One of the key benefits of HCM is that it can help to ensure the right level of competence exists throughout the organisation.
With such a scarcity of talent, companies are not always able to find personnel at the quality standards they have demanded in the past. The question today is ‘How can I get these people quickly to where they need to be?’ A good HCM strategy helps to improve the chance of recruiting top talent by ensuring the right people are selected and placed in the right roles for them. Psychometric and personality assessments are a part of the toolkit of any professional HCM strategy and can be applied to ensure the chosen candidates’ attitudes and behaviours are well matched to the requirements of roles, helping to optimise performance.
Competency management helps to lay out a clear framework of proficiencies that must be achieved to qualify for specific ranks or be selected for increased responsibilities at a specific rank, providing clarity to both the company and the employee. Adaptive learning can be deployed to maximise the efficiency of learner time by using prior assessments to identify individual knowledge gaps and build personalised learning pathways to close individual learning gaps, potentially reducing training time where knowledge already exists.
When crew and staff feel equipped with the right skills, they are far more likely to progress. However, progressing an individual means backfilling their role. Sometimes this means hiring, sometimes this means developing an existing employee. Either way, HCM enables you to take a longer-term view of workforce management. Systems such as OTG’s Compas solution enable the user to plan crewing far into the future. This makes it possible to identify gaps ahead of time and train, promote, and hire as needed via structured succession planning.
When crew are promoted, they need to be continuously evaluated. Systems used under an HCM strategy can include tools for monitoring and evaluating the performance of crew members. By setting clear performance metrics and providing regular feedback, shipping companies can identify areas for improvement and recognise high performers. This approach encourages continuous improvement and helps to maintain high levels of productivity.
One major benefit not discussed so far is the ability for systems that support HCM to automate mundane and repetitive administrative tasks. This removes the need to deploy a talented member of the crewing or HR staff. Rather than having a skilled worker spend hours of the day inputting data into spreadsheets, systems that talk to each other or a data warehouse can do this automatically. This doesn’t just save time, it reduces human error and makes everything from onboarding to payroll run more smoothly. Ultimately that leads to a better employee experience for everyone and better retention.
Better retention relieves the pressure on recruitment, a costly and time-consuming process. With fewer roles to fill, recruiters can spend more time on assessing candidates and improving the overall quality of hires. This increases the value people provide to their organisation and drives personal progression. They are well looked after while employed and therefore don’t see the need to move on. All of these factors, and how they interact can be measured in a data-driven way to ensure the organisation can live up to its vision and values.
For a more detailed understanding and exploration of the topics 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 below:
