Beyond the tick-box

Maritime is a fast-changing environment and the pace of change is accelerating. The need for safe, compliant and efficient operations is greater than ever. Leadership decision-making has to keep up, and the people strategy needs to be a key part of the response.

Yet across the maritime industry, many operators still manage training through a familiar tool: the spreadsheet. Ranks down one side, courses across the top, ticks in the boxes when seafarers complete what’s required. It satisfies audits and keeps regulators at bay. But even those who have moved beyond it often find themselves reproducing the same mindset in more sophisticated systems; tracking activity rather than building genuine capability.

SIRE 2.0 and RISQ 3.2 frameworks are raising the bar across the tanker and dry bulk sectors. Inspectors now expect seafarers to be able to explain why they do what they do, not just describe procedures or produce certifications. Scrutiny on the real capability of those onboard is growing across the industry. The old approach to crew training, whether on a spreadsheet or something more advanced, is being found out.

Which is why leaders should be asking tougher questions: Are we genuinely building the skills and behaviours we need, or just filling in a matrix to demonstrate marine compliance?

This is a strategic issue that reaches far beyond the training department. Done well, a genuine people strategy combines a view of those onboard and onshore, drives individual and company performance, and prepares the leaders of the future. The question is how to get there.

Done well, this gives shore-based leaders the visibility they need to manage performance across their fleet, and turns training from a shipboard activity into a company-wide strategic asset.

Manage for performance, not just compliance

A competency management system (CMS) sits at the centre of this approach: a practical framework that treats training and people management as a strategic asset rather than an administrative one.

A competency framework, such as the one within Ocean Learning Platform, lets you answer a more important set of questions:

1. What do we expect people to be able to do in each role?
2. Which behaviours and values matter most on our ships?
3. Where are our strengths and gaps by person, vessel and fleet?
4. How do we recruit, develop and promote people based on proven competence, not just sea time and certification?
5. What issues are we facing as a company that we need to address through our people?

That last question is often the most powerful. A well-implemented CMS becomes a critical tool for tackling operational problems and seizing new opportunities, expanding what your people strategy can achieve.

Using the data these questions generate, analyse performance and identify what still needs to change.

Some companies already address these issues in separate initiatives. The CMS connects all training requirements into one foundational framework.

Catherine Logie, the Head of People and Learning Strategy at OneOcean, explains how high performing companies see this as a way of embedding their culture throughout their operation:

“It’s a tool that reflects wider company values – and how they then shape the strategy and the policies and the way that people work together. It demonstrates that this is an organisation that values people.

“Some companies aim for ‘crew training beyond compliance’ through ad hoc initiatives. These can range, for example, from training on aspects of crew wellbeing, to courses based on company policy such as cyber security. Or there might be isolated training campaigns that focus on getting through an inspection such as a Port State Control Concentrated Inspection.”

But a competency management approach brings this together into a coherent strategy so that there is connected thinking across different initiatives.

What’s more, if used correctly, integrating a CMS into the overarching approach to people provides a valuable communication tool, making expectations visible for everyone onshore and onboard ships.

“One benefit of the CMS is transparency, because you could be doing a lot of great stuff in your company. But how do individual seafarers understand that, feel it and see it so that it’s clear to them in which direction they should be heading and what competencies they will need if they want to progress in their career. This is particularly true as roles are evolving so quickly.”

Why maritime is moving this way

The pressure to move beyond compliance-based training is coming from multiple directions simultaneously.

RISQ 3.2, SIRE 2.0 and other inspection standards are no longer satisfied with “show me your certificates.” Inspectors expect seafarers to explain why they do what they do, not just describe procedures. This is the emerging trend across the industry.

The Tanker Management Self Assessment (TMSA) scheme makes the competency requirement explicit. Elements 2, 3, 5 and 6 all reference competency directly, and Elements 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 at level 4 require operators to demonstrate that competency gaps are being addressed and that succession and recruitment planning includes profiling of competence and experience.

Behavioural frameworks are raising expectations further. BCAV (Behavioural Competency Assessment and Verification) sets out six competency domains that operators are increasingly expected to evidence:

  1. Teamworking
  2. Communication and influencing
  3. Situation awareness
  4. Decision-making
  5. Results focus
  6. Leadership and management skills

Standards bodies and associations, including RightShip and dry bulk initiatives, are nudging operators towards a competency-based view of the workforce, even where a formal CMS is not yet mandated.

Catherine Logie summed up the direction of travel:

“Having a competency management framework as a ship operator does not guarantee that you are necessarily going to pass all of these inspections, but it should give inspectors confidence that your training is well managed.”

OneOcean’s CMS sits directly in this space: helping operators join the dots internally in a way that stands up to external scrutiny.

