Unilever HR Process. [PDF]

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Contents Executive Summary...............................................................................................................................3 1.0 Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3 2.0 Case of Company............................................................................................................................4 2.1 Employee Recruitment and Selection..........................................................................................4 2.1.1 Structure of HR Department in Unilever..............................................................................4 2.1.2 Human Resource Planning at Unilever.................................................................................5 2.1.3 Methods of recruitment.........................................................................................................6 2.1.4 Internal Recruitment.............................................................................................................6 2.1.5 External Recruitment............................................................................................................7 2.1.6 Process of interviewing and selecting a candidate................................................................7 2.1.7 Induction / orientation process at Unilever...........................................................................8 2.2 Training and Development..........................................................................................................9 2.2.1 Training cycle at Unilever..................................................................................................10 2.2.2 Kirk Patrick’s model used at Unilever................................................................................11 2.2.3 Modes of training at Unilever.............................................................................................12 3.0 Findings and Recommendations....................................................................................................13 3.1 Findings.................................................................................................................................13 3.2 Recommendations..................................................................................................................13 4.0 Discussion.....................................................................................................................................14

5.0 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15 References...........................................................................................................................................16

Executive Summary In this report hierarchy of Unilever is discussed, showing who reports to whom. Unilever is very particular about their HR planning. Employees like Line managers, Recruitment managers and Human Resource business partners are all involved in HR planning .

When it comes to methods of recruitment, like many other organizations Unilever also uses two types of recruitment methods that are internal and external recruitment. At Unilever they do not depend on any one of these methods, they use both of them according to their need. Process of hiring depends entirely whether they want to hire a full time employee or an internee. For an internee or a management trainee position candidates are first required to pass a knowledge test. For hiring a full time employee HR manager screens the CVs and calls the shortlisted candidates for their initial interview. If the candidate successfully passes the initial interview, then the candidate is called for a panel interview at Unilever. After panel interview comes the final interview is generally conducted to negotiate salary and other fringe benefits. Unilever has a policy to make the selected candidate go through certain medical tests to check if they are mentally and physically ok to perform this job. Unilever has always admitted that training and development is one of the most important parts of Human Resource Management. Training sessions at Unilever are a procedure to make the current employees competitive in the market and to make them ready to face the future challenges face by businesses operated in a highly competitive dynamic environment. Training at Unilever is done through three modes: 1) On the job training 2) Off the job training 3) Mentoring / Coaching. However, findings and issues of the report are Unilever should prefer using artificial intelligence and traditional way of recruiting process is very time consuming, taking help from AI and learning algorithms will save time. Also Unilever should start recruiting employees from external sources more. The company should consider employing fresh graduates as they will bring more creativity. Unilever should start penalizing employees who do not take training sessions seriously. And Unilever should add another mode of training in their process of training which is web – based / e – learning.

1.0 Introduction (Armstrong M 2007) cited in Sandeep MAHARAJ1, Shalimar ALI (2012), Human Resource Management is the interpretation and execution of policies and practices that ultimately affect

the individuals who work within the project and the staff as a whole (Armstrong M 2007) cited in Sandeep MAHARAJ1, Shalimar ALI (2012). In order to ensure adequate staff levels with the right qualifications, adequately paid and encouraged, the supervision of a company's workforce is necessary. It can be described as a strategic and consistent approach to managing the workforce of an organization that contributes to the success of its goals, both at the individual and organizational level. According to Storey (1989) cited Sandeep MAHARAJ1, Shalimar ALI (2012), believes that H.R.M. should be viewed as a collection of ideologically and philosophically oriented interconnected strategies. Unilever (Pvt) ltd. recruitment process, selection and training and development process was critically reviewed in this assignment.

2.0 Case of Company Unilever Private Limited’s operations, led by the directors, are coordinated around five separate divisions. These are the departments: There are five core divisions in Unilever namely: Customer Management Department (Sales & Distribution), Finance, IT & Legal Department (Finance), Human Resources Department (HR)  , Brands and Development Department, Supply Chain Department (both production & distribution logistics) . In this report I will focus on HR department because hiring staff and provide training to new and existing employees is the main responsibility of Human Resources Department.

