Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MANAGEMENT
Final Term Report on “UNILEVER PAKISTAN”
SUBMITTED BY:
Anam Nazneen-10449
Saira Akhtar-10101
SUBMITTED TO:
Maqsood Ahmed
Fall 2010
MBA Regular
Section B
(BLUE)
Table of Contents
Letter Of Transmittal..............................................................................................................................3
Summaries of Chapters from our textbook............................................................................................4
Unilever Pakistan………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….…14
Recruitment Process………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...16
Induction Process………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……18
Teamwork at Unilever…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…21
Performance Management…………………………………………..……………………………………………………….………….23
Career Progression…………………………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………24
Individual Performance………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………26
Motivational Practices………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………27
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….…………………………38
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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.
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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.
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Equal Employment Opportunity
Staffing
HR Development
Compensation and Benefits
Health, Safety, and Security
Employee and Labor/Management Relation
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HR management has to perform certain roles; the levels of the roles performed are shown in the
figure below:
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:
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Specific HR knowledge and expertise
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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:
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.
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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.
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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.
HR planning
Organizational responsibilities
Strategic recruiting decisions
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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.
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.
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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.
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a significant amount of executive compensation the arguments and criticism for executive pay
has also been slightly discussed in this chapter.
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responsibilities in this regard. Effective discipline is necessary as it has positive effects on the
employee productivity as well as performance.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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In 2009 six new elements were introduced into their talent management and development
programs to speed up the rate of change. They are:
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
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include panel interview, structured questions etc. The background information about the
succeeded applicants is also gathered by the Personnel Department
What makes Unilever the perfect choice for ambitious graduates with bags of potential?
Quite simply, everything about it…!
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.
• Fresh Graduates
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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:
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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:
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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.
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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
OFFERING MORE:
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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.
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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
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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:
Depth & breadth:
Wider experience:
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.
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Unilever recognizes that people are more likely to be motivated in their career if they are
also fulfilled individuals.
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.
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:
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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:
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
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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.
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:
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
Wide-ranging opportunities
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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.
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 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
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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.
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.
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
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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 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.
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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.
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
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
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
H.R forms the backbone of Unilever as it helps in providing with the best people.
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Annual demand planning
Database of all applications that come to Unilever is kept with the recruitment manager
Motivational practices
Use of HRIS software i.e. PeopleSoft to maintain online data of all employees
Career development
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