What is Ship Crewing Services and Crew Management?

Crewing ships with well-qualified, trained, and experienced seafarers is the cornerstone of smooth and efficient shipping operations, and crew management companies exist for this reason.

These companies, or crewing managers, are contacted by shipowners, ship operators, or charterers to manage the crew on their ships under a crew management contract. These activities are majorly concentrated in a few locations, such as Cyprus, Malta, Hong Kong, India, the Philippines and Singapore.

Crew management companies often work with their manning agencies and are involved in finding qualified seafarers, recruiting, selecting, and training them, ensuring their timely deployment, and managing ship crew under the crew management contracts.

Crew management services also deal with administrative aspects like payrolls, insurance, and travel arrangements. They also undertake career guidance, banking and financial services, communication, team building, and other programs.

Crew management companies usually use crewing software to manage these activities, including crewing data. This software is also used to maintain a connection with the client or shipowner, leading to greater transparency and efficiency in planning.

Benefits of Crew Management Services

Crewing services establish a transparent relationship between shipowners and their crews.
It ensures that shipping fleets are efficiently manned with skilled personnel.
It enables shipping companies to focus on their core business tasks and optimise operations.
Reduces costs related to recruiting, training and processing payrolls for shipping companies.
Keeps ships compliant with international safety and security standards set by IMO.
Offers 24/7 assistance for crew-related issues.
Provides training programs to keep seafarers updated on the latest industry developments.
Focuses on crew welfare.
Aids in knowing and mitigating risks related to crew operations.
Evaluation of crew performance, ensuring that high standards are being maintained.
Provides quick emergency response, ensuring crew and vessel safety.
Ensures timely wage payments to the ship crew.
Offers Legal help if a dispute arises involving the crew.
Enables crew members to grow their careers through career development plans.
Ensures adequate mental and physical health care is provided to the crew.
Prepares crew to work in diverse, multicultural, multiethnic environments onboard ships.

Services included in Crew Management

Sourcing, Screening, Selection and Employing Crew
Proactive communication with the client
Management of payroll and tax
Accounting
Cost Control
Travel Arrangement & Coordination
Crew Training
Crew Planning and Change
Provision of Medical Services
Cadet Programs
Monitoring Performance
Crew Insurance
Career Planning and Development
Ensuring compliance according to industry standards
Crew Welfare
Catering Management
Round-the-clock telemedicine service
Pension Fund or retirement scheme

Departments in Crew Management

Crewing Ships is not a simple task performed by a team or handful of people. The crew management services involve numerous departments that work to ensure safe and efficient maritime operations.

These departments carry out specific tasks such as the ones described below.

Recruiting and Hiring

Sources, Assesses and selects deserving candidates for several positions onboard vessels.
It ensures that those selected meet the requirements and have the appropriate qualifications.

Training and Certifications

As the name suggests, it provides the ship crew adequate training and professional development so they have the skills and certifications needed for their positions.

Scheduling and Deploying Ship Crew

It ensures that crew members follow the outlined duty rotations, schedule, working hours, and rest time as per international rules, ensuring they are deployed to their ships according to contract agreements.

Department of Safety

Ensures the crew follows the outlined safety measures and standards the industry sets.
It also includes adhering to the safety rules established by marine conventions to maintain a safe work culture and preserve life at sea by minimising the chances of accidents.

The Welfare of Ship Crew

This department is responsible for addressing the well-being of seafarers and ensuring they are provided with appropriate living conditions onboard ships.
They also ensure that medical care and basic amenities are available to them.

Department of Documentation

It ensures that all documentation regarding the ship crew, including documents about their qualifications, certificates, work contracts, etc., complies with international maritime rules. This is vital for audit purposes.

Communication and Report Generation

This department is one of the most important since it is responsible for maintaining clear and continuous communication channels between the crew, the ship’s management, and shore staff members.
It reports any accidents or untoward incidents at sea and also any compliance problems that need to be resolved per the regulations.

Evaluating the Performance of Crew

This department evaluates and monitors the performance of ship crew using key performance indicators to further enhance crew management.

Different Positions in Crew Management

Crewing services involve people handling different tasks, so they comprise an array of roles, positions, and designations, each with a specific role.

The main ones are mentioned in the table below.

Where do Crew Management Companies Source Seafarers from?

Most seafarer ratings are sourced from developing nations in Southeast Asia, such as China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Most officers are recruited from the Far East, Europe, and North America, with vast numbers hailing from Ukraine, Croatia, Russia, Latvia, Poland, the U.K., Greece, etc. However, many officers are also from developing nations, especially India and China.

