Resource and Talent Planning

This document discusses the importance of resource and talent planning in organizations, analyzing current labour market trends, legal requirements, determining skills requirements, producing job descriptions and person specifications, and different recruitment methods. The case study focuses on Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company.

Resource and Talent
Planning
1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Analyse current labour market trends that influence talent management and workforce
planning.......................................................................................................................................3
P2 Explain the different types of legal requirements which organisation must consider in
workforce planning.....................................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P3 On the bases of current labour market trends and legal requirements determine skills
requirement within the organisation............................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P4 Produce appropriate job description and person specification document for effective
recruitment and selection............................................................................................................7
P5 Different recruitment and selection methods for effective talent resourcing and planning...8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P6 Stages of HR life-cycle in the context if human resource department................................10
P7 Evaluate how HR life cycle stages integrated within organisational HR strategy...............12
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................14
2

INTRODUCTION
Resource and Talent Planning is a important function that involves various business
aspects such as resource planning and forecasting, identifying and selecting of hiring channels,
etc and perform work in coordination with recruitment team (Ashton, Maguire and Spilsbury,
2016). This organisational function is responsible for identifying the key talent from the market
with the ability to provide competitive advantage and help in achieving short term and long term
objectives. The organisation chosen for this report is Unilever. The company is a multinational
consumer goods company dealing in food products, beauty products, medicines, etc across the
globe. Unilever is one of the oldest multinational company, established by William lever and his
follow teammates in London, UK in year 1929. The report covers following topics- current
labour market trends that influence talent management and workforce planning, different type of
legal requirements an organisation must consider in workforce planning, on the bases of current
labour market trends determine the skill requirements for organisational functioning, produce
appropriate job description and person specification documents for effective recruitment and
selection, different recruitment and selection methods for effective talent resourcing and
planning, stages of the HR life-cycle applied to specific HR contexts and stages of HR life-cycle
are integrated within organisational HR strategy.
TASK 1
P1 Analyse current labour market trends that influence talent management and workforce
planning.
Labour market dynamics are changing continuously and is undergoing a drastic shift as
unemployment is increasing and at the same time there is lack of specialized talent available in
the market (Berman, 2019). Where as its the responsibility of workforce planning to hire and
align the requirements of the business regarding employees need and focus on developing new
employment trends. The current market trends which are influencing workforce planning are-
 Aging Populations- Many developing countries are facing problem of continous
decrease in the working population. All the young talent is been acquired by developed
countries because of fast aging population and will lead to recruitment problems in
coming future. In context of Unilever, it is one of the largest company dealing at
international level with wide range of products and requires young age employees to
3

carry out its marketing activities and to maintain its brand position in the market place.
Thus, current marketing trends are influencing the companies talent management and
workforce planning (Bicer and Dincer, 2018).
 More Opportunities, Fewer Skills- There are N number of opportunities available for
job seekers due to which the companies are facing problem of skilled and talented
employees. With the development and advancement in technology that is use robotic
automation, use of internet and artificial intelligence has negative impact on the
performance and skilled employees are quite few in number. In context of Unilever, the
requirement of skilled employees is high in order to formulate the strategies for business
operations.
 Industry 4.0- The fourth industrial revolution has changed the structured of employment
that is an increase in computerizes based job is in trend. Although its not a bad news
because industries are becoming technology friendly. Here by still there is requirement of
employees for manual worked that is not all activities and tasked can be performed using
software systems and technology. In context of Unilever, the demand in market for its
products is increasing but they are facing problem in carrying internal activities due to
employees as lot of issues are occurring in recoding of store sales as they have changed
the method of supply in their systems.
 Data- Considering the current mode of operations in most large scale companies, there is
a high possibility of data fraud, error and misuse because almost every data is accessible
from different locations (Bratton and Gold, 2017). In context of Unilever, this data
information problem is effecting the operations of business and leading to
miscommunication. Company has quite big number of customer data which can be
hacked and misused. This will have negative impact on the goodwill of company as
customers will no longer trust the brand and lead to decrease in sales and profit volume.
P2 Explain the different types of legal requirements which organisation must consider in
workforce planning.
Workforce planning is the process of determining and regulating the workforce supply
and demand in the organisation with the motive of providing high performing resources(human).
There is a great requirement of legislative activities in the field of employment law in order to
4

provide security and safety to workforce. Its mandatory for all organisations to comply with the
legal requirement which are as follow-
 Equal Pay Act (1963)- This act is formulated for the prohibition of discrimination
activities regarding payment of compensation (Campos-Guzmán, 2019). Unilever don't
discriminate and provide equal pay to its employees on the bases of skills, responsibility
and working conditions.
 Health and Safety Act, 1974- The act is been formulated for providing safe working
conditions to its employees that is safety of health. Unilever is following this act and
focus on safety of its employees. The company take safety precautions at its work place
with essential equipments to deal with uncertainty on spot and its important to provide
safety in order to accomplish goals and objectives in decided time period.
 Sex Discrimination Act, 1975- As per this law the discrimination activities regarding
caste, religions, gender, etc should not take place in any organisation. This act provides
protection and safety to both men and women and are consider equal. This act has been
applied by Unilever in order to provide protection of rights to its employees weather it be
male or female worker. This helps in implementing better talent management and
workforce planning.
 Working Time Regulation Act, 1988- According to this act, the working timings should
be fixed for the employees that is no irregular working hours should not impose on
employees (D'haenens, 2020). Unilever has implemented this law in its system where HR
department is responsible for regulating working time within the company. Moreover if
employees, work overtime than usually time, they are provided extra pay for overtime
work.
 Age discrimination Act, 1967- According to this act, employees should not be
discriminated on the bases of their age. In Unilever employees are hired and promoted to
next level on the bases of their capabilities, skills and experience. The company don't
believe that only young people have capabilities to perform better and judge employees
on the bases of their work irrespective of their age.
Hence, from the above employment laws it is evaluated that its very essential for
companies to implement these law for better functioning and also helps in workforce planning.
5

