hrm final report

Institute Of Business Management

Fall 2010

MBA Regular

Section B

(BLUE)

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Final Term Report on “UNILEVER PAKISTAN”

SUBMITTED BY:

Anam Nazneen-10449

Syeda Zauwia Riaz-10124

Saira Akhtar-10101

Syed Wahaj Hussain-10580

SUBMITTED TO:

Mr. Maqsood Ahmed

Maqsood Ahmed

Table of Contents

Letter Of Transmittal............................................................................................................................3

Summaries of Chapters from our textbook...........................................................................................4

Unilever Pakistan………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….…14

Human Resource Management at Unilever……………………………………………………………………………………….14

Diversity Management at Unilever……………………………………………………………………………………………….…..15

Recruitment Process………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...16

Career opportunities for management trainees and graduates ………………………………………………………..17

Induction Process………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……18

Training and Development………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………..19

Teamwork at Unilever…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…21

Rewards and Benefits…………………………………………………………………………………………………………....…………21

Career opportunities for experienced professionals………………..………………………………………………………..22

Performance Management…………………………………………..……………………………………………………….………….23

Career Progression…………………………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………24

Work Life Balance……………………………………………...…………………………………………………..………………………..25

Individual Performance………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………26

Motivational Practices………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………27

Health, Safety and Security……………………………………………………………………….….……….………………………….33

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….…………………………38

Letter of Transmittal

DATE: December 9, 2010

TO: Mr. Maqsood Ahmed

FROM: Anam Nazneen

Syeda Zauwia Riaz

Saira Akhtar

Syed Wahaj Hussain

SUBJECT: Human Resource Management Practices at Unilever Pakistan

We are pleased to present our report on “The Human Resource Management and H.R activities and procedures at Unilever Pakistan”. This report strengthens our recommendations on the importance of Human Resource Management activities and practices in an organization in order to remain competent in today’s’ changing world of cut-throat competition.

Our research has been very productive, especially receiving first hand knowledge from the company website it self i.e. www.unilever.pk & also through our visit to the organization which opened new ways of learning & experience to us & helped us in implementing the theories which we learnt in the course of Human Resource Management.

We would also like to thank Mr. M. Ali Imrani, Assistant HR Business Partner Customer Development, who gave his valuable time to us in guiding and informing us about the practices exercised at Unilever Pakistan, both for the permanent as well as contractual employees. Also we would like to thank Ms. Sarah Karamtullah, junior recruitment manager at Unilever Pakistan for giving her valuable time to us in helping us to explore the HR practices at Unilever Pakistan.

http://www.unilever.pk/

We deeply acknowledge your help and support for this report and we look forward to discuss this report with you and having your feedback on our work.

This report as per your instruction has covered all the authentic areas of concern and contains all the relevant information. We would dearly like to thank you for the faith you showed in our capabilities and the encouragement you gave us when assigning us the report which helped a lot in our learning process & accede us in experiencing and exploring real world practices of Human Resource Management.

Our group has enjoyed a lot working for this report as it has explored us with the real world practices of HR and has explicitly affected our learning in this area.

Summaries of Chapters from Our TextbookSection 1: Nature of Human Resource Management

CHAPTER 1: Changing Nature of Human Resource Management

This Chapter gives an overview of the Human Resource Management practiced in the organizations. Whether in small organization or a large one, H.R activities are required to manage certain responsibility areas for the efficient working of the organization.

Human Resource Management is the design of formal systems in an organization to ensure effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals. This chapter includes all the activities & challenges faced by H.R management along with the roles it has to perform and the ethical issues that come across.

The challenges faced by HR management include:

Economic & technological changes Workforce availability & quality Growth in contingent workforce Demographic issues Work/family balancing Organizational Restructuring & mergers/acquisitions

The major H.R activities are:

HR Planning and Analysis

Equal Employment Opportunity Staffing HR Development Compensation and Benefits Health, Safety, and Security Employee and Labor/Management Relation

HR management has to perform certain roles; the levels of the roles performed are shown in the figure below:

HR becomes a strategic business partner by:

Focusing on developing HR programs that enhance organizational performance. Involving HR in strategic planning at the onset. Participating in decision making on mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing. Redesigning organizations and work processes. Accounting and documenting the financial results of HR activities.

There are many ethical issues faced by the HR management and they pose challenges to act justly. However, HR professionals must be competent enough to differentiate between the right & the wrong. Thus must posses following capabilities:

Knowledge of business and organization Influence and change management Specific HR knowledge and expertise

CHAPTER 2: Strategic Human Resource Management

This chapter includes the overview of the Strategic nature of HRM as how HRM serves as a core competency and becomes the backbone of any organization by providing the organization with competitive capabilities in the form of competent workforce and well-managed HR processes.

The organizational use of employees to gain or keep a competitive edge against its competitors is known as strategic HRM. The culture of the organization has a very strong impact on the strategic use of HR activities. The HR planning involves analysis & identification of the need & availability of human resources so that the organization can meet its objectives. HR plays a vital role in managing demand for & supply of Human Resources in an organization.

Keeping in view the organizational objectives and strategies, the external environment is scanned for changes that could affect labor supply along with internal assessment of HR capabilities. Then forecasting of future HR conditions is prepared. This helps in analyzing the organizational needs of people and surveying of people available. On the basis of these, HR strategies & plans are developed. This chapter also includes the methods of assessing HR effectiveness with HR audit and benchmarking that evaluates the HR management & compares it with those in other “best practices” organizations.

This chapter also introduces to the Human Resource Information System (HRIS) which is an integrated system that helps in operational efficiency & effectiveness to HR management practices and gives an additive advantage to the organization by improving efficiency of HR data compilation and managing & maintaining HR records & information.

CHAPTER 3: Individual Performance and Retention

This chapter focuses on the individual employee performance, motivational approaches, individual/organizational relationships, employee retention and the retention management practices used by the organizations. Organizations often offer career opportunities to their employees as a mean to retain their best employees. Attitude surveys are also conducted in the organizations to get an insight of the employees’ feelings & beliefs about their jobs and the organization. Management must monitor the need for comprehensive strategies and tactics to address both equity and expectations of employees. The provision of training to encourage high performance and development of evaluation methods that properly appraise and reward

performance including the understanding of what kinds of rewards are desired and valued by employees are also helpful for the mangers to improve employee performance and increasing the level of motivation. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment also plays a vital role in motivating the employees to perform better and helps in less absenteeism & lower turnover rates.

