At Eurasia, Learning and Development is a continuous process for the Shore as well as the Ship Staff. While regular training sessions are held for Shore staff by Consultants and Top Management in house, Eurasia's Centre for Advanced Learning or ECAL, based in Mumbai, is the central facility for training & development of seafarers of all nationalities serving on vessels managed by the company.

The facility includes the first full mission ship maneuvering simulator integrated with a full mission engine room simulator designed to simulate both high powered engines as on container ships and low power engines as on the other ships and a full mission Global Maritime Distress Signaling System (GMDSS) simulator. When desired, the Ship Maneuvering Simulator (SMS) and Engine Room Simulator (ERS) can be interfaced into one ship so Marine Resource Management Courses, involving the entire ship, can be run. These integrated simulators are augmented with cargo simulators covering the full range of Oil, Chemical, LPG, and LNG operations, an Electronic Chart Display Information System (ECDIS) simulator and an Oil Spil Response Management Simulator (OSRMS), based on the same mathematical model as the US Coast Guard.

Objectives and policies:

The objective of ECAL is to transform the senior officers of the ship into managers and provide the opportunity for them to assume managerial responsibilities in the organization at a later stage in their career. The facility is structured to function as an academic centre of excellence providing an environment where seafarers can interact with the best industry and management professionals and polish the skills required to function as managers on board the vessels.

Eurasia's training policy thus combines need-based training with regulatory requirements. The need-based training for serving staff is identified from the 3-point check model, namely self check by the ship-staff, cross check by the Superintendents and external check by our auditors or external regulators. For the new people the need is identified based on the gap between the competency map and the job description. Based on the needs identified, courses are either developed & administered in-house wherever required or conducted at reputed specialist centers. The actual training cycle follows the pattern of need identification, delivery, and training effectiveness evaluation. This closed loop format has been the crucial factor in the continuing success of our training programmes.

Training Need Identification:

As described earlier, through its performance appraisal system, where supervisory and individual feedback is taken, Eurasia identifies training needs of each individual. Company-wide trends are analysed through root cause analysis to provide targeted training to all seafarers and shore-based staff. The root causes are segmented into whether it is due to equipment failure, system failure or people failure. It is further analysed for failure due to lack of knowledge, skill, attitude or a combination of all these and a training agenda is set.