Sustainable workforce and Training in the Agenda of the WISTA’s International Conference Workshops
Last week’s very successful, highly attended and very well organized WISTA International’s AGM and Conference that took place in Limassol, Cyprus, was followed by a series of workshops to provide participants and members of the Maritime Community to exchange views and discuss current issues.
One of them was the workshop held at the Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement Maritime Training Center on “Building a Sustainable Maritime Workforce through Training”. A distinguished panel of speakers under the coordination of Eva Rodriguez, Director HR Marine of BSM, engaged in very interesting discussions followed by input from cadets of BSM and members of the participating audience.
Building Leadership skills was highlighted by Elisabeth Calbari, Neurophychiologist and founder of Self Balance, as one of the most important “Human skills” , as Tracy Santrian, Director and Co-Founder of BZ Maritime Leadership suggested we refer to soft skills from now on, and stressed out, that the industry needs to build and invest upon, as this will be the characteristic that will allow leaders to guide both crew as well as shore staff through the challenging times of digital transformation and decarbonization.
Captain VS Parani, VP Marine Tufton Asset Management, referred to the shortage of seafarers and how we could attract youth in the seafaring profession. Stewart Bankier, Director Training Columbia Shipmanagement, was the one to initiate the discussion of effective training and the time limit and fatigue onboard. The utilization of technology, automation and AI (artificial Intelligence) was specifically addressed by Siren Berge, CTO Mitra and Stephen Bond, MD Marine Media Enterprises.
As progress towards these sectors is unavoidable it was stressed out that steps need to be made in the direction of securing that these will be used in a “Moral and Ethical” way and that perhaps training on this, needs be considered as DNV’s Maritime Academies’ Regional Manager, Dr Marina Papaioannou pointed out. Dr Papaioannou also suggested the engagement of the Trainees in the early stages of the development of the training to make it as relevant and as useful as possible for the participants. She particularly pointed out that “participants learn only if the learning is relevant and useful in improving their everyday work life”.
The Workshop was followed by a tour to the training center’s facilities that includes bridge and engine simulators and was concluded by a cocktail reception where participants had the opportunity to mingle with each other as well as cadets from the company.
