Punit Oza, founder of maritime consultancy Maritime NXT, with useful advice to bear in mind when sourcing the next generation of the workforce.
A recent headline in the Straits Times entitled ‘Poor image of logistics among the young in Singapore worsens talent crunch’ reminded me of a quote from famous Indian teacher Sadhguru who once said memorably: “When your mind is full of assumptions, conclusions and beliefs, it has no penetration, it just repeats past impressions.”
It’s not just the local logistics scene that faces this ‘talent crunch’. It’s very noticeable in maritime too.
We can talk about technology, digitalisation, decarbonisation and disruption that is shaping and will continue to shape these industries in time to come, but without the right people and the right culture, we will never succeed.
In my mind, there are three Ps that the youth seek when they pursue a career.
The first is passion. They seek something that they can pursue with vigour and which can keep their interest and attention. Maritime and logistics are truly international industries which offer a variety of opportunities from training your commercial, marketing and legal competencies to developing some of the coolest artificial intelligence technology solutions to solve real life pain points. Gone are the days where these industries required only manual inputs, these industries are now at par with any global service industry and are growing at a breakneck pace. Why? Because they are serving customers worldwide – like you and me – to get their daily needs – from apples to bread to cars – on time in the most cost-effective manner. Come and be a part of it!
The second is progress. They want to move ahead in their career and in this regard, the scope offered by the industries could not be any wider. The industries andtheir many sub-sectors offer lateral as well as vertical movement options. I am a live example of that – moving from an operations role in a shipping company to a commercial role in a trading company to a transformation role in a pool manager and even a leadership role in an arbitration center. When you combine maritime and logistics, land, sea and kky are literally the limit.
The final P is purpose. This is, in my opinion the most important of all. These industries truly serve the needs of the world population. Knowing that each one of your actions, though business-centric, is actually delivering in its own small way the needs of a common man is a powerful motivation. I remember my ex-boss telling me that we should not negotiate too hard on the freight for an aid cargo that we were shipping for the World Food Program as the cause was a good one. Not many industries offer you the sense of purpose that maritime and logistics do.
So what are you waiting for? Dump all the assumptions, conclusions and beliefs which tie you to the old image and embrace the new image – which you can help project, both from inside as well as outside.
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