Deck officer selection is a difficult process for maritime companies due to the high number of them and their limited experience. Choosing the right candidate is very important both in the safe navigation of the ship and in the long-term planning of the companies. There are many criteria used in the selection of these candidates in the literature and in practice. This study is aimed to determine the criteria that are planned to be used in the selection of particulary deck officer. In this direction, the criteria in the literature were analyzed in detail, and the final criteria were determined with the interviews of human resources managers. The criteria, in which the human factor characteristics predominate, are grouped under two main categories: personal and non-technical competencies and occupational and technical competencies.
TopIntroduction
Deck officers are one of the key personnel who is responsible for the safe navigation of the ships. Working on board requires meeting the minimum requirements determined by the Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping Standards of Seafarers (STCW78/95). All parties as well as deck officers working on board should hold the necessary certificates that are specific to their duties. Besides, they should complete the education and training which is standardized and specified in the related sections of the STCW Code. As an international area, maritime transportation and working on board needs these standards for safe transportation all overseas. On the other hand, getting trained and having certificates only lets officers embark on a ship (Elidolu et al., 2020).
There are approximately 1,65 million seafarers worldwide and 777 thousand of these seafarers are in the officer class. In Turkey, these numbers are 134,501 seafarers and 40,782 officers who are actively working on board (UAB, 2020). In the meantime, more than 1,200 deck officers are graduating from university every year (Kartal et al., 2019). These just graduated officers have the minimum competencies of the STCW requirements but it is not only adequate to work on board. Besides, maritime companies always criticize the quality of these graduates from maritime schools. Many of these graduates do not qualify for the work on board or do not have the abilities required (Magramo et al., 2016). In a merchant ship’s deck personnel organization there are one master, one chief officer and mostly two junior deck officers who are in charge of managing ship and operations. The high number and less experience of officers compared to masters becomes an important selection problem for maritime companies.
The personnel selection process is not only a problem for the maritime industry, it is a major problem for other industries as well. This process was previously carried out by personnel departments of companies. Today's human resources departments and practices have emerged as a result of the change of personnel departments in order to meet the needs of the age. The development of human resources management has transferred the personnel selection process from the personnel departments to the human resources departments.
Human resources management does not evaluate the personnel selection process only in terms of recruitment. While it covers the personnel selection process in a broader context, it deals with many more issues such as determining the most suitable candidate criteria for the job, the recruitment process, orientation training for the new employee, management of wages and salary, training of personnel, and evaluation of personnel performance. This provides companies a more efficient and reliable recruitment process.
Personnel recruitment is the process of finding candidates for the employer's vacant positions. However, even there are many applications for a vacant position, employers have difficulties in finding qualified candidates. In order to apply a more effective recruitment process, techniques such as interviews and tests are used to identify the best candidates (Dessler, 2016).
Personnel selection of maritime companies in Turkey is mostly operated by human resources departments according to the traditional approaches and the interviews are the most important process during the selection compared to other tests. It has been observed that professional exams and psychometric tests, which are among the exam methods conducted with candidates, are generally adapted from different industries and are not prepared by experts in the field. The necessity of applying tests specific to the maritime industry is inevitable (Kan & Köseoğlu, 2019).
After serious maritime accidents and as a result of the studies of organizations such as IMO, human resources have also been started to be evaluated within the concept of risk management in maritime. With the tightening of the regulatory regimes, companies require the most appropriate personnel to join the ship with more effective human resources practices in order to avoid responsibilities arising from human errors (Barnett & Pekcan, 2017). Therefore, the human element which is usually associated with safety, risk management, mitigation, and environmental protection, can also cover some human resources management topics such as selection, recruitment, and retention of seafarers (Barnett & Pekcan, 2017).