Maritime charities, the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN), the Mission to Seafarers, and Sailors’ Society have endorsed Diversity Study Group’s (DSG) benchmarking initiative that tracks crew demographics and year-on-year trends in seafarer psychological and physical safety and wellbeing.
Key Step Froward
DSG will collaborate with maritime charities and participating ship operators — Anglo-Eastern Ship Management, Ardmore Shipping and Dorian LPG — to identify key impact points and utilise their DEI expertise to recommend sustainable solutions that will facilitate improved workplace culture and seafarer welfare.
Heidi Heseltine, Founder of Diversity Study Group, said: “Our Seafarer Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) Data-Gathering and Benchmarking initiative maps a key step forward for the maritime industry…”
Maritime charities are intimately familiar with the challenges faced by the crew and the unique constraints of offering support while at sea. While DSG’s benchmarking initiative offers participating ship operators a means by which to nurture an effective working culture at sea — where everyone feels encouraged, has the opportunity to thrive, and the freedom to voice their concerns — it also allows for maritime charities to benefit from granular data on which DEIB programmes are proving the most effective.
Data Gathering and Benchmarking
DSG’s new Seafarer DEIB Data-gathering and Benchmarking initiative will take place alongside their shore-side data-gathering and benchmarking initiative, which has been running successfully for 5 years. These dual benchmarking initiatives offer nuanced insights that understand the distinct ecosystems of ship-board and shore-side operations and the interplay between them.
Ben Bailey, Director of Programme at the Mission to Seafarers, said: “Change can be disconcerting for many, and it is vital that we focus on creating inclusive, resilient and respectful systems of communication across maritime’s wide range of stakeholders…”
Acting as an independent third party, DSG has designed and shared an anonymised online survey with seafarers from participating organisations. The information collected will be analysed in order to share relevant insights with participating members through a secure online business intelligence dashboard. This will allow organisations to measure the anonymised data specific to their onboard personnel against the aggregated industry responses available.
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Source: Seafarerswelfare