The organizations are taking keen interest these days to retain their employees so as to evade the following impact of retention failure:

Inability to achieve business goals Loss of “image” to attract other individuals High costs of turnover and replacement

This requires the organizations to provide the employees with strong organizational culture, job security, career opportunities, fair and healthy employee-management relations, job design and work flexibility and compensation programs that could make the organization the most desirable place to work at. To cater this need, retention management process is designed by the organizations in order to identify the retention determinants needed to retain their employees and also to measure and assess the performance, to conduct surveys and interviews with retention interventions followed up by an evaluation and follow-up plan.

Section 2: Staffing the Organization

CHAPTER 4: Legal Framework for Equal Employment

In this chapter the concept of Equal Employment opportunities is discussed which states that all individuals must be equally treated in all employment-related actions and the employers must set up an affirmative action including the identification of the problem areas, setting goals and taking positive steps to enhance the opportunities for the protected class members. Also the types of discrimination have been discussed in this chapter along with the approaches to guide the employee selection procedures taking in consideration the EEO requirements. The concepts resulting in EEO and the stages to respond to EEO complaint s have been elaborated.

CHAPTER 5: Managing Diversity and Equal Employment

In this chapter, the dimensions of diversity have been discussed along with the approaches to mange the differences among the people. Also the programs, plans and activities to manage diversity in the organizations have been discussed in detail. Also the issues related to racial discrimination,. Age discrimination and differing life styles have been discussed with reference to diversity management. Gender based discrimination has been discussed to manage diversity in the organizations and provide equal opportunity development to all employees.

CHAPTER 6: Jobs

This chapter covers the Job issues in relation to human resource management. It covers the job development process for individuals and teams making job design for individuals and considering the use of teamwork. Also the other issues related to job design such as work schedules and locations of jobs are being discussed. Job analysis along with its stages has been described with different behavioral aspects of job analysis. The concepts of job descriptions, job enrichment and job specifications with reference to competencies have also been explained.

CHAPTER 7: Recruiting In Labor Markets

This chapter introduces the process of recruitment and the issues related to the recruiting process. Also the strategic approach to recruiting has been discussed that involves:

HR planning Organizational responsibilities Strategic recruiting decisions

Recruiting methods

This chapter also takes into account the diversity considerations of recruitment and also talks about the recruiting evaluation in order to determine how effective various recruiting sources and methods have been. The primary reason for this evaluation is to find out whether recruiting efforts are cost effective and worth doing or not.

CHAPTER 8: Selecting and Placing Human Resources

This chapter includes the section and placement process with the HR responsibilities. The criteria for selection as well as predictors and job performance have been discussed. The selection process including various steps have been discussed in detail starting from applicant interest through pre-employment screening, application, testing interviewing and background investigation. The different methods for tests and interviewing have been explained along with the various methods of doing background investigation.

Section 3: Training and Developing Human Resources

CHAPTER 9: Training Human Resources

In this chapter the importance of training has been discussed and the strategies to link training and business strategies are explained. There are discussed four basic stages for training:

Strategize Plan Organize Justify

Organization-wide sources, job-based sources and individual employee sources of training needs assessment are discussed and objectives to be made on its basis. Training design must include the learner’s readiness, training transfer and learning environment. Training delivery process is also of importance. E-learning is also conducted through the use of intranet and internet. Training can be evaluated at four levels including reaction, learning, behavior and results. Benchmarking the training measures also helps in better evaluation of training efforts and its results.

CHAPTER 10: Careers and HR Development

This chapter focuses on the career planning and HR development; it also identifies the problems and issues in this regard. Also it includes the development issues that enable employees to handle a variety of assignments. The HR development process is also explained in detail. Development differs from training as it focuses on less tangible aspects of performance, such as attitudes and values. Top management support is also required for successful development and also requires relationship of HR activities to development process. On the job as well as off the job

development methods are used in the organizations. Also through mentoring and modeling, management coaching, executive education and management development, all the employees can be given a pathway for their development process.

CHAPTER 11: Performance Management and Appraisal

This chapter focuses on the employee performance measures and discusses in detail the performance management system. Also the performance standards and use of appraisal systems is required in a performance management system. The development uses and administrative uses of performance appraisal have been elaborated. Appraisals are now done either systematically or informally. Four main types of appraisal methods include category rating, comparative, narrative and behavioral.. Self-appraisals are also done by the employees themselves. 360 degree feedback is also a part of appraisals. Performance appraising also have feedback as its vital part. Many performance appraisal problems can occur due to rater errors.

Section 4: Compensating Human Resources

CHAPTER 12: Compensation Strategies and Practices

This chapter focuses on the types and components of compensation given to the employees. It also includes the benefits given to them along with the compensation approaches relating the employee performance to their rewards. Competency-based pay is introduced to link the reward and compensation to the performance of the employees. Development of a base-pay system on the job analysis and job evaluation and establishing a pay structure including grouping of jobs in pay grades and establishing pay range for each job along with the issues involved in individual pay increases have been described. Also legal issues have been considered in the pay development structure and criterion along with the job evaluation process.

CHAPTER 13: Variable Pay and Executive Compensation

This chapter includes the types of variable pay that links the performance of individuals, team and organization with their performance levels. Various types of variable pay plans have been discussed along with the factors for their success. Individual incentives and organizational incentives have been conferred. Also team variable pay plans’ importance has been described and ways are described to reward teamwork and group efforts. Also the executive compensation is described as a total package comprising of salaries, annual bonuses, long-term incentives, supplemental benefits and perquisites. Though the performance-based incentives often represent

a significant amount of executive compensation the arguments and criticism for executive pay has also been slightly discussed in this chapter.

CHAPTER 14: Managing Employee Benefits

This chapter includes the nature and types of benefits given to the employees as a part of organizational membership. The strategic perspective on benefits with the needs analysis that looks at all aspects of benefits has been discussed. Security benefits include workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation and severance pay. Retirement security benefits, social security, pension plans and individual retirement options are also given to the employees. Health-care benefits are also provided to the employees. The reasons for providing these benefits include employee retention, improvement of company’s image and increased job satisfaction. In addition to these benefits, some organizations also provide financial, relocation and insurance, educational and social (recreational) benefit. Time-off benefits are also given to the employees including holiday pay, vacation pay and leaves of absence. Also the flexible benefits systems, which can be tailored to individual employee needs and situations, are increasing in popularity due to its flexibility. Benefits administration is the responsibility of HR department in order to locate the benefits accordingly.

