Introduction to Human Resource Management

This document provides an introduction to Human Resource Management, focusing on the concept of minimum wages and living wages. It discusses the aims, legal regulations, cost and benefits, and recommendations for dealing with HR issues. The document also explores Unilever's approach to HR management.

Introduction to Human
Resource Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Aims............................................................................................................................................1
Legal regulations.........................................................................................................................2
Cost and benefits for organisation to deal with issue..................................................................3
Timescale, cost and prioritisation of any recommendation........................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
The term “Human Resource Management” is way of employing people,making them
skilled through training ,developing policies relating to the employees of the company and using
different strategies to retain them. Human resource management has now become the important
part of the companies to hire the persons with good potential. (Banfield, Kay, and Royles, 2018).
The report below is based on the minimum wages and living wages of Unilever that is a
multinational consumer goods company that deals in energy drinks,baby food,juice,soft
drinks,ice creams,toothpaste,soaps and other consumer healthcare products. Unilever is the
largest producer of soaps in the world. Minimum wages is the amount of remuneration that
should be paid to the wages earners for their work performed by them. The purpose of minimum
wages is to protect and safeguard the workers and staff against unduly pay. The report below
includes the aims,legal regulation,cost and benefits for the organisation to deal with
issue,timescale,cost and prioritisation of any recommendation along with its conclusion.
MAIN BODY
Aims
The aims of Unilever is to provide consumer goods to the customers at a reasonable and
at a affordable prices. The company focuses on providing help to billions of people to improve
their health and well-being,managing their livelihood by providing their products to the people.
The objectives of Unilever are as follows:
 Company focuses to provide branded products and services to customers with a
affordable price.
 To advertise their product and services properly in the front of the customers.
 To ensures that products are properly labelled and communicated.
 Tries and constantly using generic strategies to build competitive advantage by satisfying
the needs of the consumers according to their taste and preferences.
 The company engages to apply intensive growth strategies to deal and meet the market
and business needs.(Armstrong and Taylor, 2020).
 To become a sustainable business and service providing industry.
 To contribute to build a more socially and fairer sustainable market for the customers.
 To deliver long term superior value to the customers through their product.
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 The company tries to serve the customers with their products and services globally in the
market.
 Unilever tries to increase to increase the customer reach by making the products and
services available everywhere in the markets.
Unilever 's vision statement is to make the sustainable living commonplace to make their
product and services available everywhere to the customers and they focuses on building the
long term way for the business to expand and grow. (Armstrong, 2019). It focuses on having
the business growth,long term growth,and making the products and services available to the
customers easily.
The mission statement of Unilever is to add a quality and capability to life to fulfil the
needs of nutrition,personal care and hygiene which helps the customers to get satisfaction
towards the company 's product and services. There main focus is to increase a adding value to
life, meeting the customer 's needs, increasing the level of satisfaction of the customers.
Legal regulations
Employees and workers are considered to be the best and valuable asset for the
employers and companies as when the employees are highly motivated towards they work with
their full efficiency which leads to the achievement of the desired goals set by the companies.
For motivating the workers and the employees it is necessary to pay their minimum wages for
their work. When they paid fairly they will create the satisfaction level towards the company and
work with efficiency. (Cooke, 2018).According to the employment agreement act, it is the right
of the employees to get wages. The right ensures that the workers and employees are fairly paid
for their work. In this act certain amount is fixed that are to be paid to the workers and
employees working in a company. The minimum wage amount that are to be paid to workers is
decided according to the:
 Type of work
 The price of living
 Numbers of hours of working
 Company 's financial potential to pay the amount
 Potential of the workers and employees
In context to Unilever, the company provides a fair pay to the workers and employees
working in the company. The company is generally pays fair wages to the workers and
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employees according to different country 's market portfolio and growth of the business in that
country. Unilever is providing living wages also with minimum wages which refers to the lowest
amount paid to the workers and employees that is fair and liveable if the company 's growth is
hampering . (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Farndale 2018). In different countries Unilever has made
the fair wage network, a recognised authority on fair and living wages to have global problem
solving. As the legal minimum wage in different country is not a fair wage that secures and
safeguards the living standards of employees including the supply chain of the workers globally.
The company is using fair wage network strategies to assess whether the fixed compensation is
being paid to all the workers or employers or not in every countries where the company is
operating according to their daily wages and living wages standards.
Cost and benefits for organisation to deal with issue
Unilever has its focus on increasing profitability of the company by lifting prices and
price cutting spending on the staffs of the company. Unilever is replicating the pricing strategies
in markets of different countries. The company is following the cost and pricing strategy of
penetration pricing that is serving the high quality with a low price to capture the more market
segments. As it is necessary to understand the immense competition in the FMCG market
globally. Unilever performs the intensive research of the market and follows competitive pricing.
The costs and prices of the company changes according to the market conditions. Unilever
compete for a large range of customers that are price based. (Chams and García-Blandón,
2019).The prices are generally based on the internal efficiency to retain a margin which allows
the business company to sustainable the average profits or return and cost to the customers. And
according to these costs and return analysis which monitors and analyse the price and make
customers to purchase the company 's product and services. The strategy works when the product
or service is standardised.
