the quality of your candidates based on the number of job offers or acceptances per number of applications or job interviews completed. For example, suppose the employer interviewed 10 of your candidates and from this, the employer made 6 job offers. In this case, your offer rate is 60%. Now suppose without your help, using the same definition above, the employer’s offer rate is 20%. You now have a compelling evidence to support the assertion that your employer receives better candidates with your help. Using offer and acceptance rates is a simple way to demonstrate the quality of your candidates to your client.

A typical quality of hire survey will ask the hiring manager key questions pertaining to their new hire. These questions can relate to your candidate’s work quality, processes, and so on. The most important question in this type of survey would be to assess the hiring manager’s overall satisfaction with this hiring decision. An example of a possible question would include “would you re-hire the candidate again?”. Today there are many online surveying tools that can make this very cost-effective to implement.

The purpose of the above quality of hire metrics is to provide your employer a tangible metric to prove that you provide quality candidates. In developing these metrics, it would be ideal if you could align your measurement to your client’s to facilitate an easy comparison and benchmark. The goal is to show the employer that you provide quality candidates, maybe even better than ones they can find. How powerful would it be for you if 90% of your client’s managers would hire your candidates again while only 70% would hire the ones sourced without you.

Time to fill In the business world, speed is essential to success. The purpose to measuring the time to fill a vacancy will is to demonstrate your responsiveness to an employer’s hiring needs. The time required for an individual recruiter to fill a vacant position says a great deal about his or her market and client knowledge, sourcing and screening abilities and processes. Filling a vacancy quickly can save your client more than just than just time. For employers, the time a vacancy remains open can mean lost revenue, opportunities, productivity and so on.

The time to fill a vacancy can be measured in the time between receiving your client’s request and the day your candidate accepted the offer. Be sure the start and end dates you chose in this measurement does not include factors beyond your control. Therefore the start and end dates you choose will depend on exactly what you want to measure. For example, some HR professionals use the employee’s first day of work as the end point of their metric. For recruitment companies, this end point may not work so well as it includes project start dates and on boarding processes that could be beyond your accountability.

Cost per hire

In today’s business climate, what company is not cost conscious? The cost per hire is simply the total cost of hiring a resource divided by the number of total hires. Here you simply want to show your employer the cost effectiveness of using your staffing services on it’s own merit or compared to your competitors.

Summary

While numbers can never articulate the value of a great recruiter and/or staffing company, it can help you demonstrate your value and competitive difference to the employers that use your service. These staffing metrics have a better chance of being seen at the executive level where they have little or no opportunity to see first hand the qualified candidates you provide that become the life blood of their organization. So by demonstrating that you provide quality candidates in a cost-effective way, you will be taking a step beyond lip service and a step ahead of your competitors.

Why Your Business Needs Recruitment Software?

In today’s competitive environment, it is hard for a business to find the best candidate that fits their requirement. It is hard for the candidate also to find the kind of job he aspires for. Both the candidates and the companies are settling for less than what they want and deserve. But an unquenchable thirst for more professional growth, the employees and the companies keep hunting for a better opportunity and a better candidate respectively.

Speaking specifically from the perspective of the company, recruitment process is quite burdensome. So, many candidates are screened which consumes a lot of time of not just the HR team but the manager of that department as well. More or less, the workflow slows down because of loads of paperwork, lack of coordination amongst team members.

The same leads to ample of time wastage, isn’t It?

Well! Thankfully, there is a solution to this – recruitment software.

If you have not deployed one at your workplace, you are missing on something judicious. Let’ s look at this article to know some of the benefits and why you need to use one for your business now.

Fasten the recruitment process-

All the information can be put in the software and the information can be shared with the employer and the candidate easily. Moreover, the same can be updated if needed. Sourcing, listing and hiring candidates can be done timely in an orderly manner. Thus, your time to recruit and hire the right person gets accomplished speedily.

Develop your database-

The HRs no longer need to go through piles of papers, all the resumes can be stored in the software and can be accessed anytime. In fact, candidates can also be asked to login the platform and upload their CVs themselves. The database can help you in the long run too.

Cut down the administration work-

Recruitment software from India can help you in cutting down the administrative costs by connecting it with a consultant portal. Many tasks can be automated using this software, which reduces the administration work considerably.

