Lloyd's Register, an underrated political org ?

Lloyd's Register was always a thick political org internally albeit covertly, This has changed now, after the rise of Nicholas Brown as CEO who comes from a Political family. 

 

 

Pic credit: Punchline

Check out the below new vacancy advertised by Lloyd's Register on 07 January 2022. Specifically, one of the responsibility is "Media Relations Lead will work to heal negative events that impact LR’s brand reputation and perception. This includes issue monitoring and management, and crisis communication".

Well, the job responsibility has stark familiarity with the PR job functions of mainstream Political Party Members, where PR is one of the tools to improve and sustain the public perception of the Political candidate running for some Political post.

The question arises here, why does a Technical/risk advisor cum Service Supplier like Lloyd's Register need a PR machinery in the technical scheme of things?

The answer to the question is answered in the text of the Job Vacancy itself. Lloyd's Register's PPE (personal protective equipment) policy towards some ethnicities and the whistleblower policies, racial harassment etc etc have come to light in public view [see below case of denial of PPE, read this and this] in the recent years, and many CEOs, board of Directors of Marine & Offshore firms as well as many other associated players are now in possession of the internal emails of whistleblower Surveyor who was denied PPE in Lloyd's Register. Such "negative event" certainly have a negative "impact" on LR's brand requires some kind of "healing", and this job vacancy is for such a healer.

 

This job vacancy was not required if it was not for the crisis arising out of the decisions and policies of Lloyd's Register current CEO Nicholas Brown.

And, therefore in essence and in spirit, it is just an attempt to put lipstick on the pig.

Why Lloyd's Register may not Survive Another Decade ?

Most who are in Marine/Shipping Business know about Lloyd's Register established in 18th Century in maritime hub London on the back of Trading arm East India Company. And Lloyd's Register top leadership never shy away from their proud British Colonial heritage and privately they are not happy with rise of the cut throat competition from competitors. Lloyd's Register is an overrated Technical org and underrated Political org. The wider maritime industry must understand that there is a reason why ex Lloyd's Register top managers are totally incapable of surviving in any other org.

There are many reasons, why Lloyd's Register may not survive the next decade. Here are few:

1. Dishonest Top Management:

The top management have no moral compass, lack ethics. After the advent of Richard Sadler as CEO in the mid/late 2000s, for improving service delivery and saving fixed costs, Lloyd's Register went hammer and tongs closing down small offices in remote countries/areas. Offices which were profit making offices were shut down and operations shifted to large/hub offices in the name of improving service delivery for increasing efficiency. This led to extreme dis satisfaction among the local small and medium clients who subsequently had to bear the heavy extra Travel Charges/Special Attendance Fees/Hotel Bill/Travel Bill for their future Survey/Audit needs. The hidden reason behind closing down of Small Offices and shifting of operations/management to large offices (which is continuing or at least continued till 2016) was actually a covert exercise to concentrate the power in a central office which is directly under control of UK based Marine Director (Nicholas Brown now CEO). The local leadership who came in way of the bulldozer were promptly fired at worst or were shifted to irrelevant posts. Small offices who looked after their local clients and understood the local business better than large offices got extinct (or are getting extinct as the ink dries here). This destruction of local offices also destroyed the Lloyd's Register cadre and weeded out any challenge to Hub leadership because the Hub Leadership had the blessings of CEO/Marine Director and hub leadership are mostly the hitmen of Nick Brown carrying out the orders with precision. Continuity of Business and looking after Clients needs took a hike.

2. Extremely pathetic Business Sense:

If the Cost cutting exercise lasting a decade with extreme ruthlessness was indeed a cost cutting exercise, for the reasons of increasing efficiency to make organization slim/trim/ then it begets the question: why would Lloyd's Register then sell off it's Energy & LRQA divisions in year 2020-2021? What gives? For example advanced Industrial City of San Francisco/Oakland had 3-5 Surveyors in a well established office off Embarcadero till the year 2005, one fine day Office was eliminated leaving the Local Clients lining up to DNV or BV Office for their local certification needs. What business sense did it serve to close down the office while the competitors were opening new small offices while recruiting new workforce for those new offices? In Lloyd's Register, the immediate priorities are to meet the year end Financial Goals, small businesses can take a hike.

3. Fishing for Big Fish ignoring the smaller ones:

Lloyd's Register strives to get big business from big firms, but ignores the smaller ones who promptly pay the fees. The fresh young turks of Lloyd's Register have a certain disdain and contempt for the smaller organizations who had patronized Lloyd's Register during the days when Lloyd's Register had smaller offices in small towns. What business sense would it make for smaller firms to continue to request for a Survey/Audit when Surveyor/Auditor charges thousands of $s for extra fees toward travel from a big city, as opposed to requesting the next door BV/DNV office Surveyor/Auditor for the same Survey/Audit? Not to mention Lloyd's Register is practically ruthlessly inflexible in it's fees when it comes to small clients.