2.1 Employee Recruitment and Selection 2.1.1 Structure of HR Department in Unilever Unilever has a mixed base HR department framework, meaning that Unilever has built HR department subgroups depending on a number of bases. Director HR

HR Manager Product A

HR Manager Product B

HR Manager Product C

HR Manager Product D

HR Manager Product E

Manager Staffing Manager HRD

Manager Reward system

Manager IR and ER

HR officer Managerial employee

HR officer Non managerial employee

Source?

2.1.2 Human Resource Planning at Unilever Human resource planning is a major function of HR department at Unilever. The company keeps a critical eye on its HR planning process as they are very much concerned about their each and every individual employee. Unilever has its pre-planned step by step process for HR planning, which is conducted every year in June / July. Employees like Line managers, Recruitment managers and Human Resource business partners are all involved in HR planning. HR planning should be done before hand as it will help Unilever to achieve their desired goals. HR planning and priorities should be decided by the concerned department earlier so, that it will help an organization in achieving their overall objectives (McGraw Hill Ryerson, 2000). Every year a meeting is organized to discuss specific things that includes: what is currently happening in the Unilever? New products to be introduced by Unilever, which markets are to be targeted in the future? And any new opportunities which the company should grab for example: when Unilever introduced its newly launched brand Lakme in the market it became very necessary to do HR planning. All of these jobs will be done by the employees of the company so, this makes HR planning an important task to do. HR planning helps to do an internal scan of the company to have an idea about the number of employees needed and their capabilities to achieve departmental goals (John, 2008). HR planning can give a company an edge over other competitors present in the market (Butler et al, 1991). By doing HR planning this will provide answers to various questions e.g. What type of employees are needed? What skill set do the employees need to have? When should the company start its recruitment process? In short company has to do HR planning when launching its new product. Managers from all the departments at Unilever discuss

regularly about the future job vacancies, which skill sets are required to perform the job tasks, how many employees are resigning and retiring from the company. It is then the duty of the HR line manager to make a report which will include all the details regarding HR planning and wait for director’s approval on the report. The whole HR planning process at Unilever successfully finishes after the director approves the HR report. Key issue Unilever is no doubt a huge multinational company who employs more than 30,000 candidates each year. Employing 30,000 people is not an easy task as Unilever has to go through approximately 1.8 million of CVs and resumes. It obviously becomes impossible for an HR person / human being to look at each and every CV and then match that CV according to their set criteria. Finding the right person for the vacant position is very essential thing to do as Unilever cannot afford hiring a wrong person who is careless or have no idea how to perform the task. Hiring a wrong employee will also have an adverse impact on company’s performance. It takes immense pain to search for a talented potential employee whose CV is buried in the last, at the bottom of a pile of CVs.

2.1.3 Methods of recruitment Like many other organizations Unilever also uses two types of recruitment methods that are internal and external recruitment. At Unilever they do not depend on any one of these methods, they use both of them according to their need. They just have a belief that they want to recruit / hire talented candidates and it does not matter whether they come through internal or external way of recruitment. Which recruitment method to choose entirely depends on the need of the situation. 2.1.4 Internal Recruitment Internal recruitment is when Unilever chooses to fill up the vacant position from an internal existing employee. As Unilever keeps a strict check on its skill inventory, the company knows strength and weaknesses of each and every employee. Updating skill inventory regularly also helps Unilever in doing performance appraisals of the employees. The company owns its online portal system, whenever the company wants its employees to apply for some internal vacancy HR managers posts job advertisements on their online portal. Employees can then match their skill sets with the job requirements and if they think they are qualified enough so, they apply for that particular position.

Unilever also has a very well pre-planned system of succession / replacement planning. A manager at Unilever is asked to inform at least one month before he wishes to leave his job so, that HR manager starts to train an employee working under the manager. There are weaknesses of using internal recruitment that number of potential candidates will be limited. Other candidates who applied but got rejected might feel that Unilever is being biased. However, its strengths include that employees may feel motivated and also this method is cost-effective. 2.1.5 External Recruitment External recruitment is done when Unilever decides to bring a new employee from outside the organization. After the completion of the whole job requisition process, job vacancy is advertised on different platforms e.g. social media, LinkedIn, newspaper job columns, staffing agencies etc. Some of the external recruitment sources are discussed below: 1. Advertisements: This is a very popular method used by Unilever for recruiting people from external sources. These advertisements contain job description, person specification and sometimes salaries and benefits too. Candidates interested in working for a particular position can just simply apply for job through the ad. 2. Employee referrals and recommendations: Sometimes existing employee of Unilever recommends someone he / she knows outside the organization. An employee recommends a person when he is sure about the person’s performance. But sometimes an employee may deliberately provide wrong and misleading information about his recommended person. 3. Head hunters / Agencies: They are a kind of private agencies which charges Unilever to find a suitable candidate for them. Companies like Unilever tells them person specification and requirements, then it is the task for head hunters to find candidates which will match Unilever’s given criteria. Unilever uses external method of recruitment to encourage new fresh blood in the organization who is going to bring more creativity and experience in the organization. Key issue 1. Not focusing on hiring fresh university graduates. 2. Not focusing more on recruiting employees through external sources.