Better hire quality-

When the resume database is available for your use, you can search a particular skill you need and get the list of candidates that suit your preference in a jiffy. On the other hand, if you will have no software, you will be struggling with segregating the resumes you require from the ones you don’t manually for almost half an hour or so.

Keep track of job applicants-

The software doesn’t let any application go missing. It allows you to add notes and updates the action taken on the resume. This help in keeping a better track of job applicants and fill the open job position soon.

In short, Recruitment software from India can help you with the process of recruitment to great extent. With it, you can automate the process and hire the best candidate quickly.

The Benefits For a Company To Use a Recruitment Agency

Previously, when a company had a job opening, the business owner needed to undergo the time consuming process of advertising the job opening and then wait for the job seekers to come for the interview, hoping to get a hire before the day ends. Shortly after, the candidate you employed might probably not as capable or as efficient as what she, or he appeared.

Luckily, the current workplace has boosted the needs of employment agencies. They are known as a much better means to find the staff which you want, at the same time making sure that you will get merely the best and also the most efficient staff in the work force to fit your particular job opening needs. Listed below are some benefits of using a recruitment agency:

1. Help saves money.

Rather than paying extremely high prices to advertise on newspapers, or some other types of media in order to search for job applicants, and then spend extra money in human resources to filter many different resumes and candidates they obtain, a company can just pay for professional services of a recruiting agency to find the best capable staff which they require.

When you put the fees you spend on advertisements and human resources against the service fee you spend for on a recruitment agency, you will notice the amount of money you’ll be saving.

2. Ease of searching for employees.

A recruitment agency makes seeking employees much easier, since they select the staff, and filter them by using an intense interview as well as skill test procedure, they send merely the cream of the crop to you. You will not need to go through headaches after browsing through countless resumes and dealing with individuals that just appear capable on paper. Using a professional agency, you’re certain to obtain only the staff which you really require.

3. Help saves time.

Spending money on an agency fee allows you to reduce the amount of candidates that you’d get and have to screen though, in contrast to putting up numerous advertisements in various types of media. On the other hand, the aspiring career seekers that you’ll get are sure to possess the best skills that you will want for that particular job opening. Despite job opening advertisements whereby you need to go through almost every resume sent in. You simply need to select from the pool of applicants submitted by a recruitment agency that you’re given the assurance that they have got the expertise you require.

Tips Finding Effective Free Recruitment Software

Free recruitment software is a cost-effective and efficient way to find the most qualified candidates for positions easily. When you are looking for the best programs to accomplish your goal to find employees that will be a good fit with your business and meet the requirements of the position, there are some important features that should be included in the program.

This type of software uses a database structure that maintains and provides information, reports, and forms that you will need when you are recruiting. However, finding a program that is user-friendly and offers the technical and customer support you need, when you need it, will be very important. The program should include training modules and navigation systems that can be easily understood and modified if needed.

In selecting a program your selection should centralize all applications for recruiting in a single location. Creating branded job ads and posting to major job boards and social networks will be easy. In addition, it should provide the templates you need to send personalized communications such as on-click rejections, invitations and offer letters.

The database must contain all of the applicant information that you will require to select the most qualified candidates and allows you to easily optimize outsourcing by providing pre-programmed search defaults to sort by specific skills in a few simple steps. An excellent program will also give you the ability to attach widgets in various online locations such as blogs and product pages.

Most free programs offer basic services that will allow you to test the software to see if it will meet all of your needs and requirements. In most cases, full access to all of the functions and features of the program will require a one-time fee or subscription service that may include regular updates, greater functionality, and expanded features.

It is important that you check the history and reputation of the provider offering the free recruitment software to make sure that the program you select is EEO compliant and meets the unique needs and requirements of your industry. The ability to streamline your recruiting efforts will save you time and money as well as give you a greater field of candidates from which to choose.

Online Recruitment Is Here To Stay

Gone are the days when people used to encircle job listings in newspapers and wait for interview calls. Finding a job in India has become so much easier after the web has entered the public domain, says RK Sachdeva, CEO, Tecumseh India Pvt Ltd. He goes on to add that e-recruitment has a major role to play in the hiring of a manpower of 2000 which is a part of the Indian branch of this multi national company.