Five ways to make this work in the real world

Technology is just an enabler. A CMS could become just another matrix if not used as a strategic driver of performance. Here is what good implementation actually looks like in practice.

1. Start small, stay focused.

A framework like BCAV has over 200 behavioural competencies to tackle. This is too much to implement all at once. Andrew Easdown, Maritime Training Consultant at OneOcean, says stay focused:

“You get presented with 200 competencies thinking, ‘How am I possibly going to do that?’ Well, the answer is, you don’t. Maybe you start by looking at five for the first year, focusing on the ones which will give us the most immediate improvement. Then gradually build up from there.”

Within the OneOcean CMS you should:

  • Use the system to set 5–10 priority competencies for Year One.
  • Configure appraisals, assignments and training around those.
  • Use reports and analysis to review progress and adjust the focus each year.

2. Nominate a shoreside owner

A competency management strategy needs a dedicated owner in the shore team, someone with clear accountability, and preferably not just an additional duty added to an existing role. Andrew[JP5.1] Easdown is direct on this:

“You’ve got to give somebody in the shore team responsibility to make this function. If you just add it as another duty for somebody it won’t really work.”

That person then becomes the engine of continuous improvement:

“You give them the responsibility for reporting back, and you have touch points, usually every quarter to evaluate progress. At the end of the year you assess: what worked, what didn’t, what do our seafarers say about the changes, where do we need to improve?”

The Ocean Learning Platform empowers that owner to:

  • Configure competency frameworks, appraisals and training assignments in one place
  • Access Dashboard Reporting to provide data-driven insights to leadership and vessel managers
  • Build bespoke development pathways for individuals and roles through the Performance Appraisal tool

3. See it as a company-wide effort

A CMS run from the centre but not embedded across the company will not deliver. It needs to be part of how vessel leaders and shore-based managers alike understand their responsibilities. Used well, it becomes a unifying thread that embeds culture, builds collective ownership and ensures the right people have the right capabilities.

Andrew Easdown is clear about what happens when this is missing:

“If it’s part of somebody’s appraisal process onshore and on board the ship, you’re much more likely to make it work. If you just fire it out from the office to the ship, and expect it to be done without preparing leaders for the change, and then you don’t really follow it up, then it’s not going to happen.”

OneOcean’s CMS makes this easier:

  • Centralised competency tracking means consistency across the fleet and onshore.
  • Blended learning and company-specific policies can be embedded in the training and management process.
  • Connected communication between ships and shore means there is one view of what is required.

4. Put people at the centre of the picture, not processes

Catherine Logie warns against assuming a system can fix human behaviour:

“A framework is only as good as the culture around it. If people treat a CMS as just another checklist, they’ve missed the point. A competency management solution should support good people management but not replace it.”

She stresses that it is important to view people as individuals, not simply a rank. The traditional spreadsheet model often fails to do that. Having individual reports in a CMS supports this – if those leading the strategy approach it as such[JP6.1].

Catherine says this not only means people feel better motivated, but it’s also more efficient to avoid seafarers repeating training they have already completed.

“It would show competencies per rank and per individual and allow crew or training managers to identify high performers. If an individual has demonstrated the required competencies, then the company doesn’t need to train him or her again on a topic they already know. The individual can potentially be selected for fast tracking to the next level or new responsibilities.”

Having this structure in place can also enable a stronger emphasis on softer skills, where great leadership, coaching and mentoring becomes a tool to support individuals. Andrew understands how important this is:

“I was taken under the wing of a particular person, and I tried to emulate them. You know, they sort of showed me the way. I tried to be as good as they were. And so, if you have somebody who’s a mentor to you on board, that really helps as well, because they already model the best behaviours.”

OneOcean’s Ocean Learning Platform supports this through:

  • Automated processes that crew members can manage their own competency journey
  • Centralised tracking, allowing those responsible to track that individuals and teams are fully competent
  • Keeping training and competency records current and audit-ready

5. Connect training to strategy

Maritime is changing faster than most training frameworks were designed to handle. With new technologies, decarbonisation, evolving inspection regimes, the companies that will navigate this most effectively are those whose people strategy is built to adapt, not just to comply.

Training and crew competency management can be, and should be, much more than a box-ticking exercise. It should be a key tool of company strategy; one that is agile and responsive enough to adjust what people need as circumstances change, and clear enough to communicate those expectations to everyone responsible for delivering them.

The questions we posed at the start of this article are the right ones to keep returning to: Are we building the skills and behaviours we actually need? Where are our gaps, by person, vessel and fleet? How do we develop and promote people based on proven competence? A CMS gives operators the structure to answer those questions consistently, and the data to act on what they find.

As Andrew Easdown puts it: “It’s all about the people doing the right things that makes the biggest difference.”