Well being, or the mental working environment as it is also known, plays a key role in the work done on health and safety at sea because:
- Well-being in the workplace has a positive influence on the safety culture
- Well-being in the workplace helps recruitment and retention of employees
- Contented crew often have fewer conflicts and so are more efficient
In other words, crew well-being impacts on the bottom line, the safety culture and employee involvement and job satisfaction. Problems with well-being might for example be revealed by:
- High sick leave rates
- Management duties not being handled well enough
- Unserviceable communication
- Too many conflicts, poor working relations or perhaps even mistrust between officers and crew, etc.
How we work with well-being
Seahealth Denmark deals with well-being in the broadest sense. We develop tools that can be used directly to promote well-being aboard.
Time off-duty is one of the major factors considered in working on well-being, which is vital for the well-being and health of individuals and for how safety aboard is dealt with.
We can identify and advise on questions of leisure time or well-being in the sector as such.
We also have extensive experience of:
- Assisting ship owners in mapping well-being and working with management and crew to create a process to promote it.
- Running courses for example on management tools, conflict management, stress and mental first aid.
- Running courses and themed days specially designed for the company or ship.
- Psychological crisis management
We run a psychological counselling service to provide acute psychological help or counselling associated with pressure of work or other psychological conditions that need professional treatment. The process always starts with a counselling session to assess the need for treatment and the precise action to be taken. Seahealth Denmark also offers psychological counselling via the Internet to seamen who are unable to attend personal counselling sessions. Internet counselling is also available as part of training courses, management training, etc.
Material on well-being
We have published various material on well-being, most recently a book titled A Good Working Life at Sea. By selecting a well-being topic from the menu on your left hand, you can download parts of this book related to the selected topic.
All our publications are given in Danish in a complete list subdivided by subject. A list in English will be available as soon as possible.