The Wikipedia encyclopedia defines the ‘World Wide Web’ as a global, read-write information space. Indeed it is this space that has enabled us to connect and interact with people across the globe, in a matter of a few minutes. Amongst the population of these web-users are a number of employees and employers.

In today’s world of liberalization and globalization, the internet provides the workforce with a common platform to interact and communicate. Time plays a very crucial role in the progressive economy and e-recruitment ensures that hiring is a convenient process.

TV18 took up a 50% stake in JobStreet.com India which is an online recruitment company. TimesJobs.com, which is a part of India’s biggest media house The Times of India, broke away from its tie up with Career Builder of the US and has emerged to be the second biggest online recruitment agency. Facts like these establish the point that the Indian workforce is utilizing the web to improve its career prospects.

Employer’s Advantage

Online recruitment is the only medium through which an employer can post a job listing in a few minutes. Responses received are rapid and detailed too. The benefits availed by the employers are various. Employers have the opportunity to provide all the qualifications and characteristics that are necessary for a job. This ensures that only those who are qualified and capable are called for an interview. Right from the initial stages, both parties know and specify exactly what they are looking for. Hence, the time spent on hiring is reduced by as much as 65%. Also, in critical situations, companies can fulfill their manpower requirements through online recruitment portals.

Jobseeker’s Advantage

The jobseekers too can post their resumes on jobsites and receive quick responses to their job applications. You might be satisfied with your current work situation, but you can constantly be a part of the job market and receive updates concerning better options and opportunities. One always has the option of going through the job listings in the mail inbox. The hassle of running around and waiting for interview calls is prevented. You could be sitting in New Delhi and searching for a job in Bangalore or Calcutta. Hence, geographical barriers are broken.

Prevention of bias and inequality

After contact is established between an employee and an employer, the internet ensures that there is quick exchange of information between them. All the candidates are treated equally and merit is the basis on which a person gets a job. Therefore, the process is fair and employees are not victims of personal bias and preferences. Only quality candidates are interviewed through this method. Similarly, since there is no regulation on which companies are allowed to post job listings, big and small companies are alike and can search for qualified candidates through the same medium.

The preparation of resumes and the posting of jobs, the interview calls and the salary negotiations-the procedure involved in hiring remains the same. The internet just ensures that the process is more efficient and beneficial for both the employees and the employers.

Most importantly, this entire process is for free. You do not need to pay any money to post resumes and be a part of the job market. It’s a financially beneficial practice for the employers too.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India conducted a survey on online recruitment and concluded that the number of Indians seeking jobs online is expected to cross 9.2 million in the year 2006-2007. This signifies that online recruitment is definitely here to stay!

Recruitment Agencies Can Be Profitable If You Do Things Right

Recruitment agencies may look like glamorous places. The people are always immaculately dressed and they can look so professional when filling in your forms. If you are thinking of starting a recruitment agency for yourself, be assured of one thing. It is not easy.

Having said that, if you know how to plan properly, have a well thought out business plan, can think clearly and work hard you can make it. If you do it can be a quite profitable business. It takes hard work and the ability not to give up easily.

To start a recruiting business, the first requirement is a proper business plan. You must also know how to predict various factors that can affect the business. You have to consider the fact that there may be ups and downs in the economy.

The potential income of this type of business is good. You can earn good money if you a follow few logical principles. The first is to build good relationships with employers and the potential employees or candidates. Remember that you are the agent. You serve both the interests of the employer and applicant. Do your best to steer clear of favoritism and be reasonable with pricing.

There is no need looking for unnecessary trouble. Many recruitment agencies specialize these days. Don’t go out there to prove you are better than the competition. Look at the existing agencies in your area. See if you find an area that is under serviced. Then learn about that field.

You are going to gain a lot of experience but you should at least know enough to face your first clients without burning your fingers. Appoint someone who can do the job. The more knowledge and experience your agents have, the better. That may just be the break you need. Use it wisely. If you stick to your chosen field, you will eventually become known as the agent to go to for any firm in that line of business needing employees. If you can achieve that you have established yourself as a force to be reckoned with.

Once you know what you are going to do, you must find a place to do it from. An office with a reasonable rent and open floor plan will be ideal. Once you have moved in add the cubicles, interview rooms with tables and seating and the necessary computer equipment. Shop around for good software. Especially if you are new at what you are doing, you will lean heavily on software and you can learn a lot using it. Start developing a procedure for your interviews that will give you the information to get the most from your software.