Section 5: Employee Relations and Global HR

CHAPTER 15: Health, Safety and Security

This chapter discussed the importance of heath, safety and security in any organization. The legal requirements for safety and health along with the child labor laws have been discussed. Also the OSHA standards have been explained in detail. Also the record-keeping requirements of injuries and accidents at workplace have been described. OSHA inspections with the critique of OSHA inspection efforts are also included in this chapter. Approaches to effective safety management have also been discussed with safety policies, safety training and proper communications to the employees at workplace. Health issues plus promotions and awareness of healthcare is also been described to encourage employees to enhance healthy actions and lifestyles. Also the security management issues are explained in detail to ensure proper security measures at the workplace.

CHAPTER 16: Employee Rights and Discipline

This chapter includes the rights and discipline concern of the employees. It also discussed the l\rights of the employees based on law as well as based on the specific agreement between the employer and the employee. The employee rights and employer security concerns have also been dealt with and the balancing approach to both has been discussed. HR polices, procedures and rules have also been discussed along with methods of communicating HR information. Employee discipline and its approaches are also discussed in this chapter with the HR

responsibilities in this regard. Effective discipline is necessary as it has positive effects on the employee productivity as well as performance.

CHAPTER 17: Union-Management Relationship

This chapter discussed about the nature of union and the factors leading to employee unionization that includes:

Working environment Management style Organization treatment Compensation

HR responsibilities with union matters have also been discussed. Union structures, labor laws and process of unionizing have been described in detail. Collective bargaining issues and categories have also been discussed along with its process including initial demands, negotiations and settlement. The union-management co-operation is beneficial in various situations. Grievance management has also been discussed along with the Grievance procedure and responsibilities. Grievances usually follow a formal procedure to resolution.

CHAPTER 18: Globalization of HR Management

This chapter includes the globalization of business and human resources in the context of global changes and increased global communications. The factors affecting global HR management have also been discussed including the following factors:

Legal and political factors Economic factors Cultural factors

The issues related to staffing global jobs such as the factors affecting global employee selection and recruitment have been discussed along with the legal issued in selecting global employees. Global assignments can be used for a variety of reasons and for differing durations. Training and development issues for international employees have also been discussed along with the compensation practices to be considered. Also the health, safety and security laws have to be considered along-with the labor management relations in different countries.

UNILEVER PAKISTAN

For our HRM report purpose, we have selected “UNILEVER PAKISTAN” formerly Lever Brothers Pakistan Limited, established in Pakistan in 1948. Unilever Pakistan is the largest FMCG Company in Pakistan, as well as one of the largest MNCs operating currently in the country. There are many factories operating at different locations around the country. Unilever’s head office is in Karachi at Avari Plaza Fatima Jinnah Road.

INTRODUCTION & HISTORY

One of the largest consumer products’ companies in Pakistan Unilever Pakistan Limited is a part of the consumer products’ giant Unilever. UPL was established in 1948 in Pakistan. Today, Unilever is a force to reckon with. Its contribution to Pakistan’s economic development cannot be underestimated. Operating in six factories at different locations around the country, contributes a significant proportion of the country’s taxes.

Unilever take it as their primary responsibility to meet the everyday needs of people for nutrition, hygiene and personal care and help them to get more out of their lives.In Unilever Pakistan there are a large number of local managers and workers that are provided with all facilities to work at their best, they are highly motivated people with self-determination to work. They are well-trained and are familiar with the new and innovative technologies and are competent enough to work in today’s challenging environment. In this report we will look into all the matters that are related to Human Resource Management practices at Unilever Pakistan.

Unilever's corporate vision – helping people to look good, feel good and get more out of life – shows how clearly the business understands 21st century-consumers and their lives. But the spirit of this mission forms a thread that runs throughout their history.

Human Resource Management In UNILEVER:

HR supports and develops Unilever's most important asset – the people – by enabling them to deliver outstanding business performance. In HR, they're not just a part of the Unilever culture; they help create it. Their environment is all about empowering individuals, both in terms of contributing to business objectives as well as achieving their own personal and career goals. HR's job is to make sure that UNILEVER has highly skilled people across the organization.

AN EYE ON THE FUTURE :

The company’s environment is about empowering individuals, both in terms of contributing to the company’s business objectives and achieving their own personal and career goals. HR's job is to make sure they have highly skilled people across the organization. Roles are split into three areas:

Business Partners

Identify the needs of the business in order to develop, manage and implement appropriate strategies. They ensure that the right structure, culture, people and capabilities are in place to foster positive working relationships.

Expertise teams

Work on policies, processes, systems and tools that allow each business area to attract, select and develop talented individuals. They also provide a connection with world-class external experts and keep us up to date with industry best practice.

Services

Deliver and continuously improve services such as payroll, recruitment, pensions and benefits. They also track, monitor and aggressively manage service performance to ensure that it's delivered to the required quality and at the optimum cost.

DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT AT UNILEVER

At Unilever, Diversity isn’t just about a gender imbalance or people coming from different sex or colors. Diversity means people with diverse opinions. So it’s not just about the physical attributes. It’s more about what a particular person brings to the table and how different it is from the rest and this company actually welcomes that. So divergent views, they are always welcome in Unilever. A diverse workforce gives an opportunity to learn from one another, create possibilities and achieve better business performance. At Unilever, they embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of gender, nationality, race, creed, disability, style or sexuality. Diversity plays a vital role in ensuring we can connect with the widest range of consumers.

At Unilever, commitment to diversity is set right at the top of the business with Global Diversity Board, chaired by Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman. They work to embed diversity firmly into the day-to-day business decisions, via their talent management and people processes. The business units are required to develop specific diversity plans that are aligned to the priorities and needs of their regions and product categories.

In 2009 six new elements were introduced into their talent management and development programs to speed up the rate of change. They are:

mentoring – implementing local schemes to support the development of talent networks – establishing local and regional networks to support diversity leadership – embedding diversity and inclusion training into all leadership programs flexible working – implementing flexible working programs wherever possible Career planning – with a focus on diversity Measurement – clear targets and key performance indicators for each of the above to

ensure that we track progress in each area.

Global results are reported every three months for review by the CEO and the Global Diversity Board. We are already seeing good results, with some improvements in the number of women in senior positions and the overall diversity of future talent. For example, the proportion of women at vice-president level has increased by around a third since the beginning of 2007.

FOCUS ON GENDER :

Enabling mechanisms include an expanded mentoring program; new ways of working that promote work–life balance and fostering grassroots involvement through the Unilever Women's International Network (UWIN). Initiatives such as the 'One More' program, which ran during 2008 and 2009, focused on diversity in teams, where every team leader was responsible for increasing diversity through each new appointment. For the top 100 teams, this meant looking for the opportunity to increase diversity in every appointment they made.

