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Joanna Sawh, K-Line, on investment into crewing: "ROIs are very obvious"

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Joanna Sawh, Crewing Manager at K-Line LNG Shipping, talks to us about the importance of a crewing department, its benefits for the business and seafarers, and women on board ships.

At this year’s CrewConnect Global, we spoke to the leaders and stakeholders of this industry and found out about their views on the changes in the maritime industry and their impact on crewing and seafarers.

Joanna Sawh, Crewing Manager at K-Line LNG Shipping, talks to us about the importance of a crewing department, its benefits for the business and seafarers, and women on board ships.

Watch the video now or read the transcript below.

Lili Nguyen: What are the challenges of justifying investment into the crewing department?

Joanna Sawh: Investment into technical aspects of shipping is very tangible, like changing boilers or other technical equipment, it is very obvious the need for that. The development of the crew, who are a very important element in running the vessel, is not very tangible from the perspective of shareholders.

ROIs are very obvious though – the most obvious one is growth, development, safe trade and safe vessels. Happy crew, happy employees.

Transferring this […] to shareholders is the challenge for crewing. I believe that we have to be much more vocal and much more present at the table as HR managers, and that’s one of the challenges I’d like to discuss during the conference.

LN: How could seafarers benefit from more investment?

JS: Seafarers want to have a good job satisfaction. There’s research which indicates that one of the very important elements for all the seafarers is personal growth and professional growth. That comes with technology, with new expectations and new legislations. We must train our seafarers, and this comes at a cost, of course. This guarantees that our seafarers will be developing further into the shore roles.

LN: How do you ensure the correct environment for women on board?

JS: I think it’s great that we’re having this conversation. It’s just an opening. It’s great to see more and more women in shipping in shore roles, but I’d personally would like to see this transferred onto the sea-going roles. At the moment, women on board constitute about 2% of the seafarers worldwide, and I think that’s way too low.

There are challenges, but we have to be open-minded. We have to create the correct environment, meaning allowing female cadets on board, being welcoming, and changing the bias – because there is still bias. It’s not comfortable to talk about this but we have to admit it’s a very masculine environment on board, and to shift the paradigm is not easy.

LN: What do you think the challenges are?

JS: I think the mindset. For hundreds of years, women were not present in shipping. To shift that mindset to be more open and that generational change are happening now. I’m not sure that it’s happening fast and wide enough. But that’s something that we have to talk about, and we have to carry this message to all levels of management in the companies and organisations.