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IN THIS ISSUE

Welcome
Spinnaker poll
If you think safety is expensive, try an accident
Thanks!
British and french employers poor at retaining talented staff
And finally
Earn £400
Current Vacancies

WELCOME

A website called “Vulcan, Comets and the Impending Catastrophe” expects a comet to impact earth in Feb 2007, based partly on a theory about a large object that orbits the Sun which has not yet been properly observed (also known as planet X).

Hmmm – well our predictions for 2007 aren’t half as exciting but we’re hoping that we’ll make it past February to see what the recruitment market holds in store.

So, let’s nail our colours to the mast!

The ‘war for talent’ will certainly grab the attention of even the most hard of hearing company bosses. The war will rise to the top of the agenda at companies in all sectors and companies will need to become more sophisticated to move forward. Google has put billboards featuring complicated mathematical equations, and an invitation for people who can solve them to apply for a job. Will the maritime industries be as inventive?

Mckinsey, a management consultancy, has calculated that over the past 6 years the number of American jobs that require a high level of judgement has grown three times faster than employment in general. Accenture, another management consultancy, calculates that intangible assets, such as patents, know-how and a skilled workforce, have ballooned from 20% of the value of companies to in 1980 to 70% today. The cliché that a business is only as good as its people is truer today than ever.

This is at a time when the supply of workers is contracting due in no small part to the retirement of the baby boom generation who account for a large chunk of skilled workers in most companies.

And it doesn’t end there. We’ll see the ongoing collapse of loyalty as companies that re-engineered themselves into peak fitness in the 1990’s will be rewarded by workers moving to the highest bidder. We’ll also see a mismatch between what schools and colleges are producing and what companies need. This means that companies will have to invest more in training to keep pace.

The coming year will, in short, see companies trying harder to fill the talent gap. Some will become more inventive in the way they recruit staff and the way they retain them. Some will invest more in training and think more closely about the core skills they really need. They’ll promote their superstars quickly and give workers more freedom to move internally. They’ll cast their net further by employing part timers, older workers and those from countries outside their traditional scope.

However as usual those that keep pace with developments will ultimately have an advantage in what is a fairly lucrative marketplace at present.

Anyway, enough of talking shop. I’m sure we’re all keen to get on with the plethora of festive entertaining that shipping is so good at. We’re guessing that won’t change next year.

Rather than send out Christmas cards this year we will once again be supporting the Anthony Nolan trust. They are the UK’s most successful bone marrow donor register and since 1974 they’ve helped to give over 4,000 children and adults a new chance of life. To find out more go to http://www.anthonynolan.org.uk. And as an example of the good work they do, our Chairman Phil Parry wishes to thank the many well wishers who’ve made time to send their thoughts and prayers for his son Oscar. We’re pleased to report that after two bone marrow transplants this summer Oscar has dodged the bullets and made it home in time for a very happy Christmas.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at Spinnaker.

SPINNAKER POLL

Spinnaker are back with a series of online surveys designed to provide a snapshot of opinion regarding issues of current interest to both employers and employees.

This month we looked at: "The Reasons for Recruitment Difficulties" with some interesting results.

Of the 341 respondents over 27% cited 'lack of required experience' as the main reason for recruitment difficulty followed by 'wanted more pay than we could offer' and 'attitude to type of work' both grabbing approximately 17% of the vote.

Almost 10% of respondents had recruitment difficulties because of 'no applicants'. Maybe our predictions have already happened!

Full results as follows:

Following on from last month's survey this month we will polling visitors to shippingjobs.com on the ways in which their companies have made changes in response to the recruitment difficulties they face.

To take the survey either http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=588195 or go to www.shippingjobs.com.

The results will be published in next month's Changing Course.

IF YOU THINK SAFETY IS EXPENSIVE, TRY AN ACCIDENT

...said Sir Stelios Haji-Iaonnou at the ninth annual Cadwallader lecture in November. Congratulations yet again to the London Shipping Law Centre's Aleka Mandaraka-Sheppard and the untiring Gerard Matthews for the excellent job they always do getting so many people together. Congratulations also to our friend Aline de Bievre for beating her own record for the longest ever question asked.