At Unilever, support is given to the employees who decide to take a career break, whether a sabbatical or paternity/maternity leave. This 'stepping off' the career ladder is seen by Unilever as merely a postponement of progression and not a cancellation of progression. Leave arrangements will differ from country to country, depending on local legislation.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Personnel Department makes arrangements for the recruitments of the employees. For this purpose it collects information about the desired employee’s functions and then defines the job requirements and job profile. The Personnel Department makes all the arrangements for the report meant of new employee, It sees better such employee is available in the organization or not. In case of no, it gives the advertisement in the newspapers. It also collects all the applications of the applicants. It also makes arrangements for test. The Personnel Department uses different tests for different applicants. After that it arranges the interviews for the succeeded applicants. Usually the interviews are bland of different types of interviews. These interviews

include panel interview, structured questions etc. The background information about the succeeded applicants is also gathered by the Personnel Department

At Unilever, the career opportunities are many and varied.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR MANAGEMENT TRAINEES & GRADUATES:

What makes Unilever the perfect choice for ambitious graduates with bags of potential? Quite simply, everything about it…!

MANAGEMENT TRAINEE PROGRAMME:

This one-year program is designed to turn creative, talented and ambitious graduates into the future senior managers of Unilever.

The Management trainee (MT) program at Unilever offers a comprehensive and rigorous one year agenda that aims to develop future leaders by exposing the individuals to key areas of the company. It challenges individuals from the time they fill in their application, during assessment stages, presenting themselves in front of the key decision makers and finally through a comprehensive rotation plan in different areas of the company. In short, throughout the MT program trainees get the opportunity to work on exciting yet challenging assignments with various managers, which provide them with invaluable insights into how the entire organization works.

The program invites the following persons to apply:

• Fresh Graduates

• Masters or 4 year Bachelor Degrees

• Not more than 27 years of age

The key benefits this program offers are as follows:

Wide ranging opportunities:

Every year Unilever recruit management trainees from campuses across the country to join one of their functions. That could be in HR, Finance, Supply Chain, Marketing, Customer Development, Research & Development and IT.

A real job from day one

The program focuses on building leadership capability and accelerating employees development. And from the moment you join, you’ll be doing a real job. One that will provide insight to the business, continually test and develop your skills, and make a genuine contribution to our business.

The trainee is involved on every level. As one progresses, the roles get more challenging which can mean managing larger budgets, bigger brands or more people.

Support and empowerment

The company supports individuals every step of the way to senior management but much of your progress will be up to you. Individuals need to be focused and ambitious to get where they want, identifying opportunities and taking responsibility for their own development.

INDUCTION PROCESS

The company’s induction program helps new recruits in quickly getting to know the business and the way work is done at the company, as well as the role and colleagues.

Getting started:

Shortly after joining, a new recruit receives a presentation on the company's history, brands and markets. This includes an overview of organizational structure and strategy, and also introduces him to the company’s culture and how work is done at the company.

Building your network:

Getting to know people and establishing close working relationships is important to help new recruits settle in. During the first few months, a new employee meets colleagues from his immediate area and from different functions across the business.

Your buddy:

Your buddy is a peer working in the same location. Their job is to help a new employee find his feet by showing him where everything is around the office and answering any questions he may have about working life.

Personal development:

Once you're familiar with the company and your role, the next step is to discuss and agree a personal development plan. This will identify your learning requirements as well as the support you'll need to achieve your aims.

Your mentor:

Your mentor is a senior manager from another part of the business who will be available to offer advice and guidance as a new recruit moves through his career. They'll also help him deal with any challenges that may arise.

Roles and goals:

As part of a new employee’s development plan, he is given personal targets and team goals and a time frame within which to achieve them. Over regular meetings with his manager, he evaluates his progress and addresses any issues.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Learning is an integral part of life at Unilever & there are many ways in which the company helps to develop its employees’ skills, both professional & personal.

Training & Development involves improving the knowledge, skills and abilities of the individuals. A continuous training is conducted inside the organization to improve the performance of the employee.

There are two types of trainings conducted at Unilever:

In-house Training: In-house training is customized training which is only for Unilever employees.

External Training: External training is carried out through trainers in training institutes. Employees at Unilever are usually trained through Rameez Allahwalla (in Karachi), Possibilities and Intec (two well-known training institutes).

Before training “Training Need Analysis” (TNA) is conducted by the manager of the department. After the completion of training program feedback from the employee is taken.

Training and development at Unilever can be explained further in a more descriptive way as follows:

On the job:

Employees learn much of what they need to know by working with knowledgeable colleagues and receiving regular coaching and feedback. Wherever a new employee joins, in whatever capacity, he will have a wide variety of experiences developing skills relevant to his job and giving him an overview of how the company works.

Professional skills:

Specific programs ensure that an employee builds expertise in his chosen career. The courses often use e-learning that enables him to learn at his own pace and take control of his development. In some areas an employee can study for professional qualifications and, as he progresses, he will develop his leadership capabilities.

Continual update:

Each function has its own Academy – a team that continually updates its professional learning curriculum. E-learning modules are then made available on a dedicated intranet portal. Here the very latest news, articles and thinking can be found. Essentially, everything an employee needs to keep in touch with the business.

Personal development:

Passion, energy and creative thinking are traits that are required by the company have when a new employee joins. But equally important is the ability to understand who you are as an

individual and what you want to achieve from your career. The company offers a whole range of personal development opportunities which can be tailored to one’s specific goals.

Mentoring:

There are many people on hand to help with a new employee’s learning and development, in particular his mentor. They will encourage and support him, answer questions, help build his self-confidence and offer invaluable advice.

TEAMWORK AT UNILEVER:

Ambitious plans are turned into reality by groups of like-minded people – people who share a common objective, attitude, outlook & passion.

Teamwork is everyone's focus

Teamwork is an essential part of life here at Unilever because they are a large business operating in a truly global environment. More often than not, you'll work alongside colleagues from a number of different countries and disciplines. Each day, you'll build bridges across cultural and intellectual borders.

Every individual is responsible for contributing to the team's efforts. Through working closely together we foster a true sense of collaboration. We stimulate ideas in each other and encourage more innovative thinking. We share information and challenge accepted wisdom to shape and evolve an exciting future for our business.

Leadership is everyone's responsibility

Leadership can take many different forms. It could be line managing teams in a department or during an assignment. It could mean using your expertise in a key subject area. It could involve thought leadership. Either way, it's about getting things done – individually or through people – in a way that others will admire and follow.

At every level and in every kind of job, leaders are the ones who demonstrate that great results can be achieved by working in different ways to overcome natural boundaries. Often operating outside their comfort zones, these are the people who close the gap between knowing what needs to be done, and achieving it.