Once you are ready to roll, you need employees and employers. Use the needs of the applicants as they come in and start contacting the employers. Find out their staff needs and start building relationships from day one. You may make a lot of phone calls that do not bring in business but persevere. Rome was not built in a day.

Remember that recruitment agencies take time to grow. This is a business where you have to make friends, act accordingly. Good contacts will make your life easier. The economy and availability of work will play a big role. Save in good times. They will get worse and pick up again. If you can prove you have what it takes, you will reap the rewards.

Recruitment in the Marine Business

Times have changed since it was the maladjusted youth or economically challenged profiles who were the foundation of the crewing for ships. These days it is a profession of choice and officers are educated to bachelor level. But has the industry managed to develop in parallel to integrate these profiles and how is the prospect of the future?

History

Only 50 years ago the shipping business was extremely different from now. Being a sailor was a life style, it was not rare to spend 12 month at sea and a high number of sailors never made it home to Denmark between ships, but stayed in maritime hubs like Singapore, Manila or Bangkok. Ships stayed long time in ports – sometimes weeks. There was plenty crew onboard and no alcohol restriction or AIDS. Sailors was adventurous people who in the marine business could wipe the screen clean and start a new life. Never mind that you did not have an education, that you came out from prison, that you were not able to read, as long as you were able (hence the term AB Able-Bodied), willing to work hard and could fit in onboard socially you were welcome in the business. Youngsters tired of school were happy to find a different environment where they could be challenged, earn good money and come home as men. Myths were created at that time. Sailors were rough people with tattoos, parrots on the shoulder and golden ear rings.

Present

All this has changed. In the maritime business you now need a high school degree to enter the officer educations. Becoming a junior navigating officer takes at least 4 years and there is no room for maladjusted people. The amount of administration is now so demanding that you need extensive bookkeeping skills. The ships are so advanced that you need extensive training to operate the equipment. Most ships spend few hours in port with no time for the sailors to go ashore. The crew onboard has been reduced to the absolute minimum. On top of this, different nationalities have been implemented in the crewing policy with the target of reducing manning cost. Crew from third world countries does not complain about the conditions. If you can choose between poverty, hunger or going to sea – the latter is clearly the best. But the western youngsters are not happy with the conditions. They have other choices. Few people who have spent their life on sea will recommend this path to their kids. Extensive marketing have been implemented in Denmark to attract new profiles to the blue business. The campaign has been relatively successful and every year a new batch of fresh baked officers is leaving the Engineer or Navigating Officer Schools.

Reality

So what reality waits for these hopeful young people? What made them make the choice to enter the business? And for how long will they stay? And what will they do after the sailing career? These are good questions that are not easily answered. First of all, lots of trouble waits onboard the ships. That is for sure, studying various reports and maritime blogs. Items that score high rank in the mind of sailors these days are: Piracy, criminalization, loneliness, deprivation, disturbed sleep pattern, no influence on food and difficult access to doctors. The other side of the coin is the high pay, the independence, the big responsibility, the travels and the personal development being on your own out in the big world. In Denmark, the average time a navigation officer continues to sail after end education is 7 years according to a survey conducted by Danish Maritime Officers. Then they start to work ashore in a marine related company or do something completely different. A few percent last longer and if you are sailing when you are 50 the chances that you will go ashore is quite small. Obviously it may be a bit difficult for such a profile to adjust to a land job after many years at sea. If there was ample supply of officers and senior profiles for the offices, we did not need to change anything, from an economical perspective at least. But talking to the various ship owners in Denmark we start to see a bottle neck arising. We do not have enough HSQE profiles, we do not have enough DP operators and we lack naval architects and many other important positions. That is the fuel under the discussion, what do we do about now and what do we do in a longer perspective?

