Unilever HR Vision: People, Place, And Performance

Why it’s critical for Unilever’s senior management to focus on mid and long-term market forecasts and HR needs

Task 1: Carry out research and try and unveil how the Unilever People Place and Performance HR vision works.  If you are unable to find it online, then put yourself in the position of a newly recruited Talent Manager in the HR department and design the strategy that will help you cover the three challenges

Unilever is one of the largest FMCG Company headquartered in London and holding a presence in over 190 countries. The company has been serving more than a billion customers and spreading smiles worldwide by its high quality products. The company has recently identified that it has to reach a target of 80 Billion Euros in revenue to bring sustainability in its business model. The company has considers its employees in the highest of the spirit and thus, special emphasis is given on the People, Process and Place in the organization(Payne 75).

People-Unilever goes to some of the best universities across the globe and picks up the best suited candidate for the job. The company then nurtures the talent by providing them ample of training workshop for their growth and development. Unilever scouts for talent even in the remotest part of nations and identifies and picks the candidate whom they feel would push the organization to the zenith of success.

Place-Unilever have appeared in the Forbes 500 list many a times and similarly in the Top 50 places to work in, this goes on to reflect that the organization provides for its employees a space filled with motivation, learning, growth, development, fun, leisure and flexibility. Due to all the above mentioned factors Unilever creates a great place for the employees.

Performance-Unilever has a responsibility towards its employees; the company has to ensure that it extracts the best performance out of the individuals and then the entire team. In order to do so, the manager motivates and pushes the staff to work with enhanced productivity. The HR team at Unilever is always focussed on making the lives of its employees better, easier and comfortable. Plethora of motivation theories like Maslow, Herzberg, Theory of X & Y etc. are used to motivate the employees and make them perform at exceptional level.

Part 1: Why is it important for senior management, including HR management, to focus on mid and long-term market forecasts and human resource needs?  

At present Unilever earned revenue of 40 Billion Euros and now the company is walking on the path of achieving revenue of 80 Billion Euros. Achieving this Behemoth number is certainly not an easy task, however with the able help of the management and the HR team. The company can look for the people with the calibre to carry the company to achieve revenue of 80 Billion Euros. Thus, the teams have to start work now in looking for the candidates in the short term, train them and prepare them for the leadership journey in the coming years (Ulrich & James 200).

How to identify gaps in human capital and prepare for future talent management

Part 2: What crucial information would you include in the analysis of your human capital to cover foreseeable gaps?

Unilever selects and recruits the candidates on the basis of their potential and not on the basis of the present skill sets in an individual. The company always looks for the candidate who has the zeal, dedication and discipline to work, irrespective of type and time of the work. The company does training assessment of such candidates by finding the gap between the required skill sets and the present skill sets. Thus, helping the employees to learn and grow along with the organization (Goodman, Edward & Paul 140).

Part 3: What procedure would you do to identify the existing talent in your company and what tools would you use to recruit new talent?

Unilever follows a talent model, where 70% of the talent is built up and the rest 30 % is the buy in. This clearly reflects how seriously Unilever takes the training and development of its employees and work to build them for the future.  The company has a 360 degree Performance management system through which it assesses and evaluates the performance of its employees, round the clock. In the same process, it gives constructive feedback to the employees and creates a performance development plan for them. Thus, the company is easily able to identify the growing talent in the organization, thus they pick such budding talent and put them into a fast paced career graph.

It is most definitely not an easy task at hand to recruit the new talent, the team of HR has to be extremely sharp while looking for a candidate and then recruiting him. The first of the many strategies which can be used is the Employer branding, conducting efficient employer branding on social media channels, Linked in and other such platforms. This will put out the word in the market as to Unilever is looking for new talent, who then can be approached by the HR team (Brewster 30).

Part 1: What role does leadership play within an organization and why is it so crucial for Unilever and how would you describe leadership and what main attributes/values would you associate to it?  

Leadership is the art of influencing, motivating and leading the individual, team and the entire organization on the path of sustained growth and development. Leadership has the added responsibility not only towards the organization, but also towards its employees.  Leadership at Unilever has a strong role to play in terms of talent management, creation of a talent pool, creation of leadership and development program, creating effective and fast track learning and development goals for the employees and then make them go on the path of success. Some of the few qualities which are essential in a leader are; Futuristic vision, communication excellence, People skills, ability to inspire and transpire people (Demirtas & Asuman 62).

Strategies to identify and recruit existing and new talent for Unilever

Part 2: Why is it so important to maintain the same “storyline” but adapting it to the different national cultures where this company has operations?

Adopting the same story line helps the organization to focus on its brand identity. The same storyline is also an indication that the company irrespective of its headquarters provides the same values, culture and belief in all its subsidiary units. The storyline serves as the preamble for the organization, and giving it the taste of national culture makes the storyline more relevant in domestic market. Thus, same storyline is a reflection of consistent efforts of Unilever to build a culture beyond the boundaries of water and land, only emphasizing on adhering and respecting the culture of the domestic people(

Part 3: Design a story to recruit talent for Egypt and explain whether it works for other non-Arab nations and why?

In order to recruit the talent in Egypt the company has to mostly go with traditional recruitment strategy along with web 2.0 tools of marketing. IN Egypt people mostly like to read newspaper, watch television and read the hoardings outside the roads. The company thus have to come up with advertisement in the daily newspaper, asking for a drive in the office space. Apart from newspaper ad, subtle advertising on Billboard, hoarding and radio will help Unilever to get a huge chunk of audience for the Interview. The efforts have to be equally supported by Social media platforms as well.

In my opinion I believe that Non Arabian states have to go forward with the Social media tools such as Linked in, Facebook and other digital media tools. People staying in non-Arab countries are actively scouting for job on various social media sites and job portals.

Using your analytical skills, do you believe that the Unilever approach can be used by smaller and less global organizations and why?  

Design a Talent Management approach for a small Unilever competitor (it can be a fictional organization)

It is a little difficult for smaller organisations to spend too much on the recruiting activities for hiring the best possible talent available in the market. Thus, these kinds of organizations have to go forward with organic way in managing the talent. Thus, the organic ways to manage the talent are; Linked in, Facebook, Usage of bloggers, Website promotions, Action to call pages on the website, referral and sharing of job post by HR executives(Lievens & Jerel 420).

Smaller organizations have to rely mostly on social media posts and on its employees to give referral of the candidates interested in the job. Also, social media platforms and Glassdoor can be used as effective way to spread the positive word of mouth about the organization, thus helping in the talent management process.

Brewster, Chris. “The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy.” Policy and practice in European human resource management. Routledge, 2017. 22-35.

Demirtas, Ozgur, and A. Asuman Akdogan. “The effect of ethical leadership behavior on ethical climate, turnover intention, and affective commitment.” Journal of Business Ethics 130.1 (2015): 59-67.

Goodman, Doug, P. Edward French, and R. Paul Battaglio Jr. “Determinants of local government workforce planning.” The American Review of Public Administration 45.2 (2015): 135-152.

Lievens, Filip, and Jerel E. Slaughter. “Employer image and employer branding: What we know and what we need tknow.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 3 (2016): 407-440.

Payne, Alison Jane. “‘The growing practice of calling in continental film groups’: The European influence on production of early British TV advertising.” VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 6.11 (2017): 70-80.

Sparrow, Paul, Martin Hird, and Cary L. Cooper. “Strategic Talent Management.” Do We Need HR?. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015. 177-212.

Ulrich, Dave, and James H. Dulebohn. “Are we there yet? What’s next for HR?.” Human Resource Management Review25.2 (2015): 188-204.