Shipping’s top brass have itchy feet

Recruitment firm Faststream has just published its latest Senior Maritime Executive Report in which it is clear shipping’s top brass have itchy feet. 

There has been movement at the top with over a quarter of respondents saying they had changed jobs in the last two years, but 15% regretted doing so. The commonality of their job change regret was that the role had been overpromised and then undelivered.

Moreover, 42% had plans to change jobs over the next two years, the top reason for senior executives to either job seek or stay loyal was the same. They either needed a new challenge in a new job, or their role still challenged them enough to make them stay.

The top skills and knowledge senior executives wanted to improve over the next 12 months included industry trends, AI, understanding new generations, change management, and empathetic leadership.

Hybrid and remote working have become the new norm, 75% of senior executives said they offered this style of working to their employees. 70% said it had improved their access to more talent, 60% agreed it had improved diversity in their business and 60% shared it had made a positive impact on productivity and performance. However, over half of senior executives felt it harmed their company culture.

Other interesting takeaways from the global report include the statistic that 26% of senior executives said their business was already using AI, and 75% thought that AI would improve maritime jobs in the future. However, 39% were still discussing what its impact would be on their current and future hiring plans and only 10% shared it was already impacting both their current and future hiring plans.

According to the survey, the top maritime hotspots where talent would be located in the next five years included Singapore, Athens, Dubai, Copenhagen and Hamburg.

“You can immediately see that Singapore continues to hold the top spot. Talent attracts talent and this is certainly the case when it comes to Singapore,” commented Mark Charman, Faststream’s CEO.