MARLOW NEWSLETTER - Marlow Navigation Training Center

3rd Issue
In order to secure quality and competence
of crew, the Management team supports
the consistency with vision and a careful
growth strategy facilitating the necessary
investments into training infrastructure,
seafarers’ training activities and career development
both by the company itself as
well as its clients. The company started a
training fund to finance the training activities.
This training fund, filled by voluntary
contributions of the company’s
clients has grown from a thin trickle of
dollars to substantial amounts over the
last 10 years. Again consistency and perseverance
are the keys, delivering added
training value to the seafarers working on
our clients’ vessels.
Provides for training in own facilities
Training activities are clearly designed to
accelerate career advancement and a competence
management system provides
guidance, and checks at critical points that
the required competence is achieved. The
required competencies include statutory
requirements as well as specific customer
requirements and company specific requirements.
For competencies that are not
part of the national curricula, the company
provides training in its own training
facilities and recruitment agencies.
A high level of self sufficiency indicates a
healthy crew manager
Once the quality requirements have been
satisfied the strategy how to man the vessels
under management in the future has
Dec 2008
to address self sufficiency - breeding as
many qualified officers out of company’s
rank and file as possibly needed. As a positive
side effect we have seen that a higher
self sufficiency ratio gives you higher retention
rates. Cadets or ex-cadets and extrainees
simply have the tendency to stay
with the company. They have seen that
the company invests in them and they pay
it back in loyalty.
We believe that the self sufficiency ratio -
given a steady environment – is a performance
indicator with more scope that
requires more vision than the retention
rate alone. The focus on self sufficiency
includes careful planning of future demands,
selection, retention, support and
training, competence management and
career counseling. A high level of self sufficiency
could be considered as an indicator
how healthy a crew manager is and
how far the company is prepared to manage
the human resource challenges of the
future. Being to a large extend independent
of available qualified officers in the recruitment
market will benefit quality and
competence levels, and is a concept that
all stakeholders in the industry should appreciate,
ship owners and seafarers, not to
mention insurance companies.
Article Provided by -
Capt. Walter Wekenborg -
MN CYPRUS
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