Statistics

Denmark has been a leader in the maritime business in many years. Most people in the business know that we contribute in a substantial way to the welfare society of Denmark. 85.000 people are directly employed in the business and 10,5 of the total production value stems from the maritime business. Of this 85% is export – which is highly needed to keep our balance of payments positive. In the last years 15 ship yards has closed in Denmark and the newbuilding business has almost completely been overtaken by Asian countries. Over the last 6 years Europe’s part of the newbuilding business has been reduced from 18,8% to 9,1% – a staggering reduction of more than 50%. Onboard the Danish ships the share of Danish officers has been reduced from 86% to 70% over the last 9 years and at the same time the share of foreign officers has increased from 14% to 30%. It looks even worse when we study the figures for ratings, in the same 9 years the figure for Danish ratings has dropped from 54% to 35% and the share of foreigners has increased from 46% to 65%. 30% of the entire world fleet is manned by ratings from Philippines. Before it all get too negative, it is important to highlight that over the last 7 years the Danish fleet has increased with more than 100% from 15.994 Mill. DWT to 32.157 Mill. DWT. Danish ship owners are doing well right now, no doubt about this. They were not so hard affected by the crisis because the fundament was in order. More than hundred years of experience showed the difference in the financial crisis and we have seen very few owners in trouble in Denmark. But with above figures in mind, what is the prospect for the future?

Future

In the past, the average sailing time for the sailors employed onboard the offices was high. It was not uncommon with 10-30 years of sailing time in the book before you became superintendent, HSQ manager or even fleet manager. That is not the case now. Young people wants to get ashore again after few years at sea. Probably due to a mix of the above mentioned parameters. The ship owners cannot pick and choose who they want for the shore based positions. Actually for years, they have got new people to shore based positions by attracting profiles, with higher salary and better conditions, from competing ship-owners. Most ship-owners still have senior profiles in the corner. The young people cannot do without them. When the McGregor hatches is jamming, when they have oil spill, port state control etc. the grey gold have seen it all and knows how to deal with it. There is an increasing concern about what will happen when these senior profiles are not in the office anymore. They are the true value of the company, the heart blood so to speak. And they have practical experience from sea, they understand the terms and conditions onboard a ship. If we want to maintain the maritime business in Denmark in some form we have to look into this single subject. It is not enough to educate more people. Utilizing crew from third world countries is not the answer – they tend to retire early and move back home – which is quite understandable since they spent a significant part of their life onboard the ships in long duty periods.

Western World

This issue is not only discussed in Denmark. This is a North European issue. This is something that affects the entire western world. The maritime business is the most global business on earth. It is an extremely competitive business and crewing and ship building takes place where the salary is lowest. The western world has invented modern shipping. Starting with the proud empire time of United Kingdom and followed up by endless innovations and patents. Europe and the States were leading the way for many years. But the salaries turned out to be not competitive anymore. You could get arms and legs in Asia much cheaper. Brazil had a role in the seventies soon to be taken over by Japan. Later Korea was wearing the yellow t-shirt and they are now seriously challenged by China. Ship building is labor intensive work. In the industrialized world we probably have to come to terms with the fact that yards probably never will come back.

The window

In the beginning, when ships were built in new places, knowledge was exported as skilled profiles, design, machines and inventory. We were basically contracting arms and legs and there was still plenty of work for us. Later it turned out that it was only a window. The shipyards developed and the level of quality was increasing. The local education system was redesigned to accommodate the maritime business and ship building became a big part of the countrys economy and identity. In exactly the same way as it used to be for us in the western world. Summarizing up, it is clear that something is going on, that the business is moving away from the western world. What should we do about it? Or even more relevant, can we do anything about it? To quote one of the more famous profiles in the world right now – Yes we can.

Action

It will require a never seen before cooperation between all parties in the business. It will require a change of perspective and a total reform of the education system. At the moment seen from the individuals’ perspective things are maybe not so bad. Until they lose the job because the office is closed down or because the ship owner decides to change nationality.

Ship Owners

Normally, there are a lot of emotions in this debate. Lets make one thing clear. Ship owners are not evil people that enjoy changing nationality onboard the ships or changing to foreign flag. Ship owners are highly professional companies that try to run business in an extremely competitive environment. It is often highlighted that they make big money – yes, sometimes they do, but when they dont they also have high loss. Shipping is a risky business. Another point is that most big ship owners in Denmark are owned by share holders and by paying tax it is somehow in the entire Danish societys interest that they do well financially.

Co-operation

It is important that this debate is without pointed fingers and referrals to the past. It is time to sit together with representatives from the entire maritime cluster. Participants could be, but not limited to: Unions, ship owners, shipping people, suppliers, schools, authorities, insurance companies, classification societies, crew and technical office staff.