2.1.6 Process of interviewing and selecting a candidate Unilever has different ways to hire candidates and their way of hiring depends entirely whether they want to hire a full-time employee or an internee. Unilever gathers a pool of CVs by advertising about the job / internship, it is the duty of an HR manager to shortlist and screen the CVs according to their requirements. To hire an internet or a management trainee, candidates has to pass a test in which their knowledge about the work is tested. Selection tests are important as they do not only check the knowledge of the candidate but also helps in building a good image of the organization. Selection tests helps to develop perception in the minds of the candidates about the organization for example: a very tidy / clean and quiet testing area (Ryan & Ployhart, 2000). For hiring a full time employee HR manager screens the CVs and calls the shortlisted candidates for their initial interview. Some basic questions are asked in the first interview e.g. the qualification, skills and job experience of the candidates etc. The interview consists of both structured and unstructured questions. If the candidate successfully passes the initial interview, then the candidate is called for a panel interview at Unilever. This panel interview will be conducted by the HR hiring manager, HR business partners, departmental manager and other managers working in the department in which there’s a job vacancy. The panel members then rank the candidates which according to them will be best for the job and select 4 most suitable candidates which they think will be right for filling the job vacancy. These 4 selected candidates are then called for the final panel interview. This panel interview will be conducted by the Directors, and senior HR managers. Final interview is generally conducted to negotiate salary and other fringe benefits. Salaries, rewards and compensation are main motivating factors for an employee. These directly or indirectly impacts an employee’s performance. After the negotiation process top HR managers with the Directors meet and discuss whether they will be able to afford the salary package offered by the candidate or not. If yes, then Unilever has a policy to make the selected candidate go through certain medical tests to check if they are mentally and physically ok to perform this job. These medical tests are done by only a some of the hospitals who are affiliated with Unilever. Test results have to go to the Unilever medical center for approval. After the medical tests prove that a candidate is fit for the job he / she is made a job offer.

So, it can be concluded that during the whole selection process, candidates are divided into two categories i.e. candidates who are offered the job and candidates who are not offered the job. Through selection process an organization chooses the best candidate that matches the given criteria for a vacant position (R.M. Hodgetts & Luthans, 1989). 2.1.7 Induction / orientation process at Unilever Induction is a whole new process of introducing the selected candidate at Unilever. This induction process is very necessary to make the new employee used to of the environment. Selected candidate has to go through three main induction areas at Unilever such as: 3 weeks of employees / organizational induction and 3 months of job induction.

2.2 Training and Development Unilever has always admitted that employee training has numerous benefits to its organization which includes increased self-confidence and motivation level of employees, increases employee engagement in decision making. This point has been proved correct by one of the research which states that there are various benefits of training employees for example: visible increase in the levels of employees’ motivation / morale / confidence, decrease in production cost because of less wastage, more employee involvement in discussing and facing new complex situations, less employee turnover with improved employee performance (Nassazi, 2013). An employee’s responsibility is to make / build his or her own career, but an organization’s responsibility is to provide their employees with some opportunities / open learning environment to help them develop and train themselves (Waterman et al., 1994). Efficiency and effectiveness of employees and organizations are improved by training and development (Jehanzeb & Bashir, 2013). Unilever believes that their employees’ skill set will be updated through training sessions. Employees of an organization gain new skills / abilities through training and development, it also helps in one’s individual personal as well as career growth (Jehanzeb & Bashir, 2013). Following are some of the skills that employees develop during their training sessions at Unilever:

1. Technical and professional skills: Skills about how to manage a specific project strategically will be taught to employees. This is going to enhance their technical as well as professional skills too. 2. Team building skills: Through training all of the employees are going to work together in the absence of the hierarchichal levels. This will improve and develop team work spirit among the employees. 3. Management and leadership skills: Employees will also learn about how to manage / tackle different situations. Also some leadership skills will also be developed in them. 4. Functional skills:

In a highly competitive work environment these skills will

differentiate each and every employee from one another in a unique way. Examples of these skills are: Presentation skills, verbal and non – verbal communication skills, proficiency in spoken and written English and computer skills. 5. Positive and enthusiastic behavior: Employees will develop a positive energy towards their assigned job / work. They will be enthusiastic and will actively take part whenever employee engagement will be needed at Unilever. 2.2.1 Training cycle at Unilever Unilever has always been actively engaged in taking care of their employees in the best possible ways. The HR department of Unilever has prepared a training process for its employees to help them develop skills which will enable them to perform well in their current and future jobs. According to a research training and development aims to fill gap between current and expected performance (Elnaga & Imran, 2013; Nassazi, 2013). Unilever always believes in developing leaders from their existing employees. The step by step process of training program is as follows:

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Identifying needs:

Unilever always focus on its employees who need training to provide them the required skill to improve their current job. Some organizations fail to understand that their employees have a need for training but Unilever always keeps a strict check on its training needs, and train their employees whenever there is a need for it. For example, whenever Unilever hires any fresh graduate the company knows that a fresh graduate will only has bookish knowledge instead of any practical experience. Fresh graduates usually do not have any idea about how to negotiate and manage / tackle people. So, Unilever will provide training sessions to the fresh graduates that will help them to develop their skills on how to deal with people etc. Basically the company tries to find their employee training needs accordingly. 

Design the training:

After the training needs are identified, the company designs the training programs / sessions accordingly keeping in mind the needs of the employees. This enables employees to develop themselves as a leader and also helps in their career growth. 

Deliver training:

As Unilever is very particular about its employees, the company makes sure that they cater every training need of their employee. Training is conducted in a very precise manner so, that trainers and supervisors can keep a check whether the training was conducted properly or not. The task does not finish here; Unilever takes test of every employee to know if they actually

learned something from the training sessions or not. And most of the time employees fails to pass the knowledge test. Key issue 1. Trainings are costly and when participants do not learn from it, it becomes useless. Like many other organizations Unilever also has some lazy worker who just want to attend training sessions for fun. This is going to have a negative impact on employee and company’s performance. 2. Unilever does not train its employees through web – based learning. 2.2.3 Modes of training at Unilever  On the job training: Unilever prefers to use on the job training more because they believe that an employee learns the most when he is at his work place. An employee understands well and learn effectively when he is taught on his job. Unilever uses two main elements when conducting on the job training sessions: 1. Learning by doing. 2. Learning by doing some projects. 

Off the job training: This mode of training is not much preferred by Unilever as compared to on the job training. Unilever has affiliations and agreements with external organizations who provide classroom training to their employees. Whenever there is a need to train the higher managerial positions, Unilever also send its employees abroad for training purposes.

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Mentoring / coaching: Mentoring and coaching are both delivered on a one - to – one basis. Supervisors, line – managers are often seen guiding / coaching / mentoring employees at the work. The guidance they provide helps greatly in developing leadership skill in the employees. This is the second most used method of training at Unilever. Mentoring is considered to be most effective when it is kept highly confidential. Sometimes it becomes difficult to keep everything confidential but Unilever understands and respects privacy of their employees.

The above mentioned information shows that Unilever uses 70 / 20 / 10 learning model which is illustrated through the diagram below:

3.0 Findings and Recommendations 3.1 Findings and issues with their recruitment and selection process / training 1. After having a look at the detailed analysis, it can be said that Unilever follows a traditional way of shortlisting the candidates i.e. not using artificial intelligence in their recruitment process. 2. Unilever does not consider recruiting university students when hiring employees. 3. Unilever uses both external and internal sources of recruitment. They should prefer using internal sources more often while recruiting and selecting a new candidate. 4. There are some employees who do not take training sessions seriously and hence, end up wasting financial resources of the company. 5. Unilever does not train its employees through e – learning.