There are different benefits provided by Unilever to its employees except minimum
wages. The company provide several benefits and incentives to the employees and workers
working in the company like:
 Life insurance: Unilever is providing life insurance claims to its employees and workers
of their company.
 Dental insurance: The company is providing the dental insurance by hospitalization
benefits, with a variable pay with optical benefits and dental benefits.
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 Health insurance: Unilever is providing decent management and good benefits related
to their staff healthcare.
 Vision insurance: Unilever is providing vision insurance by giving medical, dental long
term, short term and disability insurance from any contingency.
Cost and benefits are beneficial to analyse decisions. The business and analyst adds and
helps the company to deal with any situation or issue. (Zaid, Jaaronand Bon, 2018).By
analysing cost and benefits it will helps the company to determine the opportunity cost which
helps in decision making for the company. Opportunity costs are the alternative benefits that can
be used and analysed to deal with a arising situation in the company. Cost and benefit analysis
can used to measure the benefits of a decision or taking action according to that with a applied
strategies with financial metrics.
Timescale, cost and prioritisation of any recommendation
To maintain minimum wages and living wages for employees and workers of the
company. The company ensures that the minimum wages and living wages are regularly paid
fairly to the employees and workers working in the company. There should be a timescale of 6
months is necessary to maintain the low minimum wages. As UK has also started the living wage
foundation to provide living wages to the workers working there. The fair wage approach is
needed to provide a more comprehensive methodology by different companies for examining
wages issues. (Ren, Tangand Jackson, 2018). That is why timescale is needed to maintain the
wages for the company. As company need to ensure the good performance in terms of
prevailing wage,living wages and pay equality wages to the workers. Unilever has prioritized
restocking shelves with big sizes of its products. As the food and beverages sector is growing up,
so customers are preferring more in house services that can proved to be beneficial for the
company. As prioritization at operational and strategic level leads to the success and failure of
the company. Prioritizing increases the rates of strategic projects. Cost benefit analysis can be
recommended to Unilever to analyse and determine their cost and return to maintain minimum
wages and living wages. Different growth and marketing strategies can be used for the
expansion of the company. The recommendation that can be given to Unilever are as follows:
 The company should try to create new design of products to attract more customers.
 As being a multinational company, the company needs to operate the business in local
preferences.(Ren, Tangand Jackson, 2018).
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 Better strategies can be used to maintain cost and minimum wages for workers and
employees of the company.
 Workers and employees should be paid fairly on the decided and set fair amount by
countries.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that Human resource management is a
essential process for every companies to follow for having skilled and trained employees and
workers in the company. To have efficient and effective workforce in the company it is
necessary to keep minimum wages and living wages that are to be paid to them by the company.
Unilever provides regular minimum wages and living wages to the workers and employees. They
are providing fairly wages and remunerations to its staffs.(Nieves and Quintana, 2018). The
company is using different pricing and marketing strategies for the expansion and growth of the
company and its business. Unilever is constantly having cost and benefits analysis to determine
the costs and benefits to analyse cost and return for decision making in the company and
according to that the cost,returns and wages are set by them. The minimum wages are set
according to the company 's capability and potential and there is timescale needed for
maintaining minimum wages and living wages for the employees and workers. Unilever is
advised to use penetration strategy for having more expansion and growth in the market. The
company should focus on maintaining the quality products and services rather than increasing
the prices of the products and services.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2020. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Armstrong, M., 2019. Strategic human resource management. pdf drive. Com.
Banfield, P., Kay, R. and Royles, D., 2018. Introduction to human resource management.
Oxford University Press.
Boella, M.J. and Goss-Turner, S., 2019. Human resource management in the hospitality
industry: A guide to best practice. Routledge.
Brewster, C., Mayrhofer, W. and Farndale, E. eds., 2018. Handbook of research on comparative
human resource management. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Chams, N. and García-Blandón, J., 2019. On the importance of sustainable human resource
management for the adoption of sustainable development goals. Resources,
Conservation and Recycling .141. pp.109-122.
Chelladurai, P. and Kerwin, S., 2018. Human resource management in sport and recreation.
Human Kinetics.
Cooke, F.L., 2018. Concepts, contexts, and mindsets: Putting human resource management
research in perspectives. Human Resource Management Journal .28 (1). pp.1-13.
Nieves, J. and Quintana, A., 2018. Human resource practices and innovation in the hotel
industry: The mediating role of human capital. Tourism and Hospitality Research .18
(1). pp.72-83.
Ren, S., Tang, G. and Jackson, S.E., 2018. Green human resource management research in
emergence: A review and future directions. Asia Pacific Journal of Management .35
(3). pp.769-803.
Stewart, G.L. and Brown, K.G., 2019. Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
Zaid, A.A., Jaaron, A.A. and Bon, A.T., 2018. The impact of green human resource management
and green supply chain management practices on sustainable performance: An
empirical study. Journal of Cleaner Production .204. pp.965-979.
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