what is the biggest challenge to msc cruise ship
With more than 30 million passengers expected to cruise by the end of 2019, the cruise industry is growing in popularity and size. The Prowl Lines International Association (CLIA) reported that the global economic impact in 2017 was equivalent to 1,108,676 full-fourth dimension jobs (with $45.6bn spent on salaries).
Simply with the number of new prowl ships launching into the marketplace combined with the evolving expectations from passengers towards cruises equally a holiday destination at sea is potentially creating a recruitment crisis for cruise lines.
There are currently a quarter of a million seafarers employed in the cruise industry and inquiry past Prowl Industry News shows that 70,000 new crew and officers need to be hired each year for turnover. Adding another 10,000 each year, the report says, means around fourscore,000 coiffure demand to be recruited annually.
Recruitment for unprecedented growth
MSC Cruises' €thirteen.6bn projected growth is unprecedented in the prowl industry as it expands its fleet to 29 cruise ships by 2027.
"In the adjacent five years we'll need 37,000 new coiffure with a pinnacle of 10,000 in 2023," says Magali Bertolucci, Director of Crew Evolution and Strategy at MSC Cruises. "Finding such a big number of new recruits is a claiming, especially given that many other cruise lines are similarly looking to rent in significant numbers as well, but with good planning and a strong relationship with recruitment companies we'll achieve our aims."
Bertolucci says that MSC Cruises does well with retentivity and echo contracts, which helps with the hiring bulldoze, but that the visitor constantly looks at potential new markets as sources of recruitment.
"In the adjacent 5 years we'll demand 37,000 new crew with a peak of 10,000 in 2023."
"Africa, including S Africa, is becoming more important in our recruitment drive. We've been bowled over past the quality and calibre of the staff sourced from the continent," she says. "For instance, we're the only cruise line seeking new recruits in Kenya and they take been absolute shining stars."
As MSC Cruises has a diverse mixture of nationalities on board, crew are frequently required to have language skills so they run standardised online tests in conjunction with the language school at Grenoble University, too as one-to-one tests, depending on the role.
Back in 2015, MSC Cruises adjusted their recruitment strategy and cutting the number of recruitment agencies they were working with so they could heighten the bar for finding crew with higher educational standards.
"At that fourth dimension, we had up to well-nigh 50 agencies around the world and today we're working with less than twenty, depending on what areas we're looking to recruit," she says. "The consolidation plan has worked, and we've seen higher standards of crew join u.s. and chiefly many have come back to united states of america the following season."
Working with the correct partners is primal for recruitment success concurs Dieter Jaenicke, chairman and founder of the Viking Maritime Group, which provides recruitment, cadetships and training for the cruise (and superyacht) industry.
Recently, Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Voyages CEO Tom McAlpin officially opened Viking Maritime Grouping's new training centre and state-of-the-art span simulator in Portsmouth, MSA Solent. As well as Virgin Voyages, Windstar Cruises and Marella, among others, are also looking to train hither.
"I think recruiting skilful staff has always been a problem and it is not going to become whatsoever better," he says. "The current recruiting grounds for crew is the Far Eastward with the Philippines being the well-nigh prolific. Virtually senior officers come from Europe and the ex-Russian states with a few from the Philippines and India," he adds. "These areas accept non been exhausted, simply care is needed to observe partners to ensure the crew you hire come well trained not but in STCW [Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers], but the culture of your product."
Crew retention challenges
Managing director of cruise operations at the Norwegian Seafarers' Union Lena Dyring says that forth with looking for new recruits, cruise companies will accept to fight harder to retain the seafarers they accept employed and keep them happy.
She says one of the biggest challenges in the prowl industry, and the larger shipping manufacture as a whole, is the "lack of continuous employment".
"The vast majority of seafarers worldwide are employed on a contract to contract ground and although most are rehired, this causes a constant insecurity for seafarers," says Dyring. "There is a constant pressure and anxiety for performance to exist at a elevation level, but it also contributes to seafarers underreporting mental and physical health situations they (rightly or wrongly) think will touch their chance of existence rehired."
"The vast majority of seafarers worldwide are employed on a contract-to-contract basis and this causes constant insecurity for seafarers."
The Seafarers' Happiness Index, which monitors issues from wellbeing, mental health and family contact, shows how loneliness can be a serious effect for crew. Reduced crews, quick turnaround times, seven-day working weeks and less social interaction time can all have their toll.
In the concluding report, August 2019, bug included: lack of shore leave, little fourth dimension to develop social bonds (affecting teamwork and esprit), and lack of net connectivity.
One of the problems is the cost of internet connectivity to continue in touch with family. "I call up the bulk of the companies still charge – some a lot and some more reasonable fees," Dyring says. "I can tell you which companies offering costless cyberspace, namely Viking Cruises and Virgin Voyages – they both use this every bit a recruitment tool."
Dyring believes that complimentary internet connectivity would make a big difference to crew satisfaction and happiness. "Younger adults run into cyberspace connectivity every bit a man correct these days (and it was declared a human right by the Human Rights Commission) so offer good, gratuitous (or at least reasonably priced) internet connectivity is a must in this mean solar day and age."
Equal opportunities
At that place are more than women at the captain in the cruise industry than e'er before, such as Belinda Bennett at Windstar, the industry's first black female captain, Kate McCue on Celebrity Equinox and Helm Wendy Williams equally Primary of Scarlet Lady. Withal, overall, the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) estimates that just 28%-30% of workers on cruise ships are women.
Creating opportunities for women is another way to meet recruitment needs in the industry. Dyring says this could also assistance with retention. "A more gender-balanced workforce has also been shown to increase the workplace satisfaction for all workers and makes sense equally role of a toolbox to concord on to your employees in this competitive market," she says.
Bertolucci says that MSC Cruises is currently at 24% for new hires in 2019 and that the company has a "determined ambition and action program to really boost the percentage very significantly."
"A more than gender-counterbalanced workforce has been shown to increment workplace satisfaction for all workers."
Dyring says one reason it is harder to achieve women and encourage them to look for work at sea, is related to cultural beliefs in their home countries. "Many societies are more traditional in their approach and we see that families do not think it would exist rubber or appropriate for their daughters to work at bounding main," she says.
"Nosotros encourage cruise lines to include the families in the recruitment procedure so that the family understands that working in the cruise industry is condom and that information technology offers seafarers a keen career path and financial security for their daughters."
Jaenicke thinks there is a pool of untapped resource in the United kingdom that isn't gender-specific. "Currently in the Great britain nosotros have a rating to officeholder scheme which allows those who did not have the correct qualifications when commencing a seagoing career, or did not want to be an officeholder at that fourth dimension to study, get ocean time and transfer to an officer programme," he explains. "I think if this was rolled out in the cruise industry information technology would give us a large untapped source of overlooked immature people who did not brand the course."
He says that it would requite recruits the opportunity through vocational training and skills to achieve their goals, not only in the deck and engine departments merely also in hospitality. "It likewise gives an opportunity to cruise lines to 'mould' their staff and create a better work culture," he adds.
Ultimately, though he says tackling the crew shortage globally is all virtually resource. The successful cruise lines volition be the ones "who are prepared to train crew through a career road map, offer competitive wages with good exit (and not forgetting company pensions), and so those crew have a future, not simply with their employer but after they retire."
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Source: https://www.ship-technology.com/analysis/cruise-industry-recruitment-challenges/
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