HCM is key in facilitating meaningful connections onboard ships and the remote offices that exist today. This ultimately drives a community of seafarers who feel positive, engaged, and supported in their work. Not only does this improve the quality of talent recruited, but also increases the safety of shipping, and lessens the likelihood of turnover.
The following two articles in this series include a list of recommendations to optimise HCM for maximum business benefits.
- Start with a vision and communicate this to your employees.
The most important place to start when implementing an HCM strategy is to visualise the organisation you want to be and the employee experience you want to shape. You then need to understand your current state and create a roadmap for achieving this vision. This includes employee journey mapping, which includes outlining the key stages of the employee lifecycle and identifying opportunities to enhance the experience at each stage.
This process will help to pinpoint areas that require attention, such as cultural or skills gaps. You then need to identify the data points you want to collect to measure your progress. At the same time, you need to identify the systems you need to put in place to turn your vision into reality.
It is important to also communicate this vision to your employees and be transparent in keeping them updated on overall company performance and expectations. This will help to ensure alignment of the vision and values across the organisation.
- Conduct regular temperature checking of your people
Regularly check in to gauge the overall mood, engagement, morale, and wellbeing of employees within an organisation. The goal is to identify potential issues, concerns, or areas of improvement that can enhance the workplace culture, increase employee satisfaction, and ultimately improve performance and retention. The ultimate goal is to determine if your vision and message are landing with the people who are performing the work. This can help to better understand how your employees are interpreting your messages, how they feel about the work being asked of them, and the overall strategy of the organisation. For example, consider collecting employee feedback as actionable data through pulse surveys. This will help to shape and modify your strategy going forward.
- Focus on change management
If you are implementing an HCM system, as with any new tool or process, the first step is to win hearts and minds. Some software users find they have trouble getting buy-in from certain areas of the organisation because they have concerns about the technology replacing their jobs. Be aware that there may be some reluctance from users to engage with digital tools or solutions at first. To ensure HCM brings the changes you are after, you need to prepare and be ready for those who will be affected by it. Define the vision and goals of HCM and identify who and how will be affected by it. Then focus on developing a strategy that encourages organisational-wide buy-in.
For a more detailed understanding of the recommendations covered in this article, refer to our report, commissioned by Ocean Technologies Group. The Bottom Line: Why Human Capital Management is the future of HR and crewing. You can download the full report which contains all six recommendations below:
