Attraction and Performance of Unilever - Case Study Example

Order 264269 December 27, 2008 Attraction and Performance of Unilever (UK) An organisation works in a dynamic environment. Talent management(TM) is the process adopted by an organisation to respond to the challenges of a continuously changing operative environment through a strategic approach of attracting, grooming and retaining people with abilities and aptitudes to satisfy the current as well as future organizational needs. TM integrates different initiatives of Human Resource Management (HRM) like employee recruitment, development and retention to evolve a people-oriented culture that encourages performance. Being a global leader in food and personal care brands and a rapidly growing multinational, Unilever is faced with the challenges of managing a multicultural workforce that can effectively stand up to the severe brand competition. The company at global level has 120 different HR systems and it is therefore imperative to evolve integrated TM policy to adjust fast and survive in this environment. What differentiates Unilever as a potential employer to attract talent How an employee can derive satisfaction with his needs addressed from his work with the company "Through HR processes, we answer these needs and deliver solutions, experiences and stretch assignments that keep people engaged in their jobs" (Le Camus 2008). A business strategy howsoever strong can translate into profitable business result only when the right talent is attracted, developed and assigned the job compatible with the talent. The Unilever TM policy identifies the talent needs for future business strategy and mobilizes the talent to develop in them the capability to achieve business results. 2 Performance orientation is vital to success in business. It becomes easier as a practice when the business development objectives of an organisation converge with the personal development objectives of its employees. Performance management in Unilever involves conversation with employees on an ongoing basis so that the employees know about the business goals of the organisation and the employer in turn learns about the expectation of the employees from them. The performance culture is promoted by designing plans for each individual's performance continuously followed up with short-term reviews by a process called Strategy into Action (SIA). It is the task of the line managers to deliver performance management by managing the talents through providing guidance with a view to achieving personal development of the employee and business development of the organisation within the desired timeframe. However, for delivering employee brand experience, the line managers need to be thoroughly aware of the importance of people management. It is therefore necessary for an organisation like Unilever to ensure that the line managers perform their tasks of grooming in a way that there are always people who can take up the mantle of team leadership. An executive must not leave the company without growing a replacement ready to take up his or her role. This sows the seeds for the organizational success as there are always mentors by whom new talents are nurtured resulting in each employee getting enriched by the experience and becoming an ambassador for the organisation. To be able to manage business of a global scale, an organisation needs to create a talent pool from all over the world. The operational units of Unilever are spread across diverse cultures creating complex barriers that need to be overcome through HRM 3 strategies coordinated on a global scale. TM in the context of Unilever involves managing employees coming from different parts of the world to perform across a wide range of level from domestic to global. The company has to develop a framework for International HRM to effectively address this diversity in the employees' background in respect of culture, education, economic, political and legal systems and create an integrated TM process to grow in the global market. The theme of this process is to attract, develop and retain talent. Growth in an organisation cannot be managed without sufficient talent to sustain the growth and for a global payer like Unilever, without a globally resourced talent pool that can really work anywhere in the world (Lee 2008). Business performance is one of the most important criteria to attract talent. Even the best HRM strategy would fail in absence of performance and growth. The values employed by an organisation also determine attraction of talent for it. There is no fit-for-all universal model for TM. Approaches are many and their applications depend on the organisational character and values. The broad elements constituting TM collectively referred as 'talent pipeline' are attraction (recruitment), development, deployment, performance management and retention. An organisation is required to customize its TM strategy keeping in view the present and future talent pipeline that best serves its purpose vis--vis business performance and growth. Unilever, a global brand, needs to adopt a TM approach taking into account diverse cultural attributes from which to recruit talent to sustain its global presence, nurture the talent by integrating employee objective with the organisational objective with the purpose of developing and retaining the employee for current and future needs and promote a strong business culture. 