Company Magazine for the Odfjell Group - March 2005

Strengthening Odfjell seafaring skills
An emerging academy (Part I of III)
By Captain Kjell Johansen, Odfjell Manila
Demands for
shipping are constantly
changing,
and the competence
of the workforce
increasingly
has to be put in
focus. For many
years, Odfjell has
studied how the
company can improve
its recruitment and training programs
for shore and shipboard personnel.
In this respect, Odfjell has evaluated
our seafarers in a structured manner,
to determine how the company is
prepared for what lays ahead. Through
this process, we have asked ourselves
the following:
• Are the skills of our personnel in line
with Odfjell’s strategy and goals
• Are these competence requirements
clearly communicated to the
individuals
• Do we systematically evaluate the
effectiveness of personnel training
• Are personnel competencies maintained
and/or further developed
• Are personnel training budgets spent
wisely
We have addressed these questions
through initiating a Competence and
Career Management Program and by
establishing the Odfjell Academy, a
training center that will be instrumental
in the assessment of competencies
and in the development and delivery of
tailor-made and specialized training.
The assessment and training is designed
to enhance the knowledge and skills of
the approximately 1,600 Filipino seafarers
in Odfjell's permanent pool of
chemical tankers.
Competence and Career Management
(C&CM) program
Based on the vision, strategy and goals
for the C&CM program (see insert), we
started out by establishing Competence
Requirements for each position on
board; deck, engine and galley.
Through this process we determined a
number of skill matrices for defined
positions. Another essential task has
been to identify methods and means
with which to carry out Individual
Competence Assessments, one of the
most important success factors for such
a program. At the completion of each
contract, the seafarer will be assessed
to determine whether or not he has the
required skill level for his current position.
This will be carried out using different
assessment methods and tools,
depending on the competence area in
question: self-assessments, theoretical
exam-based tests, practical simulatorbased
assessments and on board evaluation.
We will then use the competence
assessment to identify individual skill
gaps, which consequently is the basis
for competence development and career
plans for each seafarer. These plans
include scheduled training based on
identified skill gaps and/or ‘on-the-job’
training assignments, and form a platform
for any training for future career
development. When an individual
career path is planned, we also take
into consideration personal aspects;
past and current performance on
board, age, academic record, an assessment
of the CIA (Cognitive,
Intelligence, Aptitude) factor, plus of
course the employee's own aspirations.
The Odfjell Academy
When establishing the Odfjell
Academy, we firmly believed that
Odfjell staff and sailors, because of
their knowledge of the company’s
operation, would be the ones most
suitable to develop and deliver specialized/tailor-made
training. Thus, we rely
to a great extent on expertise and
knowledge of shore and shipboard
personnel from various Odfjell offices,
vessels and affiliates when developing,
delivering and continuously improving
the training programs. In addition to a
large degree of in-house training, in
the beginning of 2004 we also formed
a long-term agreement with Wärtsilä
Land & Sea Academy to build suitable
training programs for all the company’s
seafarers.
In 2003, the first year of operation,
Odfjell Academy had 15 tailor-made
courses developed covering deck, engine,
and galley. The Academy trained a total
of 315 crewmembers, adding up to
around 900 course man-days. During
last year 937 persons were being
trained at the training center, a total of
close to 3,500 course man-days, and we
expanded the course portfolio to 30
courses.
In 2005 our target is to train 1,200
people at the academy, i.e. approximately
6,000+ course man-days, and
the course portfolio will be expanded
to 50 courses of which 40 are already
developed and delivered, while the rest
are in various stages of completion. The
academy curriculum covers all aspects
of working on board.
This year we also started a Cadet
Training program. Eight cadets at the
time will be trained (theory and practice)
one month at the academy prior to
vessel assignment. A total of 96 cadets
are scheduled to undergo this program
The Odfjell Academy building.
6 ODFJELL Quarterly March 2005