Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM)’s recent great resignation was MSC’s jackpot
All it took was HMM’s human resource secrets to be exposed and convince more than 300 seafarers to part ways with their employer. They were said to be leaving for a competitor who was willing to invest in them.
Why seafarers jumped ship
As the saying goes, “people do not leave their jobs”, they leave their bosses. That statement rings true for the army of over 300 who chose to call it quits with HMM. However, before the exodus started, there was a threat for a strike to get the point across, accompanied with a list of demands to make up for the losses suffered during the pandemic.
Unfortunately, the seafarers unearthed a big secret about HMM. The Korean liner recorded its highest profit at KRW 2.41 trillion ($2.05 billion) for H1 2021! It is a colossal increase compared to KRW136.7 billion in H1 2020. Revenues also surged 98.4 per cent in the first half of 2021 to KRW 5.33 trillion. Above all, there were no indications of possibilities to improve the seafarers’ wages.
The union stressed: “We do not want our request to be misunderstood as asking for more money, but our dedication to the company has not been recognised.” This is corroborated by a study which revealed unsatisfactory salary or pay is the top reason behind employees’ leaving their jobs. In the list of top 10 reasons why employee call it quits, lack of recognition and employers’ lukewarm concern about employees’ health and safety in the wake of COVID-19 were among them.
Putting them together will produce the perfect recipe for an employee to call for a break-up. One certainly could not fault HMM’s seafarers being raw about their CEO’s message which was nothing less than meaningless. In other words, breaking up was not hard, and will never be so. That effectively places HMM in no position to lament about manpower shortage. However, MSC will be sincerely grateful for a team of committed seafarers willing to come onboard.
Crewing Online News Team
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