Analyzing Factors Influencing Seafarers to Pursue Sailing as a Career

Seafarers form the backbone of the Global Economy by transporting goods from one place to another. New studies show that, there will be a potential shortage of Seafarers, especially Officers in the Global Shipping Industry. Surprisingly, there is a trend of Indian Seafarers preferring not to continue sailing in the future, even though considerable Cadets have passed training. The study intents to find out different factors of Motivation influencing and encourage the Seafarers to continue sailing. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire that was sent to seafaring personnel willing to participate in the study. A total of 13 responses were used for the study. All the respondents are current sailing seafarers with at least 2 years of sailing experience. About 28 motivational factors were identified specific to shipping and are grouped into 3 - Intrinsic Factors (IF), Organizational Factors (OF) and Socio-cultural Factors (SF). The data were analyzed using Fuzzy AHP methodology; furthermore, the factors were ranked in relative, group and global weightage. The result shows that the Intrinsic Factors, which are driven by the internal reward of an Individual, are the prime Factors of Motivation that attract an Indian to seafaring profession.  Lastly, the research proposes that a good HR policy coupled with an employee retention strategy will to some extent encourage the seafarers to continue sailing. The results are instrumental in making suitable amendments to the HR policy of a Shipping Company to retain its veteran workforce to compete in the Global Maritime Market.