When it comes to retention, most measures of success are based around how long people choose to remain in your organisation. 

If someone leaves for another shipping business, it can often be viewed as a loss. You lose valuable knowledge and experience, as well as the time and resources it took to recruit and train their replacement. 

A different view could be taken, however. The ability of maritime employers to retain skills within the industry as a whole is equally as important. 

Retention within organisations or retention within the industry? 

A conversation that came up many a time at Spinnaker’s Maritime People & Culture Conference earlier this year, was that the expertise of shore-based maritime professionals can often be hard won and take a long time to acquire. Understanding of shipping markets, vessel operations, regulation, insurance, law, technology or commercial relationships can all take years to consolidate into a single individual. 

If an employee leaves maritime for good then, of course, you have lost someone that the industry would have needed. However, if they move to a new organisation within the maritime sector, the skills that they possess stay with the industry and continue to develop. 

From the view of the individual employer, it will rarely be a positive experience if a talented employee chooses to leave for a competitor. Looking at the wider industry, though, it might be preferable to having them move to an entirely different field. 

This presents something of a paradox. Employers naturally want to keep talented individuals, but many also know that movement between maritime businesses enables skills and experience to grow and develop within a sector that needs to attract and retain talent. 

No one leaves their job for no reason 

People will often look to move to another company in pursuit of something that they value that they believe the other employer can offer better provision of. It may be new experiences in another part of the industry, exposure to a different market, or the chance to take up responsibilities they would not have been able to access elsewhere. 

An employee of a shipowner might be looking to move into maritime technology, consultancy, insurance or another area of specialism. Someone from a large multinational organisation may want the chance to experience how a smaller organisation operates and make a personal impact elsewhere. 

The decision to leave a company is rarely driven by a feeling of dissatisfaction in their time there. Sometimes, the next step that someone needs to make in their career can not be provided by the current employers. 

The opportunity to move elsewhere enables individuals to develop their commercial awareness, lead from new positions, gain extra technical knowledge or see how different industries operate. This will always be valuable to the wider maritime sector, and in some cases to the former employer too. 

Movement can be integral to building maritime careers 

While a career spent working within a single organisation can enable someone to gain valuable experiences and insight into how that particular business operates, moving between several maritime employers can open up a different set of benefits. 

People who move between organisations have the ability to bring together ideas and practices from their previous workplaces, as well as understanding how different elements of the industry connect and operate from a different vantage point. 

They can also see where their talents and interests lie in a bigger context, making them more likely to remain within that segment for a long term future. 

If someone wants to move into a different area of the maritime sector, but the opportunities they can access within their current workplace is limited, they may find that their career options are restricted. Alternatively, they may find a new employer where they can truly settle in and feel comfortable in their role for the future. 

If the alternative is that they get frustrated with the restrictions of their current jobs, feel that they will never amount to anything in their field and walk away from the entire sector, a move to another industry employer may be preferable to the alternative. 

This cannot be used as an excuse to ignore turnover, but an awareness of the wider industry can be very valuable when it comes to retention. 

It is vital that organisations are aware of the reasons behind people leaving, the patterns that emerge and the actions they can take to retain good people that want to stay. 

However, it is also true to say that some situations are unavoidable. It will always be impossible to suit everyone, and sometimes an individual may come to the conclusion that they want to make a move elsewhere. It will be possible, of course, to understand which departures are avoidable and which are not.  

The difference between these situations lies in what an employer can do to change them. If particular problems arise over and over again, the organisation should look into what reasonable adjustments they can make to address them. 

In this way, employers can look not just at the problem and work to fix it, rather than simply looking at turnover figures and treating every departure as a problem that needs resolving. 

The way people leave can be just as important as why they leave 

If people choose to leave the companies for other maritime employers, how the employer reacts will be vital to the futures of both. An employee that feels valued will be much more likely to continue to support former colleagues and employers, recommending clients, recruiting new employees, sharing contacts and potentially even returning in the future. 

By contrast, making someone feel like disloyal traitors for taking the decision to look elsewhere can be a way of sabotaging future opportunities that may have been good for both parties. 

Employers can protect and maintain their relationships by having meaningful conversations with ex-employees and showing an interest in how they will settle elsewhere. It is not always necessary to implement an official alumni programme, but keeping the opportunity open can be valuable to both sides. 

Leaving does not always mean leaving for good 

Jobs for life are no longer the norm, but a relationship does not have to be severed when an employee leaves. They may be able to return to the company later, bringing with them new skills, experience and understanding of what they want in an employer. 

Even if they never return directly, the continued presence of talented individuals within the industry is crucial to its ongoing success. 

Retention within organisations has always been key to successful employers. The creation of a desirable workplace environment, which supports talented individuals, nurtures their development and rewards them for their loyalty and commitment, is the foundation of any good retention strategy. 

However, looking at retention in the wider industry can open up a different set of opportunities. While the success of an organisation is driven by its ability to retain good people, the success of the industry as a whole is driven by its ability to support people in their wider journeys. 

Sometimes, this means getting individuals to stay in a single workplace for a long period of time and develop a deep understanding of the organisation and its practices. Other times, it means looking at a person’s bigger picture and supporting them in the next step of their career with the possibility that their relationship with the former employer can continue. 

The most crucial thing for the industry going forward is to enable talented people to see a future in maritime regardless of where that future is in an organisation.