Tag: how to

Following a female cadet’s sexual assault onboard a vessel while attending the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy last November, ITF called industry to work with seafarers as assault case reverberates, highlighting that this incident underlines the urgent need for action to eliminate violence in the workplace.

“The cure for burnout is not self-care. It is all of us caring for each other. We can't do it alone. We need each other,” said authors and sisters, Emily and Amelia Nagoski, during a dedicated TED talk, at a time when latest figures show 52% of all workers are feeling burned out globally. 

According to the EU-funded SAFEMODE project, it is useful to consider the accident ‘iceberg’, when considering causality and Safety Learning. The events and facts – who did what, when and where, are the surface layer, relatively easy to document. But they don’t tell the whole story.

In the worst case scenario of a fire onboard, crew members are required to act as professional firemen in a challenging environment, without any other assistance. Above all, the best fire prevention is a well-trained crew and fire drills aim at experience transfer between the crew in order to become able to recognize potential fire hazards.

According to the EU-funded SAFEMODE project, which focuses on ways to enhance Safety Culture within the maritime industry, in order to learn, there must be commonly understood ways of describing events, accidents and the Human Element. The technical term for this is a Taxonomy, which is basically an agreed set of definitions and descriptions.

A near-miss management system in shipping offers one of the most valuable instruments for improving safety onboard seagoing ships. But according to a paper published in 2020, having surveyed 250 participants, near-miss reporting can be inadequate, and several barriers limit appropriate near-miss reporting.

The effects of water and other contaminants in fuel systems can be detrimental to the operation of any vessel, USCG warned and issued a Safety Alert with key recommendations.

It is often said that big results derive from small changes, a principle applying to both personal and corporate life. Today, Kaizen, describing the ability of constant improvement through every-day changes, is recognized worldwide as an important pillar of an organization’s long-term competitive strategy. How can Kaizen model help shipping improve its status quo of everyday operations?

Whenever a pilot or other person embarks or disembarks from a ship by ladder, they entrust their safety to the pilot transfer arrangements provided by the ship and the pilot boat crew. AMSA has noted with concern that since November 2017 several pilots’ lives have been placed at risk, in six separate incidents where man ropes have parted, or its securing point has failed.

Personal self-care includes activities that are part of the self exploration journey that aims to find our personal identity and enjoy every moment in our lives. If we don’t know ourselves, we cannot practice self-care; it is easy to focus on external things instead of going deep within ourselves. As such, taking the time to learn ourselves, can change how we perceive ourselves and the world around us.