The Vlissingen port area profits from the worldwide demand for goods. North Sea Port showed record throughput figures last year and the numbers for the first quarter of 2018 are positive as well. Mr Roel Latuheru, General Manager at C-Port, responds to this positive development with mixed feelings.
C-Port provides customers with flexible craftsmanship for the safe and swift loading and unloading of cargo.
“A new state of the market provides new challenges. The current situation demands a lot from our crew. Everyone at our port is of course used to working hard and making long days, but one can imagine that flexibility has its limitations. Another challenge we have to deal with is that our clients, which have been reluctant to recruit in the past ten years, are now looking for higher-skilled and educated people, which means that crew members hired from us are sometimes offered a permanent contract.” According to Mr Latuheru, C-Port has been able to meet these challenges pretty well. “We understand that our clients are looking for stability and certainly regret losing good people. But on the other hand, it reflects our recruiting capabilities and willingness to help our customers.”
Black figures
C-Port is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Founded in early 2008, the company was still unaware of the worldwide economic crisis that was about to strike the ports. “We made plans to establish a new staffing agency specialised in (port) logistics staff for the Vlissingen port area in 2007,” comments Mr Latuheru. “A few months after the company - a continuation of the activities of Labour Service Zeeland and Tence Transport & Logistiek Vlissingen - took off in 2008, it became clear that we had to rewrite our multi annual plan, even before our first year came to an end. Fortunately we came out of the crisis rather well, with black figures every year, and now we have entered a new situation in which the demand for skilled workers is very high.” In Vlissingen, C-Port currently employs around 130 logistic workers and a flexible pool of around 20. “The flexible pool is for additional hands to load and unload the vessels” Mr Latuhery explains. “We rely on our own staff for the more strategic functions that are crucial for the logistic process, such as supervisors and crane drivers.”
Niche player
C-Port has always been a niche player in the recruitment market. Recruiting and providing logistic employees to terminal operators have been and will continue to be, the company’s specialty. Mr Latuheru adds, “We offer staff in four disciplines, namely Loading & Unloading, Driving, Lifting & Hoisting, and Lashing & Securing. We provide our customers with flexible craftsmanship for the safe and swift loading and unloading of cargo. We are able to do so only with skilled and motivated employees that we try to commit by offering stability and a positive future. This requires the ability to listen to them and to invest in, for instance, good training and education. We are very open and direct in our communication towards our people, so they know exactly what we expect from them and vice versa.” It seems as though many people working at C-Port are satisfied with this way of working. Since the start of the company, there have each and every year been celebrations for people working for the company and its legal predecessors for 10, 12.5, and even 25 years. Today, C-Port employs over fifteen people that have been working for the company for more than 25 years. Fifteen out of 180 individuals, and then there are some that have been with us for over 12.5 years (including 50 people working from the Port of Rotterdam location), this is something we can definitely be proud of.
Small crises every day
After the company was founded in 2008, C-Port managed to withstand the crisis. “We had a slow start in 2008 and 2009,” explains Mr Latuheru. “We noticed a slight recovery in 2012, and business has been very good from 2016 onwards. Most ports, and the logistic companies in the ports, depend on the worldwide demand and supply of goods. We are therefore used to responding to changing market circumstances. In fact we have to deal with small crises every day, as in our work we have to deal with a lot of uncertainties, for instance, due to changing times of arriving vessels.” Mr Latuheru admits having learned from the past crisis. “We have learned to be flexible ourselves and to be flexible with the working hours of our employees. Today we live in a 24/7 economy and customers expect us to work each day of the week, at weekends, at night, and during public holidays. We have to cope with these changes together with our workforce and so far we have managed this quite well.”
Shortages dissolved
North Sea Port is traditionally strong in palletised cargo. “Palletised cargo is generally a labour-intensive commodity,” Mr Latuheru states. “A team of around eight port workers is needed for discharging pallets. In the upcoming years, Vlissingen will however show a rising volume in containers. This means that the number of people per discharge will drop to around six persons. On top of this, each 40ft container has the same load as 20 to 24 pallets. With palletised cargo, a team can discharge about 140 pallets per hour. In containers, about 550 pallets (25 containers) can be discharged with a team of just six port worker. Containerisation will in this way dissolve the current shortage of logistics workers. It will also lead to another type of logistics workers. Instead of forklift drivers, for instance, more reach stacker drivers will be needed and the ongoing digitalisation that comes with container handling will require other skills as well. On the other hand, the lashing and securing of cargo, even for containers, will always require a lot of hands.”
Mr Roel Latuheru, General Manager at C-Port: We need to work together, for instance in sharing workforce and equipment, to stay ahead.
(Photo courtesy of Scherp! Fotografie)
Collaboration needed
No matter what happens, Vlissingen will remain an important logistic hub due to its strategic location. But higher volumes are needed for a structural growth in containers. This requires efficient collaboration in the port area to combine cargo flows. Another reason why collaboration is important is the absorption of the highs and lows in the arrival of vessels. “We need to join forces to remain competitive with other ports. The flexible and dedicated work force is one of the main strengths of North Sea Port. Vessels are handled very quickly and as time is money, this is a very important issue. We need to work together, for instance in sharing workforce and equipment, to stay ahead.”
A mix of both worlds
For C-Port, it is good to see that there are still many people that love the flexibility of the work offered by the staffing agency. They like to move around for C-Port from one assignment to the other, very often on different terminals and in different ports as well. “We notice several different phases in life. Younger people like the flexibility we offer. They do not mind working at the weekend or long working days. To stay tuned with the young, it is important for us to adjust our labour market communication. We hence moved part of our campaign from print to social media, as this is the way we can best reach them. After a few years, many of these young people enter a new phase in which they become settled and prefer more regulated working hours. We must accept the fact that at a certain age, not everyone wants to hop around and work many hours. They have, depending on their situation, new responsibilities, at home with small kids growing up and demanding attention from both parents. To remain competitive in our market, it is our challenge to keep the right balance between both worlds now and in the future,” Mr Latuheru concludes.