Challenges & Issues in Crew Management

1. Cost Management

Managing costs is a major concern for crew management companies. To achieve this, even the smallest thing is planned however, the issue is that anything can change at the last minute. Accidents can happen and even the travel schedules of the crew can change. Hence, the crew management companies have to find ways to deal with these issues so they do not impact the overall schedules.

An efficient crewing manager weighs several factors before making a decision. For instance, when deciding about crew rotations, it consults the travel management company it works with to figure out the cost of flights, frequency, availability and potential delays on certain routes to balance costs and flight times to satisfy both the seafarers and the employers.

2. Ensuring Seafarer wellbeing

The need for efficiency can compromise crew safety if they work for longer periods without sufficient rest, which can lead to fatigue in the long run. Crew management companies need to take care of the mental and physical health of the crew by encouraging free and open communication about the topic, suggesting strategies to cope with stressful situations and managing crew rotations properly.

3. Recruitment

A major issue affecting crew management and the shipping industry is a shortage of qualified seafarers and difficulties faced in recruitment due to the same. This issue persists for specialised ships like LNG and LPG carriers and chemical tankers and critical positions like engineering and deck officers at the management levels.

Though experts and global firms forecast an increase in the supply of officers, it will be likely outpaced by the rising demand which poses concerns for safe shipping activities both onshore and offshore.

The shortage of seafarers has been reported by many industry organisations like Drewery and BIMCO and even by IMO, who underlined a continued shortage of officers.

This means greater difficulties for crewing managers who seek to improve the travel experience to retain crew by limiting last-minute changes, decreasing uncertainty and offering an overall good experience to the crew members.

Crew Management Companies have to balance the needs and wants of sailors against the financial prospects within a turbulent sector.

Choosing the Right Crew Management Company

Shipowners should consider various factors before choosing a crew management company for their ships. We will look at a few of them.

1. Selection Criteria

One of the most important indicators of a successful manning company is its crew selection criteria. If the crew manager adheres to a standard higher than the market when choosing the ship crew, then vessels are manned with efficient personnel, ensuring safe operations.

Factors like the crew member’s training institution, experience, performance in other companies, work ethics and overall attitude should be considered.

2. Global crewing pool

Most shipowners prefer to have crew that share similar morals, cultures and nationalities so there is cohesion and cooperation onboard ships. Best crew managers have a global crewing pool which can meet the demands of different shipowners.

3. Training

Most manning agencies have their training systems and even training centres for upgrading the skill set of crew members, by offering general and vessel-specific training before they are deployed to the ships.

4. Considering types of ships managed & past record

When choosing a crew management company, one should look at the different types and sizes of ships it has dealt with along with its record and experience in different geographical regions. Older players are often much better equipped to handle the specific demands of shipowners.

The company’s record in crew retention and satisfaction must also be considered, along with its customer service.

A great crewing manager is always inclusive since diversity and inclusiveness are vital to retaining exceptional talent.

5. Crew performance and monitoring

An ideal crew manager encourages their crew to become efficient by monitoring and evaluating their performance regularly to maintain high standards. Through this process, inconsistency in performance or below-average performance can be highlighted and action can be taken to prevent it from happening in the future.

6. Global presence

A worldwide presence ensures that issues related to crewing can be resolved quickly. For instance, this can result in faster logistical assistance for transporting the crew at any location to prevent delays in schedule. This way the crew change and arrangement of itinerary can happen smoothly through the presence of many checkpoints.

7. Reputation in the market

A thorough research into the crew management company’s background and reputation in the industry is important to check if it maintains transparency in operations.

8. Finances

It is crucial that the company you ensure to manage your ship crew is financially stable to meet its obligations to the clients.

9. Commitment to safety

The company must be committed to safety and compliance with all the regulations and have a strong safety culture, including the provision of proper safety training to its employees and crew members.

10. Effective Communication & Flexibility

The company should provide regular updates and information on any pressing issues and be flexible to accommodate client’s needs.

To sum up..

Crewing Ships with qualified maritime professionals is vital for the sustainability of the maritime sector. This important task is handled by crew management companies which work with several other local agencies to recruit, select, train and deploy crew members to various ships on time. They handle tasks including finances from insurance to conducting career development programs and training for the betterment of seafarers. Various departments and designations take part in this complex process.

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