Our fleet is constantly growing, and with it our need for qualified technical and management staff. This opens up a wide range of career advancement opportunities for our employees. We support them in choosing the professional path that best suits them – using transparent job description profiles and career planning, constructive feedback and customized development programs.
Where do your own strengths lie? Where is there potential for improvement? What further career steps are possible? For us, regular feedback is indispensable for constant professional development. We use a strategic competence model so that we can objectively and transparently classify the performance of our employees. This contains defined requirements and skills for all areas of responsibility that an employee in the area of Nautical &Technical, Guest Services or Shore must possess in order to achieve a specific position. At least once a year, our employees have an interview during which all areas of their competence profile are assessed. During feedback sessions we set out the specific professional development measures that individuals can make use of to build on their own individual strengths. In 2011 our managers conducted this type of individual career planning interview with all employees both on land and at sea. This method of fostering talent and developing performance is part of the AIDA management standard which is mandatory for all employees who are responsible for staff.
In 2012, we are introducing a new AIDA competence model which is even more profession-specific and behavior-oriented, and which also takes gradations relating to AIDA professional experience and service level (junior, senior, ship counsel) into consideration. To this end, a panel of internal and external experts has defined the cross-job skillsets that are conducive to success in all positions within the company. Furthermore, together with individual departments, we have defined technical competences that only apply to individual positions. Human Resources will employ the new competence model in diverse ways: to recruit personnel, for employee assessments, as the basis for promotion, for shaping training content, and to motivate employees.
Those who are required to bear responsibility must be properly prepared. That is why we train our employees and managers to continually develop their management skills and specifically prepare them for key positions. Thus in the areas of Nautical & Technical, Shore and Guest Services we have defined clear career development models, and we cultivate employees who perform particularly well with customized management development programs:
• AIDA Spirits I bis III for young talent and trainee management personnel at sea and ashore
• AIDA Leaders I for managers on shore and officers at sea with up to two years of management experience
• AIDA Leaders II for managers and officers with more than two years’ management experience
• AIDA Excellence for top-level management
Owing to high demand, in 2011 we extended the range of courses at AIDA Spirits and AIDA Leaders by more than 25%.
