I am a fly on the wall at a meeting where the manning of a new ferry is being discussed, which it is intended will be used on international overnight routes. At the meeting are the company Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the Human Recourses (HR) Manager, the Catering Manager, the Chief Financial Officer, (CFO), and the Public Relations (PR) Manager.
They exchange small talk for a few minutes. The CEO has just purchased a new hybrid Lamborghini four by four, and the others would like to know what he thinks of it. Apparently it is fantastic. Then they get down to what they have met to discuss.
This is the Royal William, an early steam driven passenger ship (It just seemed appropriate)
CEO. So lets start with the basics. What about the minimum manning certificate?
HR Manager. Well, that’s up to us. We can decide how few people can actually man the ship effectively, as if there were no passengers on board.
CEO. What does the Marine Superintendent think?
HR Manager. We don’t have one. You sacked him during the last round of “right sizing”.
CEO. Oh yes, I remember now. This marine stuff seems so straightforward that any of us could deal with it. And we’re paying the captains a fortune. If we’ve got any problems we can call one of them in. So let’s take a guess.
HR Manager. The Costa Concordia had a Minimum manning of somewhere between 42 and 75, no-one seems to be quite certain about the actual figure. And it had a passenger capacity of close to 4000. So we could probably set our manning at about 20.
CEO. So let’s get this clear. We decide what the minimum manning should be?
HR Manager. Yes, that’s right. We really don’t have to take into account the fact that we’ve got a thousand people on board.
CEO. Amazing. So, going forward…
Catering Manager. In the past when we’ve had a lot of people on board the ferries we’ve made money from them, by selling food and drink. To do that we need quite a few chefs and a number of bar staff, and of course a lot of minions to do the clearing up. They’re on a ship after all. If it takes a bit of a lurch there could be broken glass everywhere.
CFO. The trouble is that we have to give them time off, so at the very least each of the roles on board requires one and a half bodies. Depending on the work leave ratios you arrange.
CEO. Do we have to give them time off?
There is a brief silence.
HR Manager. It depends where we get the crew from.
CEO. Whatever we do we need to get it right from the outset. Look at what happened to P&O Ferries when they changed crews. The local Brits’d been milking it for years. We don’t want any shit like that.
Catering Manager. Surely we can still make money out of them – the passengers. We’ve go them captured, they’ve got nothing to do and we can sell them food and drink at enhanced prices. If we’ve got decent facilities we can make a fortune from them.
CEO. But what does such a service need, realistically?
Catering Manager. We’ve got ships in service where the system works. They’ve got really extensive self-service restaurants and good bars with a lot of beer pumps. The self-service food outlets require three chefs, a couple of assistants and of course a couple of ladies on the tills, and then three or four people clearing up.
CFO: So that’s ten people on board, and at least another five on leave. Fifteen staff, just a the front end of the self service restaurant.
Catering Manager. Of course the manning of these spaces depends on the hours you have them open, If they’re working for 16 hours out of 24, however the time is divided up, you’re going to need extra people. You can’t work them for 16 hours a day.
CFO. If you’re going to have shift work the numbers really begin to stack up.
CEO. So perhaps we CAN work them for 16 hours a day. After all we’re gong to be giving them time off.
HR Manager. But if we’re running to UK, there’s always the chance that the government, whoever they are, will start totalling up the hours and comparing the salaries with the minimum wage.
CEO. Come on? How have they done with the P&O Ferries thing?
HR Manager. They’re nowhere at all. The ships are registered in Cyprus and they’re trading internationally. What can they do? The British public have forgotten all about the trouble.
CEO: I can see the problems so far, but if we’re positive about the solutions it’ll be fine. What about manning the reception area. We seem to need several pursers behind that desk.
HR Manager: Yes, I suppose that’s right. There are always people with questions, and we’ve got to have competent people to answer them.
Catering Manager. On the ships where we’ve got cinemas they always need a lot of administration.
CEO. Well. Let’s not have any cinemas then. Or just one very small one, with a minimum of administration. Then we can advertise it as one of our facilities.
PR Manager. As long as we actually have the facilities we can advertise them. We don’t have to say how extensive they are. As long as you’ve got a bar, that’ll do. As long as we have a self service restaurant no matter how limited we can say we’ve got one or more. We’ll bill them as “bars” and ‘restaurants”. Just adding an s makes a lot of difference to people’s perceptions.
CEO: So could we managed the reception with one person on duty.
HR Manager: What, all the time?
CEO: There are hours of darkness surely. We’ll give them a stool so they don’t have to stand up all the time. And we’ve got a Chief Steward. He can get off his fat arse now and again and spell them.
HR Manager. I’m making some notes sir, we’re going to have to produce some sort of operations document to ensure that the crew are distributed as we want them to be.
CEO. Right then. How few people could man a self-service restaurant if it was extremely limited in what it provided.
Catering Manager. You could probably do it with two people, if one of them served as well as took the money. But it would be a pretty slow operation.
CEO: Do we care? We’ve got them on toast. They can’t go anywhere, so maybe we can still sell plenty of booze and food, but it will be done more slowly.
Catering Manager. So you’re advocating that we should treat the passengers like shit.
CEO: But they won’t know will they? And we can still have some exclusive spaces for the ones who we don’t want to offend.
Catering Manager: We’re going to have a restaurant aren’t we? We can charge a lot for providing waiter service.
CFO: We’ll need to. Every single waiter we have serving has another half a person on his or her back. And that’s if we can hire people on two for one work leave ratio.
CEO: You’re not suggesting one for one, are you?
CFO: No of course not. Lots of these Filipinos work three on, one off. And probably we could get a good deal from some of these Ukrainian crewing agencies. They’d be safer on the ship than they would be at home.
There is general laughter.
PR Manager: So just to recap. We’ll have some luxury facilities for the people with a lot of money.
CEO: To travel with us they’re all going to need a lot of money anyway. But we'll pamper the ones with a hell of a lot of money. But you all understand the principle we’re working on.
Catering Manager: I know it’s not really my bag, but how would we manage in emergencies. What if we had to abandon ship?
CEO: Where’s the Marine Superintendent when you need him? Just get a couple of the masters in and have them come up with something. It’s only a ferry for God’s sake. It’ll never be more than a few hours from port.
PR Manager: What, like the Herald of Free Enterprise?
The whole meeting is convulsed with mirth!
CURTAIN.