Assigning crew to specific locations in my ship and base are absolutely irritating. it is very time consuming, and require a lot of fiddling and teleporting to chairs, or using the grappling hook to try and get them up spiral staircases so they are close to something in the middle of a tower column etc. This system is not thought out, its very crude, and feels as though its not implemented.
Add a system whereby I can instead of looking at a person, and telling them to crew an object, allow me to look at an object and grab the nearest available (not assigned) crew on my island.
Alternatively and more complex, make it so I can whistle or assign all new crew to a crew pool when in vicinity of the player, out on sea, or add them to a pool that is bound to the island. When on the island, simply looking at an object and whistling at it will put a crew member on it. It can be a damage locked feature, so that if something has taken damage on a ship for instance, it cannot be repaired like the current system and in addition is not able to have a new crew-member assigned to it, if it was unmanned. similar to how cannons have a cool-down on land when placed to prevent "cheesing".