Leadership training for Junior Officers at TORM

TORM has been collaborating with GJ for many years and more than 600 senior officers and key shore-based staff have participated in the TORM Safety Leadership Course since it was introduced in 2017. In this new Safety Leadership Course for junior officers the same mindsets, competencies, tools, and behaviours as were applied for the senior officers and key shore-based staff have formed part of the core content of the course.

The junior officers will be the future senior officers and early in their career they are entrusted with a leadership role.  Therefore, TORM wanted to make sure that their junior officers could be equipped with the necessary soft skills to master this leadership role which will also strengthen them in promoting the positive dialogue on board.

The courses are designed so that the course module content is not redundant, but rather has a progressive and continuous structure following a pre-designed learning path via a Learning Management System that ensures continuous access to refresher learning. Therefore, it is a cost-effective solution for the company as they will not have to repeat courses for the officers as they advance to senior positions. Besides the learning path makes sure that not only will the participants be exposed to facilitated online modules (including case studies, exercises, reflections, and group discussions), it will be followed up with assignments that should be practiced as they are back on board in actual work situations.

Prior to the attendance of the online course, the junior officers complete a pre-course assignment and receive related material, in this case the TORM Leadership Philosophy, the TORM Safety Standard, the TORM appraisal guide, and the Safety Delta guideline. After the facilitated online course, the participants are to take the learning back on board and practice their learning. This practice must be documented, and the learning shared with peers and the junior officers’ leaders on shore. This is considered a crucial step in the promotion ladder of the junior officers and gives them the necessary tools to become better leaders.

“Tools we learn in the course – you cannot get them repeated enough because it is all about safety and the way you do the job. Yes, I can use everything”.

“For me the value of the course is that it is really relevant because I see it as part of my promotion”.

“I was somewhat skeptical about the online part of the course, but I was surprised by the way it was conducted. I was really conducted in a good way. The mix of being in ‘open and closed rooms’, good exercises and presentations together with the presence of TORM representatives and really good facilitators made it a very good experience”.