Initiatives

Here are some ideas:

Full career paths to all the different positions you can have ashore
Turns in the office always included for ships crew and office staff to visit ships and harbour facilities
HR & crewing operated in the same unit with same benefits and conditions
Free broadband internet onboard
A range of relevant educations that the sailor can take while sailing
Enough people onboard so an officer can take a full day off every second week
Psychological working environment
Investments in harbour facilities – close to the ships, with social hubs for sailors, pick up and shopping service, sports facilities
Focus on delicious and healthy food
As many decisions as possible to be done by ships crew
Employ one person to do only administrative work onboard
Gymnasium onboard must be mandatory
Maximum time at sea 10 weeks

Elaborate explanation

Full career paths to all the different positions you can have ashore

As it is now, you are educated to do service onboard ships. What happens after your sailing career is not a part of your education on the navigation- or engineering school. All roles in the maritime cluster must be evaluated and appropriate background and education must be clear. If we take for example a superintendent, a ship owner can in theory employ anybody to do the job. They normally prefer an engineer for a technical superintendent role and a navigation officer for a nautical superintendent role. The website worldcareers.dk has done a big job to create a career compass but it is all based on inputs. The business needs a complete map and minimum requirements for getting the various roles. When you go ashore you have to adapt to a completely different working environment and the only way you can be better at the job is to learn from the senior profiles as it is now. For the example with the superintendent, it could prove beneficial that there was a three month course – or maybe a distance learning course so you become certified superintendent. In this way you can during your sailing career specialize into the area that you want to work in after your sailing career. Standardization and optimizing of the educational background including sailing time will be a benefit for the entire cluster.

Turns in the office always included for ships crew and office staff to visit ships and harbor facilities

Sometimes there are light years between life on board and life in the office. Both parties have a hard time to understand the reality of the challenges of the other part. To close this gap and ensure full co-operation and understanding between the parties some exchange is crucial.

HR & crewing operated in the same unit with same benefits and conditions

There is a very good example of a ship owner looking for a Chief Engineer for a bulk ship. The job advertisement contains three lines: Ships name, flag and salary. The same company is also looking for a superintendent for bulk. This advertisement is three A4 pages. They are looking for a profile with same educational background. The first are contracted by the crewing department, very often outsourced to a crewing company and the latter is contracted by the HR department. It is important that we consider crew onboard ships as humans – to be administered by Human Relations – not commodities administered by a crewing department – normally controlled by the technical department.

Free broadband internet onboard

Young people these days are normally online almost 24/7. Bringing them into an environment where they cannot communicate on social platforms, get news, watch movies, send emails etc. will just not be accepted by them. Broadband internet is an extremely important part of the package that should attract young people to a career in the maritime business.

A range of relevant educations that the sailor can take while sailing

Even though many officers – especially in coastal trade – are very busy onboard there must be a range of relevant educations that can help a seagoing profile to optimize his opportunities if he wants to go ashore. Example of courses could be, but not limited to: Surveyor, Superintendent, HSQE, Sales, Shipping, Law or insurance. These courses must be tailor-made for the business and officially certified so we are sure that we keep the knowledge in the maritime loop.

Enough people onboard so an officer can take a full day of every second week

This is a controversial suggestion. But nevertheless it makes sense. How many people on shore are working between 8-12 hours minimum every day in 90 days? If possible, the free day should be spent when the ship is on shore. The day is for recharging the batteries, catch up on sleep, relax or maybe get some new input from different cultures. It could also be to do home work, to have quality time on webcam with family or friends.

Psychological working environment

Life onboard ships are tough. The opinion of some senior profiles is that they are not there to make anybody happy. Most people miss family and friends and communication can easily become tough. If the ship is leaking oil some ship-owners have implemented whistle blower options. The same can be done about the psychological working environment. There is an old joke saying that the sea is the catchment area for the mentally maladjusted people that would not be able to work in land based organizations. The business has now got rid of the socially maladjusted, the alcoholics and now it is time to look at the mental health of people onboard. In many cases, ship owners have implemented that when signing off, the captain rates the officer signing off and report home. It should go the other way too, and action should be taken if the reports indicate that a captain is not able to create a healthy and inspiring working environment. It could prove beneficial to make a personality test before accepting people into the officer system.