The speakers for the evening were set the task of comparing Corporate Social Responsibility in shipping and aviation and who better to have on the panel than a man with a well-heeled foot in both camps, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. CSR is a bit of a phenomenon really - only a couple of years ago most people had never heard of it. Now, it's CSR this and CSR that, all over the place. Suits you sir! So what is it then? Well, to cobble together the words of the speakers, Sir Stelios, shipping legend Spyros Polemis and Prof Erik Rosaeg CSR is, in a nutshell, good corporate citizenship.

Now, citizenship. We all know what that is don't we? They teach that in schools nowadays! Well, in shipping terms, Mr Polemis summed it up succinctly. In shipping, the CSR challenges lie in the areas of construction and maintenance, safety culture, fair liability regimes, environmental impact and last but not least seafarer employment and training. And are there lessons to be learned from aviation? Sure there are and we'll get to those in a moment. But what was really interesting listening to Mr Easy and the man from the Civil Aviation Authority, Rupert Britton, was that aviation seems to be in danger of becoming more like shipping (and indeed doesn't sound quite as squeaky clean as perhaps we always lead ourselves to believe in our haste to gaze at our own navels). With the advent of the Open Skies policy in the EU, carriers will be allowed to run domestic flights in foreign countries which could see some lower quality operators popping up where they hitherto haven't belonged. And it sounds as though the quality of both carriers and air traffic control in many African countries leaves a lot to be desired. One was left with the distinct impression that in some places, boarding a plane can be as risky as boarding an unloved SD14. And don't think that it's just our industry that has to deal with fake licences!

What aviation clearly does have to offer though is lifetime manufacturer warranties (and, indeed, fewer manufacturers), type-rated licences for pilots ("marrying the human with the machine"), less self-regulation (Classification?), manufacturer involvement in investigations and, for that matter, manufacturers on the receiving end of prosecutions. Being largely consumer-facing, airlines are also acutely conscious that their customers have a personal interest in choosing well. Reputation is everything and loss of reputation equals loss of your business. Outside of passenger shipping, is reputation quite that important? No, not yet.

Prof Rosaeg noted that consumers are not yet asking for 'fair trade shipping' but one can imagine that public demand for goods carried on green ships which are fit homes for their crew is not a million (tonne-)miles away. As Spyros Polemis said, we are standing on the first step of a transition to the benefits of environmental differentiation. The green version perhaps of demand for double-hulled tankers (green'ish' in hue itself). Expect to see even more talk of reducing air emissions, oily waste and end of life recycling of vessels.

Of course, the regulators got a bit of a kicking. Their focus should be compensation and prevention, not punishment. Here here Mr Polemis. And governments should get their houses in order when it comes to ratifying international conventions, which are obviously more balanced than localised knee-jerks.

The final word goes to Sir Stelios, whose Easyjet company is parodied by campaign group planestupid.com in their leaflet "Easy Climate". He argues that "binge flying" is not the major enemy of the environment but acknowledges that people won't listen when the airlines point to the amount of pollution caused by cars and power stations. Instead, he said that Easyjet, like others, are now considering buying carbon offsets to show that they are listening.

He also pointed out that as so many Britons now have holiday homes in France thanks to cheap flights, at least there won't be any more wars between the two countries!

...oh and the canapes weren't bad either.

THANKS!

All workers would stay in their jobs longer if their companies thanked them for their hard work more often and more effectively, according to research by O2.

It found if companies were better at acknowledging when staff put extra effort in, 84% of workers would be more loyal to their employers and 71% would be more willing to go the extra mile when required.

The survey reveals that line managers are good at thanking their employees, but company-wide 'thanks' is less widespread. 71% of respondents do remember the last time their bosses rewarded them personally for hard work. In contrast, just under 50% of workers had either never been thanked by their companies or could not remember the last time.

A quarter of workers were thanked verbally when they had done well, 16% had been thanked via email, and 26% received gifts to recognise their efforts.

