Employee engagement in the shipping industry: a study of engagement among Indian officers

Industries across the world have been battling the effects of the global economic slowdown, adopting strategies to remain competitive and viable. It has been realized that sustainable competitive advantage can only be created through the work-force, the people who are the organization. In order to get the best from employees so that they go the extra mile for the organization, they must be engaged. Employee engagement as a construct has become very popular in recent times as it has shown correlations with productivity, profitability, employee turnover, safety, absenteeism, etc. The shipping industry is also going through a lean period where efficiency of operations is becoming fundamental to survival. In such a scenario, the use of engagement practices, as practiced ashore, may greatly assist ship owners in developing an engaged, motivated, and dedicated work force. This paper analyses the drivers of engagement from a review of literature, identifies the drivers in shipping, and develops a questionnaire to measure engagement levels of Indian seagoing officers and compares this with levels reported from other industries. It explores whether engagement levels increase with tenure with the shipping company, as reported in literature, and whether senior officers are more engaged in their jobs as compared with junior officers. The drivers of engagement were found to be similar, but engagement levels were found to be much lower than reported in other industries. Additionally, engagement was negatively correlated with tenure, while senior officers were found to be marginally more engaged than junior officers.