Crewing Manager: Maintaining a global view of all seafarers

As crewing manager for a BOURBON company, Samuel Peslier is responsible for 69 vessels and 700 French and 600 foreign seafarers crewing. He must maintain a global view and conduct a number of projects in collaboration with many other departments.

After time spent as an officer, Samuel Peslier commanded supply vessels for 3 years before being named referent Master in 2016. He becomes deputy crewing manager in August 2017 and crewing manager in 2018. There are many aspects to his job: he is in charge of administrative management, pay, the management of seafarers' careers, etc. Although he does not affect seafarers to vessels, he participates in crisis management units and leads a number of projects at the same time. "We interact with a lot of people and different departments: in fact, one of the difficulties of this job is to know how to control all these outside demands and sometimes refuse them diplomatically", he says. To manage the seafarers, he is backed up by a team of fifteen people, including those responsible for crewing, Crewing coordinators, changeovers, etc.

In addition to 700 French seamen, 90 others are provided to onshore clients or to other BOURBON affiliates. "We provide the group with a very large number of seafarers, especially captains and chief engineers – it is part of our business culture and it is what creates our added value. They leave for Romania, Qatar or Angola and may return to sail later, but we must always keep this concept in mind for staff management", he adds. Today, Samuel Peslier is working on the recruitment of employees to conduct the Smart shipping projects that will create major changes aboard vessels. He is also working on the selection of experienced 8000 kW chief engineers for surfers 320 & 3600.

In the future, the projects he leads will aim to develop the versatility of French mate and second Engineer/ Chief Mate, who provide additional skills and notable advantages aboard. Digitalization will also deeply change all the tasks of the crewing department. "Administrative simplification is going to save us a lot of time and the cost of seafarer's flight tickets and other expenses will decrease. Tomorrow is synonymous with change", he is happy to add. The extended provision of seafarers is another current topic, as is the rising global competence of the crewing department. "There are a lot of projects, which I am really happy about. Some are under way and I am waiting for the results of others. This department is extremely dynamic and at the center of all our activities."