Unilever's HR Strategies for Competitive Advantage

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Abstract The competition levels are rising tremendously with the rise in globalization, and to survive in the highly competitive business environment; it is necessary to adopt an efficient Human Resource Management system. The employees are the pillars that help in improving the efficiency of the organization and attain objectives. Every organization has its business aims and objectives. To meet the aims and objectives of the business, the Human Resources policies play a pivotal role in the smooth operations and meeting of the goals and objectives. Hence, the Human resources strategies and practises need to be practiced at the operational and strategic level for sustaining competition. The organization chosen for the study is Unilever. 1 | P a g e

TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Brief description of the reason for the business case ................................................................ 2 Analysis of the situation ............................................................................................................. 3 Potential solutions ...................................................................................................................... 4 Findings ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Recommendations ..................................................................................................................... 4 References .................................................................................................................................. 5 2 | P a g e

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Brief description of the reason for the business case Competitive advantage means to position the company in areas of other competitors (Alexy et al., 2018). It aids in sustaining the business, and maximizing the human capital is a significant contribution to achieve the competitive edge. Each company has different business objectives, and it helps in contributing to the development of attaining competitive advantage. The HR strategies hence should be aligned to achieve the objectives. The company chosen for study is Unilever. Unilever Plc is a multinational company that has its headquarters in London and Rotterdam (Murphy and Murphy, 2018). It operates in many parts around the globe in more than 90 countries like Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Africa. It owns more than 400 brands under Unilever. It deals with varied products such as food condiments, tea, coffee, breakfast cereals, cleaning agents, hygiene products, consumer products for personal care and beauty products. Unilever operates in the developed countries and developing ones to expand its operations on an international scale. The growth in the international trading for Unilever has incremented the need to attract and retain global talent to develop new effective strategies for the business. Hence, the best policies for recruitment, training and retaining employees on a global scale for the multinational organization must be attained to utilize their knowledge and skills in the best interests of the business. The businesses are focused on the HR strategies adopted by Unilever to establish and attain transformation of the employees to create prosperity for the business. The main focus of the study is to explore trade union policies and business policies. The HR strategies for retaining the talents and achieving the resources with successive planning have a key role in the organization’s success of the organization (Lozi et al. ,2018). The varied HR strategies applicable at Unilever and the recommendations to enhance them have been envisaged in the report to reflect upon all the feasible approaches to Human resource strategies and recommended actions to ensure that the chosen strategies are measurable, sustainable, and meet the long-term Human resource 3 | P a g e

goals for Unilever. Analysis of the situation Unilever is one of the companies that has successfully implemented Human Resource management into practice. The strategic moves by Unilever in its Human resources policies and practices directly influence the success and growth of the business. To deliver the strategic growth opportunities, Unilever works to release the capacities of their workforce by deploying the technology and simplifying the existing employee experiences. It has been indicated through research that employees in Unilever had been spending time on the navigation of the internet services ands loses productivity. To enhance productivity and optimize the administrative process, Unilever adopted digital solutions to optimise the administration process and engage employees. Using the single integrated point of entry, the employees have ease of access to all information. It has resulted in better employee satisfaction, and employees have become more focused on productive activities. In its Human Resource Policies, Unilever also aligns the human and financial capital to ensure that the Organisations are more effective at driving sustained performances in a highly competitive arena. Unilever has undergone tremendous transformations to shift the strategic decision-making process. Unilever is using ‘cells’ to balance the local and global approaches. They adopted the Talent First model, which focuses on recruiting highly skilled and experienced employees from varied, diverse backgrounds to ensure that the best talent is obtained from its human resources and bought the highest productivity (Hrone, 2021). Unilever also offers varied retention strategies for its wide diverse workforce. These include medical benefits, tuition assistance, which includes financial assurance for employees to cover their formal education while working, a range of professional counselling and support services for the employees, and the company stocks to employees to enable them to share the company's benefits (Stuwart et al., 2018). In addition , it aids in motivating employees to enhance company performance as well. 4 | P a g e

Potential solutions To be able to boost the Organisations effectiveness and manage the business governance and ethical issues, the Human resource effective management is essential. It is helpful to boost economic performance and develop sustainable management. It is the vital duty of the Human Resource Management team to deal with varied issues in Human source management and ensure better estimation of the organizational resources, and achieve the business objectives. Findings Unilever has direct applications online and through third parties to recruit the employees. It has given them a diverse workforce with a highly skilled employee base, but amendments in the recruitment strategies can get a better workforce. Moreover, Key performance indicators are operation measurements. The KPI are quantifiable indicators for evaluating the corporation’s performance to achieve significant business objectives. The company objectives must be defined in terms of the KPI to assess and evaluate Unilever's operational and strategic functions, including the absence of the employee satisfaction index and productivity of the employees. The usage of KPI in Human resource management will be useful for effective Human resource policies to be implemented. Recommendations In this section, certain recommendations that Unilever must adopt to enhance the Human resource policies to stay competitive are: It must incorporate in-campus recruitment drives on a larger scale as the young students have a lot of potential and creativity to boost the company needs and requirements. They should be trained intensively through internships and given placements in a permanent position after a thorough evaluation of the individuals after their internship periods. 5 | P a g e

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Secondly, the implementation of the KPI (Key performance indicators) in the assessment and evaluation of the human resource policies is essential (Hristov and Chirico, 2019). It will aid the company to understand the strategic and operational issues in its policies and bring changes so that the performance of the Human resource is up to the desired level. Human resources are the backbone of any organization. If the productivity is at the highest peak from the Human resource department, it gives the company the swings to sustain the highly competitive business environment that exists. These are two major recommendations thar Unilever can adopt to sustain competition and climb the ladder towards enhanced success. References Al-Lozi, M.S., Almomani, R.Z.Q. and Al-Hawary, S.I.S., 2018. Talent management strategies as a critical success factor for effectiveness of Human Resources Information Systems in commercial banks working in Jordan. Global Journal of Management And Business Research . Hristov, I. and Chirico, A., 2019. The role of sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) in implementing sustainable strategies. Sustainability , 11 (20), p.5742. Hrone.lu. 2021. How Unilever is reaching extraordinary (HR) performance? . [online] Available at: <https://www.hrone.lu/actualites/how-unilever-reaching- extraordinary-hr-performance> [Accessed 13 September 2021]. Mckinsey.com 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.mckinsey.com/business- functions/organization/our-insights/talent-management-as-a-business- discipline-a-conversation-with-unilever-chro-leena-nair> [Accessed 13 September 2021]. Murphy, P.E. and Murphy, C.E., 2018. Sustainable Living: Unilever. In Progressive Business Models (pp. 263-286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. 6 | P a g e

Stewart, C., Nodoushani, O. and Stumpf, J., 2018, July. Cultivating employees using Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In Competition Forum (Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 67-75). American Society for Competitiveness. 7 | P a g e

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