Investing in people and not just the hardware dominated many of the comments at the formal opening conference of Nor-Shipping yesterday, with the chairman of Norway's oldest shipping company leading the charge.
"People are our most important strategic resource," said Wilhelm Wilhelmsen of the 12,000-employee-strong Wilh Wilhelmsen (WW). "Human capital" is paramount, he added.
Wilhelmsen, who reflected on the loss of numerous colleagues in the Partnair disaster of 1989, in which 50 Wilhelmsen Lines staff and 5 crew were killed on a flight from Oslo to Hamburg to celebrate taking over a new ship, said:
"Investing in people is far more important than spending on steel if we want our workforce to pull together as a team."
He
