Strategies and Measures to Improve the Work Environment of Service Crew on Board Swedish Passenger Vessels

Abstract

This paper presents findings from three workshops focused on the physical, organizational and social work environment of service crew working on board Swedish passenger vessels. The first workshop aimed to identify underlying causes of long-term sick leave among employees in the service department, and potential measures that can be taken to reduce ill-health. The second and third workshop explored knowledge of available methods to identify occupational safety and health risks, and suggest health-promotion strategies at individual, team and company levels. A total of 58 persons from the Swedish maritime cluster participated in the workshops. During the workshops, open and structured brainstorming was used to create affinity diagrams to systematically summarize the identified causes, risks and strategies. Although the results presented in this article stem from a research project focused on Swedish passenger vessels, many of the findings may be transferable to an international maritime setting towards a deeper understanding of seafarers' work environment and working conditions. http://www.transnav.eu the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation Volume 12 Number 3

Dirty work or working dirty? Deceiving cruise tourists

“…Although the poor working conditions of some cruise ship workers are concealed from passengers (Klein, 2002;Weaver, 2005a), numerous accounts report cramped living quarters (Kobus, 2012a), excessive workloads and irregular hours (Bruns & Hutchinson, 2015;Kobus, 2012b), limited legal protection (Presser, 2017), safety concerns and questionable dismissal practices (Walker, 2016), as well as random (and intrusive) cabin inspections. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that some cruise ships have been labelled 'sweatships' (Klein & Roberts, 2003) for the pernicious treatment of some workers (although methods to improve working conditions have been studiedsee Praetorius, Österman, & Hult, 2018). Clearly not all cruise lines are irresponsible employers; some websites specialize in promoting positions in leading responsible cruise lines (e.g.…”

Employee occupational identity

“…These individuals may have difficulty dealing with this situation, as will organisations and managers who face the challenge of trying to keep them under the same corporate umbrella (Radic et al, 2020;Praetorius et al, 2018). For example, on cruise ships where the employees are very multicultural -and where this issue is exaggerated as employees live and work together for up to six months at a time, employees have to adapt to a company standard identity and managers have the challenge of acknowledging the background identity of their employees while moving all of them in the same direction of the company purpose -a kind of cultural homogenisation.…”