The importance of the value and the abilities/skills of the human factor is evident in shipping, since it has been demonstrated to be the most significant and most critical factor in the safe and effective operation of shipping companies and vessels (IMO, 2003). And while until very recently the emphasis was placed mainly on technical/professional skills, in recent years the Joint Safety Initiative by INTERTANKO and OCIMF has called for the introduction, mapping, and assessment of soft skills and competencies across the entire shipping industry, with the aim of the safe conduct of operations (OCIMF & INTERTANKO, 2018). In this way, soft skills were incorporated as a distinct domain, on equal footing with the other elements in TMSA, in SIRE 2.0, and recently in DBMS.
But what are “soft skills”?
Soft skills are often referred to as non-technical skills and cover a broad range of characteristics. In the literature/theoretically, non-technical/soft skills are defined as “the cognitive, social, and personal skills that complement technical skills and contribute to the safe and efficient execution of tasks.” The ILO (International Labour Organisation) defines them as “soft skills, or human relations skills, are the skills we use every day to interact with people. They are characteristics, personal attributes, and social skills that we all possess to some degree.”
OCIMF and INTERTANKO define soft skills as “the ability to successfully interact with other people, systems and equipment, procedures, and one’s environment,” and have developed a framework for reporting these competencies, classifying them across 6 domains: teamwork, communication and influence, situational awareness, decision-making, results focus, and leadership and management skills.
But what are — or what should be — and how are these competencies defined — both theoretically and empirically — in shipping? And in what degree do the sought-after concepts of “success”, “effectiveness”, and “efficiency” tend to render ambiguouity to the measurement or the assessment of soft skills and the framework of an unsubstantiated, subjective measurement and evaluation by inspectors and “experts” . It is therefeore evident that arbitrary judgments, unjustified scoring/evaluations, political interpretations or economic considerations may cause significant side effects,
The problems…
• The 6 soft skills currently assessed in shipping have been introduced empirically by the relevant bodies, without any theoretical support, without a pragmatic equivalent in other sectors, and without reference to comparably well-grounded standards. For example, the rationale for selecting and including specific behavioral variables instead of others has not been documented (e.g., why is Leadership assessed rather than, say, Cultural Intelligence; why Teamwork rather than Organizational Culture; why Decision-Making rather than Resilience, etc.).
• The actual measurement and evaluation of these skills/competencies is likewise carried out empirically and on a case-by-case basis through the use of researchers/inspectors who, although trained, are not in a position — or rather, do not retain the safeguards — to treat those being evaluated in a fully impersonal and impartial manner, regardless of the period (good or bad market), the company being evaluated (large or small), or the personal characteristics of the evaluator (nationality, culture, experience, etc.). In other words, the judgment expressed is wholly subjective, without the capacity for generic and invariant judgments and measurements; variation in evaluators’ assessments of the same object has been observed depending on the factors above.
• The diversity of nationalities of evaluators and those being evaluated is not addressed and not taken into account, even though it has been observed to generate, on its own, problems of measurement and equivalence of representation. Nor does there appear to be a “seriously” theoretically supported and truly empirically validated instrument (a valid and reliable instrument) for generic use in measuring soft skills/competencies, particularly in the shipping and transport sector.
• The interrelationship and side effects among the principal soft competencies are not addressed to date, since evaluators treat them independently of one another, even though their interrelationship is — both in principle and theoretically — apparent. Thus, it is possible to seek to increase the value of one competency without knowing the consequences/side effects on another variable (e.g., a sought-after increase in “leadership” skills may cause a reduction in “communication ability”; or uncritical improvement in “teamwork” may negatively affect “decision-making” ability).
• To date, there has been no serious and well-documented mathematical/econometric simulation model of interventions that would permit the evaluation and prioritization (ranking) of significant interventions, so as to render them economically efficient and of real significance and relevance to companies (e.g., among the selected set of soft skills, which should be addressed through training, which through mentoring, and which through other types of intervention — and what results should be expected).
• Finally, no intelligent algorithm (AI) has been developed to date that can adapt the order and weighting of the measurement instrument’s questions according to nationality, rank, characteristics of the vessel or the company, and the psychographic characteristics of the respondents (as drawn from the companies), so as to produce the best synthetic solution on the basis of stochastic probabilistic methods.
The answer
Four organizations — the Maritime Effectiveness and Smart Technologies Lab (MASTILab) of the Department of Maritime Studies at the University of Piraeus, Deloitte Consulting, the School of Naval Architects of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), and the engineering firm Hydrus — were funded and innovated in research by joining forces to deliver, for the first time, the rigorous theoretical substantiation, development, and full operational deployment of a model tool for measuring soft competencies for the shipping community: the PERMISS tool. PERMISS was discussed with experts, extensively presented and reviewed with the leadership of shipping companies, drew on the experience of other sectors and industries, was tested at major shipping companies, validated on a sample of thousands of seafarers, and developed its own innovative — yet rigorously scientifically validated — theory and practice for measuring and evaluating seafarers’ soft skills in accordance with their characteristics.
Through this tool, which has now entered commercial deployment, shipping companies can evaluate, impartially and more objectively, and monitor on a Dashboard, the required soft skills of their employees.
In addition, they will be able to identify the optimal areas of intervention so as to appropriately direct the company’s initiatives in training and resource reallocation, since a core function of this tool is the ability to evaluate the relationships between soft skills via mathematical algorithms. In this way, shipping companies will be able to focus, in each instance, on the specific points where weakness exists and proceed with corrective actions. Finally, this tool — with the assistance of an artificial intelligence algorithm program that selects questions tailored to individuals’ characteristics and roles — aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of soft skills assessment in the shipping industry, in line with the requirements and particularities of each shipping company and the characteristics of the seafarers, enabling companies to promote safety and excellence across all their operations.
P.S. 1 — PERMISS (www.permiss.net) and the results of the related research/methodology/findings will be officially presented for the first time on Tuesday, June 2 at POSIDONIA.
P.S. 2 — The spin-off company MINTELSOFT of the University of Piraeus has undertaken the commercial management of the @PERMISS program.
P.S. 3 — The participating organizations were the University of Piraeus / School of Maritime and Industrial Studies, Deloitte Business Consultants, NTUA / School of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, and Hydrus Engineering Consultants.
P.S. 4 — The development of the methodology and its pilot application in shipping enterprises were funded by the “Research Excellence Partnerships” of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs and the Recovery Fund.