Seagull Makes It Easier to Manage the Seafarer Career Development Cycle
Once awash with available crew, one of the most critical issues a shipping company faces today did not exist 20 years ago: not enough competent talent to fill all the necessary positions. Thus, it is crucial that the industry continuously renews its focus on how to recruit, train, assess, promote, and retain talented individuals.
Training specialist Seagull says it has put its experience to work for the challenges its customers face. Company crewing departments and companies that use crewing agencies often have to manage thousands of seafarers’ careers, with fewer office staff, less control and little first-hand knowledge of the talent operating their ships. This challenge requires solutions that are not only affordable, but also comprehensive in confirming and validating the abilities of the people onboard.
“Rather than selling individual HR products, we provide a package of processes that work within one over-arching system,” said Captain Bjarke Jakobsen, Seagull training content director.
“No one else in the industry can do this. Our offering has an integrated set of tools that cover the entire process -- from recruitment through all the stages of the seafarer’s career. This is of great value to the crewing departments who can find everything they need for managing the career cycle in one single, comprehensive system.”
In order to understand the implications, it is important to look at what a seafarer career cycle looks like.
Cycle Example
Personnel and crewing professional Captain Ashok works for large Shipping Company in Singapore. Part of his responsibility is to recruit and screen applicants from crewing agencies in Mumbai and the Philippines. He knows his fleet will expand over the next two years and anticipates that more than twenty full crews need to be recruited. With all the applicants to consider he needs a selection tool to ensure that only candidates with suitable abilities will be screened to continue in the recruitment process.
For this reason Captain Ashok uses the online version of Seagull’s Ability Profiling tool (APRO) for all the officers. While psychometric testing has been widely used for many years in other industries, Seagull has worked with Professor Roald Bjorklund of the University of Oslo and DNV to upgrade a test tool especially for the maritime industry and has it made available online. By using APRO as part of the recruitment process, Captain Ashok can predict the candidate’s ability and performance early.
Captain Jakobsen said: “APRO is a very valuable recruitment screening tool and is designed to help select seafarers who can act in the right way when safety is a critical factor. Shipping has turned into a very knowledge-based industry with procedures and instructions of all kinds However, we still fail to assess the ability of our seafarers to read, understand and act upon this very important documentation”
Although the number of candidates has been narrowed down considerably, Captain Ashok still faces a huge task ahead and will have little time to spend with each candidate. In front of him he now has the interview report from the manning agency for Junior Officer Amado Reyes, his experience history, license documents, work references and costs look promising, but Captain Ashok cannot be sure since the interview report has raised the question: “What does this person really know?”
To be sure, Captain Ashok uses the Seagull Training System’s Crew Evaluation System (CES) to evaluate whether Amado Reyes has the basic knowledge for the position in question. He arranges the test from his office in Singapore as CES is on the Web and Reyes can hence log in and take the test at the manning office in Manila.
The CES knowledge database has more than 5,000 multiple choice questions, which are specific to the STCW categories of Management, Operations and Support. These questions can also be customized to the company’s own specific needs by using the CES Test Editor tool, which Captain Ashok has already asked the company’s marine superintendents to do since they know the particular proficiencies needed for the operations across the fleet. Reyes satisfactorily completes the test, which confirms his basic knowledge and his history of experience onboard.
Note that CES maintains the integrity of the system with a question randomisation feature within pre-defined test types. The system can be accessed online from any of the company’s offices worldwide, and no special software is required. Test results are stored in a company-specific central training database and test certificates and reports can be printed from within the CES system.
Reyes is hired by the company as a Junior Officer. Now Seagull’s Competence Manager comes into play as Captain Ashok helps Reyes to develop an onboard career plan. This is particularly important now he is in the company, as the future expansion of the fleet will lead to upcoming opportunities – furthermore time is not only valuable but also critical to the company.
Competence Manager contains a complete profile for every position onboard. Simple to use and effective, the tool gives Reyes what he needs to know about the proficiencies of his current and future positions. Seagull has developed a series of competency definitions for various ship types that can be used as the basis for a shipping company’s competency and career management system. These have been developed together with a number of different shipping companies to ensure they meet the specific needs of particular vessel types.
Captain Jakobsen explained: “With Competence Manager, an officer can quickly and easily see what he has to do to achieve certain career goals. All of these tasks can, when completed, be recorded and stored in the database enabling the ship’s Master and the shore based training manger to see how the officer progress in the career development process.”
Operating within the overall system, Competence Manager not only defines the various competency profiles and manages training and assessment activities for individual seafarers; it will also follow Reyes and other seafarers as they move from ship to ship.
Seagull has an agreement with the Intertanko to provide the Tanker Officer Training Standards (TOTS) system electronically. Using e-TOTS, the individual officer’s training record book is held in an electronic format in Seagull’s Competence Manager database.
In addition to Intertanko’s TOTS, Competence Manager uses competency definitions derived from the ISF Training Record Books for cadets and the SIGTTO competence standard for officers on LNG and LPG gas carriers. Seagull is now looking to work with other sectors of the shipping industry to develop equivalent systems for use onboard bulk carriers (e-BOTS) and containerships (e-COTS).
Reyes now has clear expectations from the company and a clear career training path customised to maximise his progress and track and confirm his progress. All this can be accessed on the Web, including a comprehensive computer-based e-learning training library, Maritime training films, flag state approved and IMO standard onboard training courses, and STCW classroom courses. The results of both onboard and shore-based training are stored in the same central database, so all training is recorded in one place and can be easily retrieved on demand.
“This means that seafarers can even complete their training sessions ashore, which adds to the training they have already completed onboard. We have received feedback from crews that this flexibility is greatly appreciated,” said Captain Jakobsen.
During his onboard career, Reyes will be assessed for promotion not only with the tools that helped the company put him there (CES, APRO, and Competence Manager), but using the input registered in Seagull’s Performance Profiling programme (PPRO). PPRO allows onboard management to put staff appraisals directly into these online forms. The personnel team may also enter previous appraisals for a seamless look at the individual’s career performance. Access is restricted to authorised personnel and is held in a central database and available online. Security is ensured by locked files and encryption as it goes electronically from onboard to the home office.
“While some individual products have been available for years, we believe the accessibility and ease of a system that manages the entire career cycle, offers it online, allows customisation for individual company needs, and provides an avenue for other communication and regulatory needs, is a great leap forward. This is particularly true - as we hear from our customers - in a time of shrinking Personnel and Crewing staffs and a worldwide experience shortage,” Captain Jakobsen explained.
Seagull, a Norwegian training and assessment solutions company with maritime customers around the world, prides itself on its commitment to helping its customers meet the rising challenges of today’s maritime workforce with solutions that are not only affordable, but easy to understand and easy to use.