The Challenge
Helping to change the yacht industry through education and communication
strategic partners
Crew Solutions is a Helm-aligned teaching and mentoring service. Working with our strategic industry partners, we offer a range of proven and practical services that drive workplace culture, transparency and transformation in line with HELM’s prescribed reflective, personally integrative and feedback-driven approach.
We are proud to be in the vanguard of industry professionals looking to transform the onboard working culture in the industry we love. Our goal is to help to create a safer and more sustainable Yacht industry that entices, nurtures and retains talent.
The Human Element
HELM benchmarks best practice values, processes, communication practices and attitudes for the yacht industry. The HELM Management Level course directly addressed some systemic behavioural issues long recognised as endemic across the yacht industry. The updated 2023 HELM course guidelines go further, putting crew safety and growing professionalism front and centre. But not simply physical safety but the psychological safety of all those on board.
Driving Change
Crew calibre, welfare and retention is being assessed by yacht Owners, Brokers, Management Companies and yacht Captains looking to cut churn costs, mitigate risks and improve the monitoring and management of crew welfare and culture onboard.
Legal Risk
There is strong correlation between workplace harassment, bullying (and other employee rights violations) and organisational culture. This is true of yachts as it is of any workplace environment. These infringements cost employers millions in legal claims, yet many of these lawsuits could have been avoided by pre-emptively changing workplace culture to ensure the on board values, goals, roles, processes and communications practices align with best practice. Education and communication are key to this transformation.
Reputational Risk
Owners and charters are warry of associations that might reflect badly on them. Any employee abuse allegations can quickly go viral with devastating consequences for reputational liability. If the worst happens employeers will be judged by the safeguards in place and by how they respond.
Commercial Risk
The cost of crew turnover goes beyond immediate severance and recruitment costs. Onboarding and new crew induction take time and cost money, strengthening the case for retention. But it is the intangible impact on crew morale – inevitably affecting the atmosphere onboard – that is, arguably, the key driver for onboard workplace culture transformation.
Professional Risk
Onboard ‘Culture’ is more than the shared – often unwritten – perception of how things are done. It is a state of being for every member of the crew.
Captains, Masters and anyone approaching or attained HELM Managerial should be a large part of the energy behind how crew members develop into that culture onboard. This puts them on the front line of influencing crew.
All crew members can be resistant to changes and toxic behaviour can persist or go unreported. But as an industry professional, your reputation will be affected if the culture still contains harassment, bullying, employee rights violations or other abuses that happen on your watch.
We can help
New Crew
Induction
Save on Crew churn costs and avoid costly HR issues by ensuring new crew understand the ropes from day one.
HELM-Aligned
Policies
Implement the processes, communications practices, values and attitudes that align with HELM guidance.
One-to-One
Mentoring
A feedback-driven approach supports the crew and identifies toxic behaviours early on, avoiding costly legal action
Leadership
Development
Empower all crew to manage culture to create happy, healthy and functional onboard work environments.
Crew
Communication
Crew Solutions develop and deploy HELM-aligned feedback culture from incident reporting to crew journaling.
Join the Culture Conversation
Training & Communication
The importance of greater professionalism and career longevity is now broadly recognised across the industry. However, this requires a cultural change from management, owners and crew alike if the more transparent and accountable workplace culture HELM is looking to build is going to thrive.
Changing culture can be challenging. Resistance to change is common. Unless all the crew see the value of change, it can be difficult to alter the beliefs and behaviours that influence how people act. This is why top-down culture change initiatives founder. It is also why education and communication systems are crucial.
Based on our extensive industry experience Crew Solutions has developed a hybridised approach that not only secures crew buy-in but also delivers demonstrable results.
Find out more about how Crew Solutions can help:
Call us on +44 7565 919961 or Email us info@crewsolutions.uk.
CREW SOLUTIONS LTD
Unit A, 82 James Carter Road,
Mildenhall, Suffolk,
IP28 7DE. United Kingdom