Lloyd's Register is known to offer 15%-25% discount on a 5 yearly fee structure for Classification services of large maritime ship owners with multiple ships, but simply even refuse to even look at the request for a $500 discount to the small clients.The top leadership of these smaller organizations might go on to join leadership of bigger firms in coming years, and when it comes to third party certifications, whom will they likely patronize, the next door reliable BV/DNV or inaccessible/ever changing/evershifting Lloyd's Register?

4. Decline in Technical Survey Standards since the advent of Nick Brown.

There are many instances (I can state the details, but withholding it as of now) where multiple vessels were surveyed in dry docks for Special Survey and Docking Survey and IWS (In Water Survey) notations were reported as continued but surprisingly during the subsequent In Water Survey, the drivers have found the rudder pintle bearings access welded shut. This of course lead to Flag not accepting the In Water Survey in lieu of full Docking Survey, leading to vessel owners spending millions of $s in getting vessel dry docked, all because the Rudder pintle bearings cover was welded shut in the previous dry dock. It's for this reason among many which finally pushed Seaspan to TOC out its entire fleet to DNV. It's easy to blame the attending Surveyor and Superintendent attending the Dry Docking, but root cause is: Mass exodus of Technically experienced Surveyors over the last decade. Many of the experienced Surveyors have been treated less fairly by the new generation of Young Turks occupying top leadership posts. Every organization has various grades of Technical staff, the ones who are extremely good sycophants are often highly active on LinkedIn and have a habit of liking the Linkedin posts of the Young Turk leadership. Maritime Stakeholders should know that the Lloyd's Register Surveyor/Auditor who is attending their vessel may be belonging to the same carde of sycophants or a byproduct of this prevalent sycophant culture.

5. Buzzwords and Catchy Phrases of Supreme leader Nick Brown.

Nick Brown just loves buzzwords and catchy phrases like "Today's decision affects tomorrow's Performance", "Laser Gaze" etc etc which are down right dumb and idiotic phrases. The sycophants of Nick Brown repeat these hollow buzzwords repeatedly to keep their Supreme Leader in happy mood. Nick Brown does not realize even for a second that the Maritime Owners whom he rubs his shoulders every day have infinitely more Business Acumen than Nick Brown and his entire team of sycophants . Prudent Ship Owners take a hit when market is low, without selling off ships to cut losses and see it through to see better charter rates couple of months later without giving up on shipping. In Lloyd's Register, a 1% decline in Fee Earnings from boots on the ground Surveyors sends the Top Management in a hissy fit immediately looking for cost cutting by closing down offices or shifting to a smaller office carpet area. Lloyd's Register leadership has never really matured to a fully grown business org with solid basic foundational values and goals. Any street side corner mom & pop store manager might have better prudent ethical business policies and goals than the entire leadership team of Lloyd's Register. All we hear in Lloyd's Register are, buzzwords to lure ourselves to sleep........zzzzZZZZzzz while Lloyd's Register slides on the slippery slope. It's too late now it seems.

Lloyd's Register making Money from Credit Card issued to Employees?

 

Lloyd's Register come up some sort of agreement with U based Barclay's Bank for Credit Cards for the Lloyd's Register Employees. Yes, the same Barclay's Bank now in the news nowadays see below reported here

It's normal for corporations to get credit cards for Employees to meet official business expenses, so Lloyd's Register's decision to get Credit Card for employees is perfectly okay.

Now here is the fine detail: Most if not all Credit Card issuing banks offer cashback (or points which can be redeemed in form of cash) to the Credit Card holders based on the usage, and that largely explains why Lloyd's Register introduced Barclay's Credit card to it's employees, basically to collect the accumulated cashback centrally in UK. Absolutely nothing illegal in there, but what about Ethics, Morality of a self proclaimed "Charity" goals of Lloyd's Register Foundation? 

 Given the business model of Lloyd's Register which is primarily Surveyors and Auditors traveling by Air, Taxi, Rental Cars, Hotel Charges, Dinner Charges etc etc which are all chargeable to Clients. What is the total cashback that Lloyd's Register collects from Barclay's Bank? is a mystery that even the Clients who pay Lloyd's Register's Fees might not know in detail.

Henk Van Staalduinen, Lloyd's Register's racist supremacist Vice President/ Service Head with no college degree?

In the present age, it is quite normal for multi national corporations to employ leading Business School degree holders in leadership positions. But there are some organizations which have other benchmark.

Now let's look at Lloyd's Register which employs one Vice President/Area Service Delivery head who doesn't hold any degree from a 3/4 year undergraduate or postgraduate degrees program. This Executive Leader Team member happens to be none other than the legendary Henk Van Staalduinen (full name may be Hendrik Cornelis Van Staalduinen). He has held many country/continent level post including the post of Vice President of Americas.