When asked what sort of acknowledgement employees would like to receive when their companies thank them, one in four chose having an extra day off. Over three quarters of the UK workforce reported that they would feel more valued if their companies introduced little perks when they had done well.

At Spinnaker we offer half days off as an incentive for developing business so according to this research perhaps we are half way there! An interesting part of the report concerned 'company wide' thanks for good company performance which a lot of companies don't engage in. Individual thanks and reward are vital to company performance but by also thanking the company as a whole you send the message that the team has worked and that everyone is moving forward together. Cheesy …. but true!

BRITISH AND FRENCH EMPLOYERS POOR AT RETAINING TALENTED STAFF

"...a workplace culture in which people can maximise their potential is still largely absent," according to research firm ISR. "Without it, there is high risk that people will either put minimum levels of effort into their job, or look for opportunities elsewhere. Both of these can have a serious impact on an organisation's financial performance."

We couldn't agree more. This kind of comment tallies with everything we hear from jobseekers when they tell us why they want to move on and is one of the reasons why (if you read the last issue of Changing Course) you could have been forgiven for thinking that we had fallen in love with an HR Manager or two as we waxed lyrical about the positive strategic impact professional HR is having on the shipping industry. Since penning that truism we read about some new research from ISR which shows that within the European market French and British employees are the least likely to think that their firm is doing a good job at retaining talented people.

The research reveals that nearly half of both UK (46%) and French (47%) employees think that their employer is not doing a good job of retaining its most talented employees. In the world's best performing organisations only 29% of people hold this view. German employees are the least likely to say that their company is not doing a good job at retaining its employees.

The researchers believe that organisations are finding it hard to motivate and retain talented staff because they are providing too few opportunities for personal development. ISR examined data that reflects the views of 262,799 employees in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands. They then compared the results to data drawn from organisations with the strongest financial performance globally.

According to the research, just 13% of people in high performing companies are thinking about leaving their job. British firms are significantly lagging behind this benchmark, with 24% of employees holding this view. Italian (12%) and German (10%) employees are the least likely to be thinking about leaving their jobs.

The findings are significant because opportunities for personal growth influence the degree to which employees are motivated, engaged and prepared to actively contribute to an organisation's success. If employees are not engaged they are less likely to be interested in the success of an organisation and ultimately this indifference can have a negative impact on an organisation's financial results. ISR compared the financial performance of organisations with a highly engaged workforce to their peers with a less engaged workforce. The 'highly engaged companies' saw average gains of 19.2% in operating income compared with 32.7% declines in the 'less engaged companies'. The rate of growth of their net income was 13.7% compared with a 3.8% decline in the other group.

ISR said: "Against a background where the traditional idea of career progression is increasingly obsolete, talented employees pay far greater attention to whether their employer encourages them to acquire new skills and develop their capabilities."

AND FINALLY

Here's a little conundrum to work the grey matter a little!

Two Frenchman were passing the time of day at St Tropez admiring Paul Allen's yacht which was moored in the harbour. One was the local fisherman, the other a Parisian banker. Over the stern of the boat hung a rope ladder with rungs 25cm apart, and with 3 metres showing above the water. The fisherman commented that the tide was just about to start rising and said that when it did it would rise at a consistent rate of 30cm per hour. He asked the Parisian how many metres of the rope ladder would still be above water after 5 hrs of the rising tide. Can you help the banker?

For the answer go to the bottom of the page.

EARN £400

Below is a list of vacancies currently available. However, if you are not interested or not suitable for any of these positions but you know someone who might be interested, you can EARN YOURSELF A £400 referral fee by passing details of the vacancy onto them.

You simply need to go to http://www.shippingjobs.com/jobseekers/referral_scheme.asp and complete our simple form giving us details of the person you have referred the job to. Subject to the terms of the scheme, if that person gets the job, you get £400. Simple.

(Please note that those marked with an 'AD' reference are advertised directly by the client and are therefore not eligible for the scheme.)

Answer to conundrum: Still 3 metres because the ladder will rise with the ship!

CURRENT VACANCIES