3.2 Recommendations

Unilever should think of doing partnerships with organizations who specializes in artificial intelligence. Using AI will reduce the burden of going through CVs manually. This will be less time consuming and HR managers can focus on doing some other work. First, through AI and learning algorithms candidates will be tested through playing different games which will check their logic and reasoning skills. In the second stage candidates will be asked to submit a video interview. This video will be examined by the learning algorithm. Learning algorithms will analyze the video through body language. This will save lots of hours of the HR people, and work will be done in an efficient and effective way. When recruiting a candidate through external sources, Unilever should participate in career fairs held at different universities. As university students are enthusiastic, creative they will help Unilever to generate more innovative ideas. Fresh graduates from universities will have a chance to start their career, creative students will put their heart and soul in doing whatever they are assigned to do. Unilever should prefer hiring from external sources as compared to internal sources. Because most of the time nepotism happens. This shows biasness as employees sometimes try to appoint their relatives, friends or family members even if they are not much competitive. Training costs are expensive to bear. Some employees do not learn anything from the training sessions and the company’s money go in waste. In order to make employees learn something from the training sessions Unilever should start penalizing employees who do not improve themselves from training. Recently, most of the organizations are putting their emphasis more on online training sessions. Unilever should also try to train their employees through e-learning. Though the advantages of e-learning are debatable, but still people do acquire new skills through online training sessions. It is obviously more convenient and a very cost – effective way of developing and updating new skills in an individual.

4.0 Discussion Unilever is no doubt a huge multinational company who employs more than 30,000 candidates each year. Employing 30,000 people is not an easy task as Unilever has to go through approximately 1.8 million of CVs and resumes. It obviously becomes impossible for an HR person / human being to look at each and every CV and then match that CV according to their set criteria. Finding the right person for the vacant position is very essential thing to

do as Unilever cannot afford hiring a wrong person who is careless or have no idea how to perform the task. Hiring a wrong employee will also have an adverse impact on company’s performance. It takes immense pain to search for a talented potential employee whose CV is buried in the last, at the bottom of a pile of CVs. Using artificial intelligence and learning algorithms will solve this problem in no time. Traditional way of recruiting consumes a lot of time, sometimes as per the need of the situation it is also required to travel for an interview. As the traditional way of recruiting consumes a lot of time, this makes an organization un able to find the right person for the job (Nel et al., 2011; Rudman, 2010).

Unilever should also consider hiring employees who are fresh graduates, as they are more creative. This has also been proved by one of the researches that is mentioned below. By having a look at some previous researches, it can be concluded that organizations are hiring university graduates more often, because they bring new ideas and prosperity to the organizations (Pearson et al, 1999). Focusing more on external sources when recruiting is necessary for Unilever. External recruitment and transparent hiring processes will improve existing employees’ performance, as they will have an idea that Unilever offers fair chances to be employed by employing people from outside. When an organization hires employees through external sources, it is able to save itself from nepotism internal politics of the existing employees (Mirza J, 2008). Fresh ideas are being brought by the employees who are recruited through external sources (DeVaro & J., 2020). Unilever always ask its employees to take exams after training to check if they actually learned any skill or not. If they fail to pass the test Unilever can penalize them accordingly. In this way employees are going to take these training sessions seriously. This will improve both company and employee’s performance at the same time. While coming towards web – based learning various researches have proved that benefits of training through e – learning outweighs the disadvantages of web – based learning (BartolicZlomislic & Bates, 1999; Scott, Aragon, Shaik, & Palma-Rivas, 2000; Curtis & Lawson, 2001; Taylor, 2002; Stick & Ivankova, 2004). According to one more research an organization saves so much of its finances, if they convert from traditional way of learning methods to online training / e – learning methods (Hall & LeCavalier, 2000).

In this Covid – 19 pandemic era the idea of online training / e - learning will prove to be very useful for Unilever. Online training will enable employees to develop new skills even if they are sitting and working from home. Web – based training is also going to motivate employees of Unilever as they will see it as a new learning opportunity to grow and polish their skills while just sitting at home. In this way employees sitting at home will have a chance to improve their performance too.

5.0 Conclusion Unilever is a leading name in the market. The company is committed towards producing quality products therefore, without having good employees Unilever will not be able to function properly. They need to manage their employees effectively to maintain their image in the minds of the consumers. The training programs provided by Unilever ensures that their every employee’s skill is updated regularly. Also if Unilever start training their employees / workers online, this will give Unilever an edge over its competitors. Other companies must set Unilever as a benchmark when it comes to training. Although Unilever is doing a great job when it comes to taking care of employees, but there is a still room for improvement. Other companies who are operating in the same industry might also benefit from this report.

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