Apparently, the question arises whether Henk is an outstanding sychophant of Nick Brown (present Marine Director) ? And if Nick Brown loves his sychophants who are in his good books ?

Lack of formal education is one thing but Henk also indulges in verbal abuse and innuendos while abusing the native religion of others who are not from Western countries. Racist supremacist Henk abused one guy while Henk was in Americas.

If you have any information or comments on above, please leave a non offensive comment below:

Does Lloyd's Register employ dirty low Ethics corrupts in HR Department of Houston and Others?

Before proceeding, kindly read this to get the background.

The HR Department's various officials who were either bribed or compromised or pressurized by Rene Zwart are as below:

Stephanie Ratcliff (SR), Houston Texas.

Seen chomping on food...chomp chomp

Picture Source: Twitter Post of @LifeatLR

Stephanie has not yet given the report of her investigation on reported harassment and bullying. She just believes in sweeping matters under carpet and then get promoted. She in fact got promoted few years ago after successfully scuttling the harassment /bullying case. She not only helped Rene Zwart but also bullies whistle blowers.

Shea Dunning (SD), Houston Texas

About to start chomping on food.

 

Picture Source: Twitter Post of @LifeatLR

Picture source: Linked in page of Shea Dunning

She insists that phone calls of sociopath/sychopath/bully Managers who bully and harass on phone should not be recorded because recording such phone calls infringes on rights of the serial sociopath bully harassers to harass and bully freely without fear of Law. Shea Dunning is very particular on protecting such sociopath managers in return for some favours from Top Executive Leadership. Question arises if Shea Dunning, Stephanie Ratcliffe deliberately sabotaged the case under influence ( hard $$ cash or Favours or some Pressure )??

Do you think the above HR personnels are Currupt? Or Crony ? With low Ethics and morality ?? Do you think that they were Bribed by Rene Zwart ?? Leave your comment below.

Why Lloyd's Register is seen as Corrupt org?

Water finds it's level, similarly Leaders ultimately take the organisation they lead to their level. A corrupt leader corrupts the org, and honest ethical leaders make the org they head more honest and more ethical. Now check the below review posted on Glassdoor by an ex Lloyd's Register employee.

The above is a true incident where Nicholas Brown (present M&O Director, Lloyd's Register) committed such acts misusing his position. The joke is when the responder of this review suggests the employee should have discussed with Line Manager or area HR lead, as if line manager or area HR lead would dare to lock horns with the next likely CEO Nick Brown who had the support from none other than the then CEO.

Now check out the self explanatory standard of ethics, morality prevalent in Lloyd's Register as posted on Glassdoor.

Now check out the below review posted on Glassdoor. It may not come as a surprise that few years ago, one Surveyor in a South East Asian country had pointed out that Lloyd's Register was violating labour laws of the country by denying Casual Leaves to the employees since last century more or less. This led to massive re-calculation of chargeable working hours and budget. This Surveyor has been fired by Lloyd's Register.

If you have similar experience of Lloyd's Register, please comment to let everyone know, and or let us know anyway what you think of above in a non offensive comment.

Lloyd's Register's CEO stands with CEOs of For Profit orgs.

Lloyd's Register's CEO stands with CEOs of for profit orgs for green recovery. Check the link below.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lloyd%27s-register_leaders-call-on-prime-minister-to-create-activity-6676075434007904256-fXJ7

Now Lloyd's Register is all about Charity as detailed below (source:  https://www.lrfoundation.org.uk/en/about-us/ ).

So why would a Charity org stand with vehemently For Profit orgs (List of for profit orgs can be checked here: https://www.ukssd.co.uk/call-on-pm-to-create-socially-just-and-green-recovery )?

Now being a "charity org", Lloyd's Register should ideally be more worried about bringing it's funded research activities back on track, and research scientists well being during the COVID 19 pandemic. But there is not one single post of Lloyd's Register top management addressing the issue of closure of universities where it's funded research are taking place or the research scientists working on Lloyd's Register's research subjects. But instead Lloyd's Register CEO's concerns looks similar to the concerns of the other CEOs of "for profit" companies which are not registered as "Charity orgs".

Apparently, it seems Lloyd's Register, a Charity org pays its top management the salary comparable to for profit organizations. Example is ex CEO Richard Sadler's salary.

( source of above: https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/-951m-lloyd-s-register-foundation-is-largest-registered-charity.html )

Look at the paltry peanut grants released for charity purpose, the operational profits of Lloyd's Register in select few small tiny countries will be sufficient to fund the Lloyd's Register's charity obligations.

What does the above revelations explain about the charity status of Lloyd's Register? Leave your non offensive comments below.