REWARDS AND BENEFITS:

A competitive salary is likely to be high on list of any individual’s requirements but Unilever believes that there's so much more to it than that therefore it provides its employees with a package of benefits and pay plans.

The overall package:

Unilever offers a market competitive rewards package that's designed to make the employee feel an integral part of the team and directly involved in the company's success. In terms of benefits which contribute to the employees’ well being now and in the future, they can select those that are most relevant to their lifestyle and create their own tailored package.

Pension

Private medical insurance

Company car (at certain managerial levels)

Life assurance

Access to sport facilities

Pay for performance

As a business, Unilever aims to grow and create shareholder value. If the employees help them achieve those goals, they'll reward them well. And since they help create their own objectives, they can see precisely how their actions affect the rewards they receive. There are two ways to increase the overall package for each employee:

The first is an annual bonus based on personal and business performance. Recognizing the delivery of strong year-on-year profitable growth, it rewards both the collective success and their individual contribution to it. And the amount can be significant.

The second depends on their level and reflects sustained performance. It comes in the form of shares which will give them a real stake in the future success of the business. In fact, Unilever consider it critical that senior managers build a substantial holding in order to align their interests with those of their shareholders.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONALS:

OFFERING MORE:

Unilever has gained its reputation as one of the world's most admired employers by providing an environment where individuals can achieve their goals, both professionally and personally. The company is aware that to attract and retain the best people, it must offer them more. Unilever provide more ways to take advantage of the opportunities, more room to succeed and grow, and more directions in which to pursue their careers.

VARIETY:

Unilever has a vast range of roles, disciplines, functions and international locations to satisfy the most imaginative and determined minds. And the company’s business evolves, new possibilities arise. Here you can become a business leader, work on brands you're passionate about and build specialist knowledge and expertise.

FREEDOM TO ACT:

The company’s success depends on innovation, so they do everything they can to ensure that enterprising people have the freedom to act. They give them all the support and encouragement they need. At the same time, they empower them to make tough decisions, implement new ideas and use their initiative.

YOU DECIDE:

They believe that individuals should drive their own careers and that life at work should be a continuous learning journey. Seizing the opportunity to make a difference is more important than simply progressing up the ladder. People with this attitude and approach will find Unilever challenging, inspiring and highly rewarding.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

An employee’s progress is important. That's why the company invests a lot of time & effort in supporting its employees to perform well and in building their capabilities.

Past, present & future:

Performance and Development Planning (PDP) helps employees make the most of their working life at Unilever. The process supports employees in identifying and delivering against challenging goals that impact the organization. It also helps the employees plan how to develop skills and leadership behaviors for current position and for the years ahead. It also provides employees the opportunity to clarify expectations and discuss their future opportunities.

Ongoing commitment:

PDP provides a continual process that allows for a thorough evaluation of performance of each individual working for the company. It's an approach designed to encourage clarity and transparency throughout the year.

The key thing to remember is that this is an ongoing dialogue between an employee and his manager. It's about listening, sharing and accepting feedback, and taking responsibility for the next step in his career.

CAREER PROGRESSION

Progression is based purely on merit & potential. With advice and guidance from the concerned manager & HR, an employee takes control of his own career development.

Planning:

Careful planning ensures to build a strong foundation in professional skills, gain experience across different operating environments and processes, and develop capability in an individual’s chosen area of expertise. Performing well will lead to opportunities to take on new and more challenging roles. That in turn will allow an employee to deepen and broaden his skills and experience.

Depth & breadth:

Depth of experience is about developing professional skills through performing and practicing your role. The company encourages its employees to build this depth of skill early in their career to provide a solid basis for further progression.

Breadth of experience is about increasing your knowledge and understanding of the business as a whole, so you can assess complex issues from different angles. Naturally, this becomes more important as seniority increases.

Wider experience:

International experience is essential in many roles within a global organization – and assignments offer valuable development opportunities. An employee can also gain exposure through regional/global roles and project teams.

In higher-level positions that have a wider geographic remit, cross-border, category and customer experience may be vital to help leverage the company’s global scale.

WORK LIFE BALANCE

Unilever recognizes that people are more likely to be motivated in their career if they are also fulfilled individuals.

Your personal life:

Juggling the demands of an employee’s life outside work and his career ambitions can be difficult. As a way of helping balance the two, the company gives employees the chance to work flexibly through schemes such as part-time hours, home working and job share, as well as career breaks and extended maternity leave.

Usually the people who want more flexibility are parents, but not always. Whatever is the reason, the company does everything it can to find a solution that suits the employee at the same time as meeting the requirements of the company.

The way Unilever works:

There are other less obvious areas, where the company changed the way it worked to encourage a better quality of life.

Travelling to meetings costs money impacts the environment and takes people away from their homes. That's why the company has introduced effective ways for teams to communicate and share information remotely. These include virtual meetings, videophones and online collaboration environments. Unilever also has new-generation video-conferencing that's so real it's like meeting face to face.

Health & well-being:

Unilever’s Personal Vitality campaign promotes programs and activities which are designed to help everyone in the company take care of themselves.

On the one hand the company concentrates on body fitness through encouraging better nutrition, hygiene and personal care. This includes initiatives ranging from health assessments to opportunities for physical activity.

On the other the company focuses on fitness of heart, mind and spirit by creating a vitalizing work experience and environment for its people. This helps them feel energized and able to perform to the very best of their ability.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE:

The employees are rewarded according to their performance annually or on standard regular basis; performance related to rewards positively shape their behavior and increases their productivity. Some of the reinforcement schedules that are followed at Unilever Pakistan are described below:

DEVELOPMENTAL FEEDBACK

In this type of feedback, the main purpose of the supervisors is performance management. The line managers keep a check on the employees’ performance, scrutinize their work, provide necessary response on specific actions and also keep a check of the employees’ own targets as well as work related skills development are also monitored and feedback are also given to the employees twice in a year.

DOCUMENTAL FEEDBACK

Unlike developmental feedback, the documental feedback is given after fixed time interval. The main purpose in documental feedback is to provide promotion and succession to the employees according to their work performance throughout. The time interval followed is standardized at Unilever and the rewards and ratings are also formally standardized and uniform. This feedback helps employees to improve their work patterns and perform as much better as possible making their own standards and getting the rewards according to their performances. This also helps them to rectify two important factors which include:

Career development (employees own target) Skill development (work related)

IPF (INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE FACTOR)

The yearly bonuses & rewards are given to the employees of Unilever at fair basis; only performance matters. Equity is there in all aspects. The reward is their for specific performance that results in better productivity and are related to the specific accomplishment which not only motivate the employees but also let them recognize that what sort of working pattern is acceptable and rewarding or which behavior is been appreciated that results in their long term behavior modification .

