Page 24: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2017)

Caring about safety simply is not suf? cient to achieve safe operations. So how do we achieve consistently safe operations? The answer is not complex, but it does take commitment – especially on the part of the CEO or other management executive. TRAINING & EDUCATION

Image: © Amarinj/AdobeStock to earn the trust of employees - enabling to their career and their development is the added advantage that the technology

Requirement #4: them to come forward to report an issue. one who re? ects that commitment back that supports it, the Learning Manage-

The CEO’s reaction to that ? rst brave to the organization. ment System or LMS, is highly visible

Fair Blame employee’s report will set the stage and How do we commit to each employee to employees in the form of an online

Unless an accident or near miss is begin to build (or diminish) trust. Thus, and demonstrate that commitment? In company training website often referred caused by gross or willful negligence, a steadfast management commitment is the view of many including myself, the to as the companies’ “training academy” it is counterproductive to blame the required here, no matter how dif? cult it most powerful demonstration of commit- or similar. employee(s) involved. First, can we may seem. ment to employees is ongoing employee

Conclusion absolutely say that they are solely re- Trust is hard won and easily lost, and development through best practice train- sponsible? Or could the cause have that trust is a requirement for success. ing. In a practical sense this means coop- The ? ve items above constitute only been broader – including shortcomings eratively crafting a career development the broad strokes. There is much more with equipment, training or procedures? plan for each employee and providing to it, but if an operator gets the above

Requirement #5:

Second, by assigning blame to the the training and experience necessary requirements right, almost all else will employee(s) involved, we are encourag- to advance according to the plan. This follow. Get advice from experts, both

Employee Commitment ing our employees to hide or misreport development plan should be visible, or- those who are external experts, as well accidents and near misses. This robs us Safe operations essentially boil down to ganized and structured - not informal. It as the experts you already have working of the most powerful of learning op- one thing – the commitment each of? cer should be reviewed regularly. Employ- as deckhands, engineers, of? cers, cooks, portunities. Blaming our employees for and crew member brings to his/her com- ees will know immediately whether the and in every other position in your com- what are, in most cases, shared short- pany and job. As it is often said, safety is company commitment is meaningful. pany. comings guarantees that we will repeat about “doing the right thing, even when Like the career development plan, Implementing the requirements listed the same failure over and over. This is no one is looking”. That is a good de? ni- the training that supports it should be above may mean a lot of change for the worst of all possible situations. tion of commitment in this context. That structured and effective. The most ef- many organizations. I would argue,

It takes a great deal of trust for an em- level of commitment cannot be demand- fective and ef? cient training approach however, that the bigger the change re- ployee to report an issue they were at the ed, and it can rarely be hired. It must be is blended learning where the training quired to achieve these, the more criti- center of. This is especially true in or- earned. And the only way to earn it is consists of carefully constructed on-line cally necessary it is to start making each ganizations which start from a position for the organization to lead by ? rst com- learning together with hands-on training. one of those changes. That is where the of being heavily blame oriented. It takes mitting to each employee. An employee This approach is substantially more ef- commitment from the top comes in. Are time, commitment, and communication who feels that the company is committed fective than other approaches. It also has you ready?

24 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • NOVEMBER 2017

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