Investments in harbour facilities – close to the ships, with social hubs for sailors, pick up and shopping service, sports facilities

In few rare cases ship owners have donated money to the seamans church. Why is it the church of all institutions that are responsible for the social life of sailors going ashore? Is it acceptable that we hand over welfare of our crew to charity institutions? It has been like this for generations and it is understandable that ship owners operating in tramp cannot invest in facilities in ports. As a start, ship owners operating liner service could create these hubs. It could be that ports should be involved in this discussion – so a small percentage of the port fee is allocated for building state of the art facilities.

Focus on delicious and healthy food

This does not need to be explained further. Everybody in the business understands this; the problem is that the rules for food onboard ships can be interpreted in various ways and that the competitive situation has forced ship owners to cut down on the budget for food too. Food is one of the most important parameters

As many decisions as possible to be done by ships crew

The officer of 2011 is a responsible and intelligent profile. He/she needs to be involved in decisions and feel responsibility in order to gain job satisfaction. The easy communication to the ships is good in many ways, but the down side is that many officers feel like being remote controlled by the office. It is crucial that ship owners let officers do decisions and take responsibility.

Employ one person to do only administrative work onboard

Only few years ago there was a radio officer onboard all ships. When modern IT was implemented on the ships including GMDSS the need for a dedicated radio officer was eliminated. But the radio officer had many other duties. He/she was in addition to the communication work a substantial administrative resource for the captain and the chief engineer. The amount of paper work has increased in a dramatic way and the crew has been cut down to a minimum. This is a major stressor for the crew. We want the captains to concentrate on being good leaders, ensure safe sailing and to be a visible profile onboard. Not being drowned in paper work. The profile could be a normal office clerk with a short tailor-made education – or alternatively it could be a navigation officer – the benefit in that would be that he could assist in duty, when officers need time off. An even more efficient way could be to employ minimum one dual officer on board every ship. This profile would be able to assist both the navigating officers and the engine crew when needed and could furthermore take watch duties to ensure days off as mentioned above.

Gymnasium onboard must be mandatory

Gym onboard should be mandatory and instead of the interpretation of the existing blue book where sailors can continue sailing with hundreds of kg overweight, it could be considered to implement similar conditions like in the navy, where you have to pass a test on a biannual basis. The crew is responsible for safety onboard the ship. If you have a serious casualty like fire or collision it is important that all crew is fit and can take care of themselves.

Maximum time at sea is 10 weeks

Depending on trade the maximum duty period should be from 2-10 weeks. Naturally individuals can apply for longer periods but for the young people entering the business by today, 10 weeks are very long time.

Conclusion

The above mentioned ideas are not to be implemented over night. Furthermore, there is a competition problem if other nations refuse to follow the rules. As it is now, we have only one body to implement rules in the maritime business. That is IMO – and IMO have no legal power. IMO can suggest a resolution but it will only go into force when a sufficient number of nations have signed the resolution. It is an extremely slow and inefficient way of implementing rules but it is the only way as it is now. First the blue business in Denmark needs to agree on national level how we should plan for the future. When we have reached consensus about the message to be forwarded, we should try to get support from the most important seafaring nations, like Germany, Holland, Norway and Greece. Based on this paper we could start to work on creating a syndicate, globally strong and influential to make legal changes. The syndicate should represent al interests in the maritime cluster from all maritime nations and could be organized under the IMO umbrella. We have a common playground when we talk certificates for officers, it should be possible to implement certificates and authorizations for all the shore based positions in the maritime cluster. We need to present a secured plank to walk ashore when the officers are ready. The resistance from the business to make the plank easy to walk has probably been due to the fact that they are afraid that nobody will stay onboard the ships. When e.g. a navigating officer has passed the first couple of years a significant amount of hours have been invested in training and then it is actually not attractive for the ship owner that he walks ashore. But even less attractive is it if he chooses to change profession completely due to demand from his family or due to lack of job satisfaction. By certifying all the various roles in the office the business are furthermore implementing an incentive to stay onboard. If a minimum sailing time at sea for becoming a superintendent is e.g. 3 years as senior, you would think twice before jumping ashore too soon. A lot of senior profiles in the business have called for action – now it is time to get the hands up from the pockets and begin the work. The alternative is not attractive. We need to see each step forward as a success for our strategy and not let us be discouraged by the enormous challenge.