DIFFERENTIATION TOOL

This is another implementation of fixed-interval reinforcement schedule that recognizes and rewards the performance of the employees annually. There is an annual performance evaluation that covers all the efforts and work contribution of all employees, then according to the performance ranking certain color codes are assigned to all whose brightness, sharpness or glow shows the overall performance level of the employees and the color codes are displayed on a

display board and the employees are then rewarded according to their work performance and contribution to the overall organizational goals.

ANNOUNCED BONUSES-ANNUALLY

Another tool of fixed-interval reinforcement is the annually announced bonuses that are been paid to the employees according to the overall increment in the profits of the company. The average bonus amount to be received by each department is known to all employees at all managerial levels as they all know about their department’s contribution to the overall work throughout the year and also about their relative individual contribution too. There is a clear relationship between performance and rewards that shapes the employees’ behavior in the desired manner every time it is required.

STANDARD CYCLE REWARD

It is one of the newest mechanisms used for the employees at Unilever to encourage their capabilities and reinforcing the desired workplace behavior and better productivity. It is basically a capacity building tool that helps the employees to enhance and develop their skills and if that ends up in translating into some explicit performance then they are rewarded accordingly. This is a fine tool to reinforce the employees’ behavior as it not only increases the productivity but the employees will also be job satisfied and there would be more enthusiasm and passion in their work when their efforts are rewarded. Also the company would be retaining the employees who be upgraded and been involved in the accomplishment of the organizational goals with full integrity.

MOTIVATIONAL PRACTICES

The motivational practices executed at Unilever Pakistan are competent enough to drive the employees to work well at the company. It reflects in their performance, leading them to exert the directional and persistent effort for the attainment of organizational goals and helps in maintaining good employee-management relationship that results in better performance, ultimately leading to job satisfaction and lowering the absenteeism and turnover rate. The motivational practices used in Unilever Pakistan are described below:

STANDARD VARIABLE PAY PROGRAM

There is a standard variable pay program for all the employees at Unilever Pakistan in which the employees are paid according to their performance which the increased productivity is rewarded as a percentage of the gross pay. There is a standardized method to measure the performance and then to reward it accordingly.

There is another yearly performance rating program in which there are slabs been given in the salary to the employees according to their performances that leads to the increased organizational productivity.

IPF (individual performance factor) as stated earlier is a yearly bonus and reward that is given to the employees based on their performance. As the employees get the rewards in correlation with a specific performance, it also motivates them and helps them in learning the desired behavior and work patterns to follow. There is a separate budget for the IPF which is lined with the line managers and they assign the proper allocation of the productivity criteria and results according to which the additional pay is given.

EMPOWERMENT

At Unilever Pakistan they offer careers, not jobs. The employees are provided with empowerment; they are neither coerced nor persuaded to do things. They all know their responsibilities and their work very well. As there is employee participation and involvement in all related matters so the employees have their own concern in doing the things, they take pride in being associated with their work so they exercise empowerment which motivates them to do old things in a new way; that along with the top-management support and appreciation results in good work and fine accomplishments.

FLEXIBLE BENEFITS

The employees at Unilever Pakistan are provided with flexible benefits, these benefits are granted to both the full-time employees as well as the contractual employees. Contractual employees might be on Unilever contract or on a third party contract, they do not get any medical allowance or conveyance allowance however non-monetary benefits are given such as agile working, convenient time slots, balanced work & life.

On the contrary, the full time employees are given with many flexible benefits according to their designation as well as work performance such as medical allowances, pension, gratuity, variable pay, provident fund, conveyance allowance, house allowance etc. Also at the Avari towers there are special discounts at lunch time for the Unilever employees.

Following are some flexible benefits explained as given by Unilever Pakistan to its employees to motivate them and make the work for them a carefree thing to do.

FLEXI WORK HOURS

The employees at Unilever Pakistan are provided with flexible working hours, they can make their own working patterns according to their own suitable timings. There is no compulsion from the management to do their work on some particular time of the day.

DAY CARE CENTRE

There is a day care centre situated in the company premises for the female workers where they can leave their kids while they are on work. They can monitor their kids through a monitor that displays the day care centre, can also go there if they want to see their kids and they can easily continue their work without being worried about their kids.

PAID MATERNAL LEAVES

The female employees at Unilever Pakistan are also provided with paid maternal leaves. The female employees can have their days off without any salary deductions and can come back to work as soon as they get well.

AGILE WORKING

This is a very new concept in our country now executed in Unilever Pakistan. Agile working has been implemented with the mutual consent of all the employees. Before its execution groups were made from all the departments and then their opinions were taken on this idea of implementing agile working. This participative decision ends in the acceptance of this idea and agile working was implemented at Unilever Pakistan.

Resident style: In this type of agile working, the employee has his regular working pattern in which he has to be physically present in the company premises and do his work.

Mobile: In this type of agile working, the employee may be on the go. Only thing he has to do is to keep his cell phone switched on & be in contact through wireless and electronic communication.

Tranquil: In this type of agile working, the employee can do his work in any other physical space outside his designated place at the company.

Agile working has shown positive results and rise in the overall productivity at Unilever Pakistan as it is a contemporary work approach. The time and place does not matter, only efficiency and productivity counts in. In this way, the employees got a better opportunity to work more effectively and thus job satisfaction increased lowering the absenteeism and the turnover rate to almost in decimals of percentage.

VARIABLE PAY

Another thing that motivates the employees at Unilever is the transparency that performance leads to rewards. The variable pay program intends to make the employees goal-oriented and focused towards their objectives. This leads to the increment in overall organizational productivity and ends up with job satisfaction.

BALANCED WORK/LIFE

Employees at Unilever Pakistan have a work/life balance. It is not always the work on their heads. They know their responsibilities and do their work with care as they are trained enough to work in the healthy and competitive environment of their workplace. They can draw a difference between their work and life and can do their work as well as enjoy their personal lives without any hindrance and stress. The employees at Unilever Pakistan are also provided with 15 day annual holidays that they can avail anytime.

CONVENIENT TIME SLOTS

This is the flexibility given to the employees who normally have a continuous shift type work. They are allowed to choose the convenient and suitable time slot to do their work, as it not only increases their productivity but also motivates them to perform well.

CORPORATE AWARDS- STANDARDIZED

There are two standardized awards given at Unilever Pakistan to their employees for the acknowledgment of their work at the company. One is the “Long Service Award” that is given to the employee with largest tenure at the company and the other one is V.I.P Award that is given at some exceptional work accomplishment by any employee.

