Ahoy was launched in belief to make a difference. We aspire to make the difference by truly caring for our clients, both candidates and vessel owners.
Caring for us means understanding and ensuring being understood for both sides.
Thus, this week we decided to elaborate on understanding crew rentention drivers to attract attention of the HR decision makers on the clients’ side.
The results of the pole Ahoy launched in collab with Shaped by The Sea surprised us with both agile participation and for us pertially unexpected results.
We ran 3 focus groups, which participants could vote for several options of the provided below.
Winner: Rotation. The ultimate crew retainer, collecting 73% of all pole votes.
2nd place: Annual financial bonus. Retaining factor gaining 22% of all pole votes. However, and more significantly, it makes just 30% of the votes in favour of rotation. In other words, an annual bonus is great, but every 3rd voter prefers rotation over single annual pay-off.
3rd place: Additional leave loyalty scheme, linked to years under contract, collects only 15% of pole votes.
This is quite an oldfashioned retaining tool from times when employees tended to stick to same employer throughout their lifetimes, and “good” employers voluntarily added paid leave days to those granted by law to retain staff. Does not really work for such rapidly evolving industry as yachting.
Astonishing “loser” of the pole across all 3 groups was the social security package that so many employers praise themselves with.
Just 1% of our voters favoured social security as a retainer. Of course, the industry is filled with young healthy adults, none of whom probably can or wish to imagine themselves at age of retirement or audden unemployment. Yet such clear choice speaks in favour of “live today, tomorrow is tomorrow” mentality.
Among other retainers suggested by the voters most frequently quoted were paid training and development packages as well as nanual salary raise loyalty schemes where rotational gigs cannot be offered (especially smaller vessels).
| Retainer | Focus Group 1 | Focus Group 2 | Focus Group 3 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial bonus | 10% | 42% | 16,6% | 22,2% |
| Rotation | 60% | 80% | 77,77% | 72,59% |
| Additional leave loyalty scheme | 30% | 2% | 13,33% | 15% |
| Social security package | 0% | 2% | 1,11% | 1,04% |
The poll was conducted in independent, not overlapping focus groups, equally representing genders, nationalities, job positions occupied on both motor and sailing yachts.
The results are a definite food for thought as for employers, as for us, the recruiters!
Our gratitude goes to all those who participated. We really enjoyed such active interaction and will return to the poll format for sure.
Take good care of yourselves and contact us if you need our support at info@ahoycrew.com
Ahoy Crew
Your agent that cares