Knowledge, skills and attitudes: perceptions of senior managers in the Sri Lankan shipping industry

In today’s competitive environment the growth of companies ishighly dependent on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of employees. Due to this reason, companies strive to attract and retain valuable employees who possess knowledge, skills and attitudes as they are considered a strategic investment of the organisation. The objective of this paper is to identify the important knowledge skills and attitudes of employees in the shipping industry, which may contribute to organisational success.This is achieved by discussing the findings of an empirical online study conducted with shipping managers in Colombo, Sri Lanka in July 2012.

The study found that the managers attached a higher importance to the following employee knowledge: marketing, feeder and mainline network, terminology used in shipping, transport and logistics, port charges and tariffs, and the liabilities and privileges of a ship agent. Similarly attitudes such as belongingness to the organisation, adaptability to change, optimism, working long hours, self-confidence along with skills with the use of computers and the internet, intuition and forecasting, analytical thinking, English language, customer service, time management, creative thinking, and the accuracy of work, were also important in contributing to the success of their professions/jobs and in turn the organizations they are attached to stay ahead of competition.Therefore, identifying these knowledge types, attitudes and skills important to employees would help employers to develop programs internally or provide resources to employees to participate in external programs to develop these skills.