Is it me? Or does it seem that there so many crew agents sprouting up, we will soon have one each. Imagine that, each with our own private agent. Every time I open a magazine or view a yachting website there seem to be another 200 new crew agencies, each offering what all the rest should have been offering but have so far failed to do, or that’s what they say. I am getting all sorts of people asking me for references from my old crew members. Of course I don’t want to let my old shipmates down but I am beginning to wonder who these people are that are requesting, in some cases, rather personal information about people who in many cases I call friends.
There are agencies that offer pretty much anything you want to hear these days. From a revolution in crew placement to the promise of crew who are better than everyone elses, despite the fact that in most experiences the crew they offer are the same as every one elses. How many crew sign up to one agency alone? None, they sign up to most if not all of them.
I am sure that all of the new placement agencies with their new niches do a very professional job. Indeed the increase in numbers should mean more competition, but competition should in turn lead to a reduction in costs to the consumer. I have asked a number of captains if this is the case and the concensus seems to be that crew placement is not getting any cheaper. Interestingly many of what I would describe as the new agencies seem to be trying to communicate with the crew themselves to suggest that it is the crew who are the customer. This is simply not the case. It is the yachts who are the customer, the captains and owners, the crew are not the customer of crew agencies.
None of this would matter but I just can’t help wondering if too many people are benefitting from the high crew turnover which is endemic of the industry. It seems that it is not in many peoples interest to reduce this turn over and promote retention. I do not suggest that the crew placement agencies promote turnover deliberately, indeed the more established agencies would not be here now if they did and of course their warranty is desireable. It must be a concern if vast numbers of, as yet unproven placement agencies, are capitalizing on what is surely a problem worth resolving.
But how on earth do we promote retention of crew aboard yachts? there are heaps of ways but one new approach was highlighted by John O’sullivan on his blog in these very digital pages. He suggested and has indeed tried using a psychometric personality test with some success. These tests are designed to give character trait information that could be very useful when trying to mix and match a crew complement aboard a yacht. Such tests are widely used in industry and have proven very effective in many applications. They are not expensive and compared to the costs associated with regularly changing crew they would be less than cheap. Will it become the norm? Will it even become accepted? Who knows, but it could be worth a try if we are serious about keeping crew for longer.