Recognition is provided to all the employees at Unilever Pakistan at functional basis; all awards and rewards are given away based on the employees’ performance and its impact on the overall organizational productivity and work effectiveness.

In annual conference, awards are given to the employees and the people behind the best businesses of the year at Unilever Pakistan. The employees are valued for their work and performance and thus appreciation is given in the form of rewards and awards to them in order to motivate them and enhance their working drive and persistence.

ESOP (EMPLOYEE STOCK OWNERSHIP PLAN)

There is an employee stock ownership plan at Unilever Pakistan that is in accordance with the Unilever Global Stock program. This option is provided to the senior employees, on a certain rate according to their performance, in which they can invest in their own company’s’ shares, the dividend each year is reinvested and when the shares get matures they can get the shares in cashed at the ongoing market rates. It helps in the employee retention to the company, to stay there for a longer period. In case the employee leaves the organization he/she cannot get the shares in cashed neither the yearly dividends.

CO- OP STOCK OWNERSHIP

This is another stock ownership plan in which the company invests equally as the employee do. Every employee can invest some amount out of its annual bonus in the company’s shares and the company will also invest an equal amount. The maturity period and the rates are same here as in the ESOP (as per global stock standards) and the dividends are also reinvested annually. However, in this stock ownership plan if the employee depart from the company before the maturity period, he can get only his initial investment back, neither the dividends nor the company’s’ investment.

Both these stock ownership plans can motivate the employees to work more hard and with full integrity to achieve the organizational goals as they can also survive well in the progress of the company on the whole. Also the productivity will increase and thus employees would be more jobs satisfied and there would be lesser absenteeism and turnover in the company. That would be again profitable not only for the company but also for the employees as well; for their personal goals and careers.

EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

Participative management is followed at Unilever. There is a down to top flow of mutual communication and in decision making matters. Also equity is there; all employees have equal say in things. No matter what his designation is, if there is an issue related to his work settings and environment, he has a right to speak up. The finest example of employee involvement is the implementation of the Agile working pattern at Unilever Pakistan which was executed after concerning all the employees and taking into account their individual opinions about the new working pattern.

INDUCTION PROGRAM

The induction program is a sort of orientation lined up for the new employees at Unilever Pakistan in which they are introduced to the company operations, values and culture. They are been introduced to the company business and related principles. The employees are also given the code of business principles and are acquainted with the hierarchy of the company. The work responsibility and other work related things are clearly defined on the very first day so that they could know what they actually are there at Unilever. It motivates them in a positive manner that they are valued at their company and the company believes in their abilities that’s why the work is given to them, it energizes them and the results are shown in the form of their work productivity.

UNILEVER MANAGEMENT TRAINEE RECRUITMENT PROGRAM

Unilever’s management trainee recruitment program, generally called as MT program, is a two-year scheme designed for creative and ambitious graduates with the potential for management skills and practices. It is a one-year program designed to turn creative, talented and ambitious graduates into the future senior managers of Unilever.

In this program the management trainee is given a real job from day one. They specialize in one of the five Career Areas and are based at one of their locations across the country. The scheme varies slightly from one area to another but involves an average of 6-8 placements over two years.

Unilever’s MT Program supports trainees every step to the way to senior management as well as learning on the job, there are many training and development opportunities too including courses, workshops, training sessions etc. which develops professional traits. Trainees need to be ambitious and focused to get where they want, identifying opportunities and taking responsibilities for their career development which motivates them to work in a productive manner.

Unilever MT Program is also a motivational tool for contractual employees. It is an approach to leadership development and talent acquisition. This is one of the finest motivational tools to preserve and maintain competent workforce in the company.

Wide-ranging opportunities

Every year we recruit management trainees from campuses across the country to join one of our functions. That could be in HR, Finance, Supply Chain, Marketing, Customer Development, Research & Development and IT.

A real job from day one

The program focuses on building leadership capability and accelerating your development. And from the moment you join, you’ll be doing a real job. One that will provide insight to the business, continually test and develop your skills, and make a genuine contribution to our business.

You’ll also be involved on every level. As you progress, the roles get more challenging which can mean managing larger budgets, bigger brands or more people.

Support and empowerment

We’ll support you every step of the way to senior management but much of your progress will be up to you. You’ll need to be focused and ambitious to get where you want, identifying opportunities and taking responsibility for your own development.

REINFORCEMENT & MOTIVATION FOR UNSKILLED EMPLOYEES

At Unilever Pakistan, the management also takes keen interest in motivating and encouraging their unskilled employees through several means, including the following:

Family evenings are arranged for such employees which make them feel good and prestige to be a part of Unilever and spread happiness amongst their families.

They are allowed to work on hourly basis in shifts that does not tend to be hectic or tiring for them and also provide them with sufficient earnings.

They are also provided with recognition and appreciation along with monetary benefits that motivates them and encourages them to perform well.

HEALTH, SAFETY AND SECURITY

Health and safety of the employees remains a priority of Unilever and they keep on improving their well-being in the workplace as well as in their personal lives.

Unilever’s approach

The health and safety of our workforce remains a priority. Unilever regards their employees’ health and safety as an essential element of a successful and sustainable business and are committed to providing a safe workplace. They aim to improve continuously the health, safety and well-being of everyone working for or on behalf of Unilever.

Their principal measure of progress is the Total Recordable Frequency Rate, which counts all workplace accidents except those requiring only simple first aid treatment.

Enhancing the health & safety of our employees

Unilever apply the same high standards at all of the offices and factories across the world. Their goal is the total elimination of all employee and contractor fatalities with continuous improvements in their overall health and safety performance. Their internal global health and safety standards are based on the international standard OHSAS 18001.

Behavioral-based safety

Unilever has adopted the DuPont behavioral-based approach to health and safety, with good results. They continue to focus their support on those sites with the poorest health and safety performance.

The role of their Health & Safety at Work Committee includes:

Advising the Unilever Supply Chain Leadership Team of areas of focus and then recommending and supporting specific improvement projects

Reviewing Unilever’s progress against targets and then recommending and supporting specific remedial actions

Follow-up on serious accidents and ensuring wide dissemination and adoption of the lessons learned.

The Committee comprises senior, experienced occupational health and safety professionals under the chairmanship of the VP, Group Supply Chain Capabilities, who reports in this role to the Chief Supply Chain Officer. The Committee meets in person three times a year.

Process safety

Unilever is developing new indicators for measuring process safety to complement their existing measures for occupational health and safety. These will initially be deployed for the potentially most hazardous processes.

Occupational health

Unilever is developing new indicators to track their occupational health performance. A global pilot was launched in 2008 using both leading and lagging indicators. These included compliance with the occupational health standards, as well as the prevalence of occupational illness.