4 In terms of human resources, Unilever has identified four areas- talent management, organisational effectiveness and design, culture and environment and transformation of HR functions. Attraction, development and retention of talent with continuous training, among other things, on marketing and customer service form the focus of TM in Unilever. It starts with a structured recruitment process to create a recruitment brand for the company in line with its global position and values. Attracting talent needs a consistent selection process to ensure recruitment decisions that are consistent across its international presence. The remuneration strategy as a part of this TM process is framed with the objective to attract and retain staff. However, market competition for talented workforce combined with shortage of skills makes it imperative to review the strategy. Leadership development is another important TM process for a truly international company like Unilever. One way to develop this is movement of employees between countries to get exposed to different markets. Such international experience promotes leadership. Workforce planning relating to competency development for specific roles within the organisation is also a major part of TM that starts right from the recruitment stage. HRM in Unilever is shared among three broad functional areas. The needs of the business are assessed by the HR Business Partners to make appropriate strategies and implement them. Considering that the company's operational units are varied with cultural barriers to be overcome by coordinated international HRM strategies, the business partners create the elements required to promote positive working relationship among the employees, viz. appropriate organisational structure, culture, people and capabilities. The 5 policies for each business area of the company to attract, recruit and develop talents are worked on by HR Expertise Teams. The Unilever HR Services besides performing the usual functions of recruitment, remuneration and benefits also monitor and manage service performances to ensure matching of quality with the cost to the company. Can Unilever's current approach to TM deliver future leaders to manage and improve its business performance and growth This is the question in a context where between half and three quarters of senior managers are due to retire by 2010 (HayGroup Research 2007). With future becoming more and more unpredictable, the focus has to shift from people to role, that is, the future roles envisaged in terms of organisational requirements. In this scenario, TM strategies need to be evolved as a business strategy to identify future critical roles in an organisation and accordingly manage talent supply with the following approach: Talent Segmentation Identifying critical roles and talent requirements Understanding core capabilities that will drive those roles and matching that capability with the person Building a talent pipeline Implementing leadership development across the organisation (Source: Strategic HR Network Conference on Leadership and TM Strategies, September 2008) It is gradually being recognised that business success through creation of a culture of high performance depends on developing appropriate TM strategies to produce future leaders. 6 Portfolio approach of Cappelli as a modern TM strategy has been used with success by Unilever for talent retention. It cannot be assessed with any degree of certainty what a company "will be building five years out and what skills they will need to make that happen; they also don't know if the people they have in their pipelines are going to be around" (Cappelli 2008). Therefore like a portfolio of stocks that minimises the overall risk of investment, a portfolio of talent to cater to different operations is developed by the company to be able to move people from low growth to high growth area and reduce the risk of losing talent. Besides working as a mechanism for talent retention, it also provides scope for overseas deployment of talent thus broadening exposure to diverse business environments so essential to build leadership. Unilever has implemented PeopleSoft System that generates for each of its business units talent planning models. These models apart from predicting manpower requirement for each role also forecast probable attrition of talents, employee morale and other data like outside hiring and promotion rate. This simulated approach of forecasting is more meaningful in the context of business uncertainty compared to traditional forecasting methods that can only provide a static estimate of future talent requirements. In these models, a range of business assumptions lead to a range of talent estimates facilitating assessment of the real requirement that must lie within that range. This will reduce to a large extent demand-supply mismatch of talent and the possibility of its surplus-deficit at any point of time. The whole concept of talent inventory has undergone change and building up of unused inventory is now regarded as an indication of a company's uncertainty as to its talent needs which can only mean paying for idle talent. List of References Bartlett, M. 2007, 'Harnessing the X Factor in the War for Talent', Seminar Paper Available at: http://www.seemp.co.uk Cappelli, P. 2008, Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty, Harvard Business School Press Duttagupta, R. 2008, 'Identifying and Managing Your Assets: Talent Management', PricewaterhouseCoopers, London, Available at: http://www.buildingipvalue.com HayGroup Research 2007, 'Matching supply to demand: A strategic approach to talent management', Available at: http://www.eoeleadership.nhs.uk http://www.unilever.com http://www.globalhrm.com http://www.gtac-astd.org Ibrahim, C. 2008, 'Importance of Talent Management', Available at: http://www.citehr.com India Knowledge@Wharton 2008, 'Talent on Demand': Applying Supply Chain Management to People, Available at: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu Le Camus, S. 2008, Q&A: Unilever, April 2008, Available at: http://www.marketing-interactive.com Lee, X. 2008, 'Talent Management goes global in Asia', Available at: http://www.marketing-interactive.com Quelch, John A. & Bloom, H. 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