and developing enthusiasm for the job that hasn’t even started while within the re- cruitment phrase. Irrespective of the route employed, what is clear is that the talent management process is required to be systematic in order to be most effective.
The challenges for those developing a talent management strategy are in con- structing an approach that is responsive to labour market conditions, that measures the human resource (HR) capability and capacity within the business, and embraces the vision, mission and strategic objectives for the firm. The resultant talent pipeline has to be flexible to changing times (a business may have to grow or shrink depending on economic conditions) and permeable to allow tactical plans to be introduced (e.g.
a company may decide to introduce a fast-track graduate recruitment scheme or de- velop a new enhanced engagement programme).
According to the CIPD (2014), talent management is deployed as a strategic tool by around 50% of businesses in the UK. There is an increasing awareness of the power and competitive advantage that is derived by taking this approach, and cruise businesses are certainly aware of the criticality in making sure they make full use of talent management. There are, as identified in the introduction to this chapter, interesting issues relating to the cruise industry that have a bearing on the introduction and implementation of a strategic talent management approach. This is examined further in the next section, which will highlight those issues and reflect on research findings about how some cruise brands aim to make use of talent management.
a belief that employees from developing countries, such as the Philippines, Romania and the Caribbean, are more likely to be loyal to their employer because their primary driver is to earn money that will be sent home and satisfy extrinsic needs (Gibson and Walters, 2012).
However, this dialectic may not be as accurate as first thought. Responses to a recent Plymouth University survey, received from a sample of 338 cruise employees, suggest the top five reasons for cruise employees from developed countries to work at sea are:
1. To travel the world, 85.5%.
2. To make international friends, 48.2%.
3. Because it is easy to save money, 38.3%.
4. To be part of a diverse workforce, 25.2%.
5. The potential to earn more money than at home, 24.3%.
For cruise employees from developing countries the top five reasons to work at sea are:
1. To travel the world, 76.1%.
2. The potential to earn more money than at home, 52.2%.
3. To send money home to family, 46.3%.
4. To be part of a diverse workforce, 34.3%.
5. Because it is easy to save money, 25.4%.
When considering these findings, the intrinsic and extrinsic factors are more complex than some might expect. Individuals are unlikely to have single reasons for making their choices and, for example, the intrinsic appeal of travel is common for all em- ployees as being significant and not just those from developed countries. Also, for a business that seems to attract considerable commentary about low pay and labour costs, particularly for those employees from developing countries (Brida and Zapata, 2010; Artini et al., 2011; Weeden et al., 2011; Sieben and Haunschild, 2012), there seems to be contradictory evidence in this piece of research, which suggests otherwise.
Cruise recruiters are empowered and enabled by the international regulations concerning the ship’s flag or registration to recruit staff globally. Within this context different cruise brands may take different approaches. Cruise companies do not quite fit the model of internationalization proposed by Wind et al. (1973), which refers to variants in forms of centricity, where: ethno-centricity is home country focused;
poly-centricity is host country focused; regio-centricity is regionally oriented and geo-centricity is world focused. Instead, the cruise business can be influenced by their origins (where the cruise brand was first introduced) and evolving historical practices, Table 10.1. ship–shore dynamics.
Cruise headquarters employment Cruise ship employment staff recruited to be located close to the
company offices (when office work is dominant job focus)
Crew recruited internationally and then deployed to specific ships
Traditional working patterns sometimes configured to relate to times when ships in port
Cruise contracts (4–9 months and 10 h per day every day) depending on rank and seniority
which can mean that generations of employees are sourced as a matter of course from familiar countries or regions. This approach can be seen to be in tune with the expect- ations of the target market. This is because experienced or repeat guests know who to expect, in terms of employee nationality, and they also recognize the way that recruit- ment is done as being both cultural and brand specific. Some cruise brands also per- ceive the importance of employee national identity within the brand architecture and are sensitive to ensuring clients’ expectations of nationality mix are addressed.
Cruise brands are under considerable pressure to source customer-facing em- ployees at the ‘right price’ to provide best value and to ensure the cruise brand re- mains competitive within this international maritime world of relatively low impact regulations (see the next paragraph for an explanation). In this circumstance, cruise companies make use of networks of tried and trusted international agents to source employees who are suitably job oriented with the appropriate skills and attributes (Gibson and Swift, 2011). Finally, cruise companies must also source employees with hard-to-find knowledge and qualifications, such as certificated deck and engine officers and, in those circumstances, there are well-known options for identifying worthwhile talent pipelines. This cruise-related worldview is not the same kind of international centricity model that a typical global hotel company would recognize (Roper et al., 1999), but rather it demonstrates the critical mix of targeted, fre- quently market-driven pragmatism that is at the heart of practice in relation to cruise recruitment.
The circumstances within which cruise businesses operate are defined by inter- national regulations without which the cruise and maritime industries would not be the same (Terry, 2011; Bonilla-Priego et al., 2014). The International Maritime Or- ganization (IMO) has established a system that enables cruise operators and other ship owners to choose to register or license their vessels in any country, which is cer- tified to undertake registrations. In doing this the IMO has created a competitive busi- ness platform where costs (including labour costs), quality and opportunity are key to HR development. The inevitable competition between cruise operators then drives decision makers to make strategic decisions to keep costs low so as to maintain a busi- ness model which has created low selling prices and consistent growth (Papathanassis and Vogel, 2012).
In 2013, the International Labor Organization introduced the Marine Labor Convention (MLC), which aims to establish minimum standards for seafarers (Terry, 2011). These standards targeted all maritime employers and not just cruise ships and highlighted the problems faced by seafarers who may be working on all types of ships internationally. The MLC included regulations relating to minimum requirements for seafarers to work on ships including: employment conditions; accommodation provi- sion; recreational care; welfare and social security protection; as well as outlining compliance and enforcement arrangements (International Labor Organization, 2012).
This convention creates a challenge for all shipping companies to meet these min- imum standards.
The aforementioned contextual and business-related parameters set the scene for cruise operators to undertake their talent management approaches. The volume of recruits, as well as the scarcity of specific, skills rich, certified personnel required, sea- sons the challenge with a critical imperative. The combination of having a time-con- strained cruise schedule and the need to secure the right crew in place to operate the cruise are fundamentals. Faced with this challenge, building a sophisticated model to
ensure talent is at the forefront of the cruise company’s strategy may seem to be aspir- ational. In the next section three case studies are presented that illuminate practice in relation to cruise talent management. The case studies provide an insight into the types of plans and initiatives that contemporary cruise professionals are implementing or aiming to implement and demonstrate how individual cruise companies address the various elements or stages of talent management.