Unilever undertook its first full global data collection exercise in 2009 using this common set of key performance indicators.

Safe travel & transport

Safe travel and transport continue to be a priority for Unilever. The greatest challenge they face is in countries that lack basic road safety infrastructure and enforcement. The risk to their employees from personal street attacks is also rising. They are currently reviewing the security arrangements in those countries where this risk is significant.

For two years now they have been collecting global data on driving injury and non-injury incidents and hope to start publishing this data externally once they are satisfied that the information from all regions is aligned.

In 2006, they established their Safe Driving Teams initiative. Led by a senior manager in each country, these teams identified local risk, then developed and implemented tough safe driving standards. These were published in local languages so they could be communicated to all our drivers. They have also banned the use of mobile phones while driving.

They also require all our professional drivers worldwide to have regular medical check-ups to ensure their fitness to drive. Where accidents do occur, they are keen that any lessons can be learned swiftly and the findings shared throughout the company.

Looking forward

Their overarching goal for 2010 is to continue improving their health and safety performance across all areas of their business. Because safe travel and transport remains a key area, they will continue to embed their global standard on safe travel in vehicles and to develop the data collection on collisions.

Responding to pandemic flu

Following the outbreak of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus around the world, Unilever implemented a coordinated response across all its operations. They provided clear guidelines to their operations on how to respond to the pandemic and monitored travel in and out of impacted countries. In addition, they posted materials across their office and factory sites, highlighting the simple steps individuals could take to protect themselves and made soap and hand gel widely available in appropriate locations.

Promoting employee health & well-being

Unilever believes that healthy employees contribute to a healthy company so they have a global framework of health and well-being benefits that each Unilever operating company is encouraged to make available to all of its employees. This framework, called Lamplighter, involves coaching employees individually on their exercise, nutrition and mental resilience, and monitoring their progress through an initial check-up and six-monthly follow-ups.

Since 2005 the Lamplighter program has been progressively rolled out from their London headquarters to a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Western Europe will be the next region to implement Lamplighter in 2010.

The challenge is to encourage employees to change their behavior and sustain new habits, whether it is improving or increasing their exercise, being mindful of their eating habits or adapting how they manage daily pressures both in and out of the work environment. It has been found that if they keep employees motivated on a program of change for six months, the positive changes are likely to stay.

Another important factor in the success of the Lamplighter program is leadership behaviors. People at work tend to mirror patterns of behavior set by their managers and for this reason they started their roll-out with senior managers and used them strategically to encourage participation within their teams.

Positive results

The Lamplighter program has shown positive results.

Success is tracked in various ways but the single most important factor is the improved health risk status of their employees. It is measured by determining how many health risks an individual faces then people are educated, taught and supported to make changes to reduce these risks. In those countries where Lamplighter has been implemented, health improvements have been significant. Participants have reported improvements in their sleep, energy levels, motivation and work performance in countries such as Pakistan, Tanzania and Mexico.

Globally, 3.75% of Unilever people have transitioned out of the high risk status but, more importantly, there has been a 1% increase in the medium risk status but more importantly a 5.25% increase in the low risk status group. All preventable health risks have improved.

These health risks improvements translate into real personal improvements for Unilever people and noted reductions in the number of overweight and/or obese employees have been seen; those with hypertension and hypercholesterolemia; those classed as having poor nutrition or being under-nourished; and also in smokers. An improvement in health risk status has been seen in those people undertaking physical activity.

Evaluating effectiveness

In 2009 we commissioned the Lancaster University Centre for Organizational Health & Wellbeing in the UK to carry out an independent study of the effectiveness of the Lamplighter program based on results from employees who had taken part in the program at our London headquarters.

The study showed a number of significant improvements in employees’ health after participating in the program. These included positive improvements in eating habits, fitness levels and how engaged people felt at work. The results showed a strong correlation between employee health, engagement and work performance. The Centre concluded that “The Unilever Lamplighter program can be considered to be a good example of a comprehensive organizational wellness program that incorporates both fitness and educational components, to improve individual health and well-being.”

Programs such as Lamplighter have important short- and long-term business as well as health benefits. In the short term we expect to see healthier, more motivated and productive employees, with lower levels of absence due to ill health. The long-term benefits are in lower healthcare costs for companies and society.

Lamplighter - External recognition

In March 2010, Unilever was presented with the highest international level of recognition – the Level II International Corporate Health & Productivity Management Award – by the Institute for Health and Productivity Management (IHPM) for our Lamplighter programmed.

Agile working

Our Agile Working Programmed is an approach to getting work done with maximum flexibility while reducing travel, energy consumption, CO2 emissions and waste. As part of this programmed we are implementing new working practices, redesigning office facilities and investing in new technologies.

Unilever has a state-of-the-art advanced video conferencing technology, called Telepresence, available in 13 countries. Telepresence will be available in 39 additional countries by the end of 2010. In addition to providing a virtual collaboration experience that allows users to feel like they are face-to-face with colleagues without travel, Telepresence has helped Unilever reduce its carbon footprint, cutting carbon emissions by an estimated 4 230 tonnes since September 2007, and saving an estimated €12 million in travel costs. By the end of 2009, an estimated 1 250 short haul and 1 609 long haul flights were avoided by using the technology.

In 2007 Unilever made new software available to enable employees to hold virtual meetings through online discussion forums, document-sharing and presentation capability. This enables people to work more flexibly and interact with their colleagues from work, home or while travelling. An estimated 97 000 virtual meetings were held during 2009, with between four and five participants at each meeting. With over 40 000 employees using the technology, savings on travel costs, CO2 reductions and improved work–life balance are significant.

Conclusion

Human Resource Management at Unilever Pakistan is one of the best examples of HR practices of the real world. They are implementing HR practices in the best possible manner according to the needs and requirements of the culture of Pakistan.

Few highlights of their HR practices in Pakistan include:

H.R forms the backbone of Unilever as it helps in providing with the best people. Annual demand planning

Benchmark the HR practices with International HR standards

HR audit is done that is high on information security

Database of all applications that come to Unilever is kept with the recruitment manager

Strategic recruiting process

Performance culture is strong in Unilever

Pay for performance programs

Motivational practices

Flexible benefits to the employees

Use of HRIS software i.e. PeopleSoft to maintain online data of all employees

Retention management and strong performance management system

Career development

Training & Development

Career counseling offered to employees

Induction plans for new employees

Career planning for the employees

Learning management system

Performance appraisal- strictly related to performance

Strong Health, safety & security measures in Unilever

hrm final report

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