Energy major Shell is developing eight wellbeing training programmes for seafarers which it is making available to the industry as part of its drive to improve wellness and mental health across the industry.
Speaking at London International Shipping Week on ‘The impact of technology on crew welfare, with a focus on mental health’, Shell Shipping & Maritime vice president Grahaeme Henderson said this training can be conducted on board ships to start to address five key areas that the company believes influence mental wellbeing.
He identified these as fatigue, working environment, the nature of the job, the leadership at sea and ashore plus the networks surrounding an individual.
Henderson detailed that the programmes Shell is offering include subjects such as individual awareness, how to talk about mental health and provide assistance, building resilience, managing stress and addressing fatigue.
“They are all designed to encourage and strengthen the seafarers’ own capabilities, provide support, and increase awareness of the need for good physical and mental health,” he said.
In his keynote at the Inmarsat event hosted by four seafarer charities, Henderson zoned in on why wellbeing is so important and the impact that it has on safety. He discussed how human factors can increase the likelihood of mistakes and how, particularly at sea, mistakes can have catastrophic consequences.
Henderson also highlighted Shell’s risk-assessment model HiLo, which scans incident data from ships to pick out “weak signals” that indicate areas to focus on, has been combined with the company’s own research into seafarer wellbeing to develop a new human error model.
“This new model will allow shipping companies to better understand the wellbeing of the crew on their ships and highlight the human errors that cause more than 75% of accidents at sea,” he said.
