Maritime Skills Commission - 2022 Annual Report

Annual Report 2022 - 17
Project
Future Ports Workforce Research
The modern port is a significantly different place to
the port of history. It is increasingly shaped by forces
such as globalisation of supply chains automation and
digitisation. It is also shaped by external imperatives
such as sustainability. We expect these trends to not
only continue but to accelerate.
desk research. Interviews occurred during 2021 and a small
working Group made up Commissioners and HR Directors
from the major ports group was formed.
Current Situation
This changing business and organisational environment has
important implications for the people working in the sector
– both today and tomorrow. Whilst there are important
advantages in the future port workplace, such as safety
and greater opportunities to deploy new sources of talent,
and whilst some (perhaps many) future roles are currently
unknown, there are undoubtedly substantial challenges to
be addressed. This is not only in terms of staffing the future
state, but also crucially in making the transition in a timely,
efficient but also responsible manner.
Achieving a better understanding of these dimensions,
and the ways to address them is not a unique challenge to
any one individual port operator (although the specifics of
implementation inevitably will be).
Background
On Monday 28 March the report was launched
at a dissemination webinar to share the report
recommendations including:
Clarify which body is leading on port skills
More joint working within the ports and maritime
sector to drive improvements in diversity
Undertake a systematic review of how skills are
used now, and anticipated changes in skills/job
requirements in the future
‘Eating the elephant’ a mouthful at a time – focused
best practice sharing and ‘sprints’
Investigate priority near-term skills gaps/shortages,
including learning lessons from other sectors
Develop more proactive approaches to upskilling,
reskilling, and retraining the current workforce
Working together to inform a better skills policy and
funding landscape
Developing the HR capability across the sector.
The major port operators undertook a piece of research
to explore the three interlinked key dimensions of change,
the relationships between them and how potential solutions
for how they might be addressed. The overall ‘exam
question’ was ‘what do the likely future ports workforce and
ways of working look like and how can the sector transition
from the position today’.
The full report can be found on the here
The project commenced in late 2020 and the University of
Strathclyde Business School were selected to undertake the