Unit 4: Wider Context: Organisational and Human Pressures
Maritime safety is profoundly affected by organizational, personal, and behavioural factors, which often serve as root causes of accidents and non-conformities in the case of audits and deficiencies in case of port inspections. The caveat that the company could be deficient in providing the support to the crew members to gain knowledge/skills/competence needed to operate its systems and machinery. There are also a list all other possible areas which could have an impact on the accident happening or making it worse, such as human vulnerability, decision making, communication including language issues and so forth which could company related to crew related. Some 25 possible causes were found based on past studies and some more recent studies by Strathclyde University, such as Stroeve et al (2023).
It needs to be noted that a survey of 2,800 maritime employees by recruiter Halcyon Recruitment and training provider Coracle reveal a decreasing confidence in shipping industry job security, as volatile market conditions continue to impact. Over half of shore-based employees surveyed are actively looking to change jobs with nearly two thirds worried about job security. Crew costs are a soft factor in what is a cost-conscious industry. This will be an area to note as ship owners face the increased cost of operating under the International Maritime Organization’s pollution prevention treaty MARPOL Annex VI emissions cap. The fear is that there could be an increase in human errors and hence claims related to fatigue or a lack of crew engagement. It was also noted that as part of client risk analysis, insurers such as AGCS now routinely dig deeper into the quality of crewing to see if operators are doing more than the required minimum qualification set by IMO.” When considering manning, it is important to note that this minimum should also differentiate between crew members and the officers needed for the passage.