TASK 2
P3 On the bases of current labour market trends and legal requirements determine skills
requirement within the organisation.
The current labour market trends and legal requirements plays very crucial role in talent
management and workforce planning. These actions help in better decision making as employees
are involve in the process and are consider as a part of company which leads to accomplishment
of goals and objectives on time (Galgóczi and Leschke, 2016). The influence of current market
trends and legal requirement on workforce planning at Unilever are as follow-
The increase in ageing population is creating problems for the company in the workforce
planning and management as company is quite popular in marketplace and dealing in wide range
of products so require large employee force to perform their activities and operations in the best
way. The rise in industry revolution has negative impact on the operations of Unilever as
company is dealing in more than 190 countries across the globe and need to focus on various
aspects in order to maintain its consistency. The company is facing lack of skilled employees
who carry smart work and provide fast results and outcomes to the company. The up-graduation
in technology leads to hampering and hacking of companies data and information due to which
they are facing problem in protecting its brand image as competitors are using their data and
taking competitive advantage. Hence, all these factors have influenced the workforce planning of
the company. On the other hand, the legal requirement has also influenced the planning for
workforce in an effective manner. The company is following almost all the employment law in
order to ensure proper functioning of operations within the company and this is the major reason
behind the success of the company. The employees are consider as the essential part of the
company and are given due importance and respect which has helped in better functioning. As a
result employees are providing their full support to company in achieving the desire goals and
objectives by critical thinking, collaborating across network to maintain accuracy and by
providing suggestions in the decision making process (Mathew, 2015).
The skilled employees in the organisation helps in better implementation and on time
completion of take as skills are consider as the ability to perform well in the organisation
(Gough, Oliver and Thomas, 2017). The skills which helps employees in better performance are-
 Communication Skills- Communication skills is consider as one of the most important
factor which helps in better understanding and reduce the mistakes due to
6

miscommunication. In context of Unilever, the employees are always involved in
decision making in order to form communication with them and make them comfortable.
Hence, this practice result in effective communication within the workforce which helps
in attaining objectives and completion of task on time (Joll, McKenna and Shorey, 2018).
 Innovative Skills- Unilever focus on building and developing innovative skills among its
workforce in order to identify the current market trends and accordingly use innovation in
order to attract the large customer base. The innovation in the personal care products
implemented by company has helped in gaining large audience. These skills helped in
gaining competitive advantage and also helped in survival of company in these changing
trends.
TASK 3
P4 Produce appropriate job description and person specification document for effective
recruitment and selection.
Human resource department of Unilever company is building and developing person's
specifications and job description for HR executive.
Job description
Job description of HR executive
We are looking for a candidate who has required set of skills and abilities for performing tasks
within the organisation in an effective manner. Being the multinational consumer goods
company, Unilever require a deserving HR executive who could perform the business activities
in effective way and perform all task with full potential.
Job Title: HR Executive
HR executive responsibilities
 To direct and conduct all hiring and training procedures.
 To identify employees problems and provide appropriate solutions.
 To maintain healthy and positive working environment.
HR executive requirements
 Must have an experience of more than one year.
 Masters degree in human resource management. Must have basic knowledge of computer.
7

Contact us at www.unilever.co.uk
[phone]
Job specifications
Job specifications of HR executive
HR executive of Unilever must have ability to manage all the tasks and activities of human
resource team. Candidate must have required set of skills and capabilities to perform job.
Experience
 Candidate must have atleast one year of experience as HR executive.
 Candidate having computer knowledge is given preference.
Education
 Masters degree in human resource.
 Bachelors degree
Required skills and knowledge
 Good communication skills
 Decision making capabilities
 Management skills
These documents provides great benefit to the HR team in the recruitment and selection
process as the information regarding job role make candidates aware of the job openings. These
document provides brief description to the candidates about the roles and responsibilities which
save time as candidates have all information regarding job role (Lu, El Hanandeh and Gilbert,
2017). It also provide help in effective screening of capable candidates and helps in prevention of
unsuitable applicants.
P5 Different recruitment and selection methods for effective talent resourcing and planning.
Recruitment
8

Recruitment process is very important as in this process company hire employees which
help an organisation to achieve its targets. Recruitment process is different in every organisation
as per the size of the company. This process includes identifying, interviewing, selecting and
hiring employees. There are multiple methods used by the company to recruit employees like:
 Internal Recruiting – In this method employees are selected from the company, which is
helpful to motivate existing employees.
 Retained recruiting – Many company use this method to recruit its employees. In this
process Company appoint other recruiting firm and pay some fees. This method is
beneficial for the organisation as they do not have to give advertisements and conduct
any interview for recruiting employees (Morgeson, Brannick and Levine, 2019).
 Contingency Recruiting – This method is also like retained recruiting method as
company hire third party recruiting company. But in this method the company pay fees
only when the clients they represent are selected.
 Staffing Recruiting – Staffing recruiting method is used by staffing agencies which
matches candidate qualification with job role.
 Reverse Recruiting – In this method employee is motivated to look for different
organisation which can provide better opportunity for their skill set.
In context of Unilever, the strength is that company is present at international level and is
quit popular so people want to work with Unilever. Thus has large number of applicants
available that is they need not to search for candidates. Whereas the weakness of the company is
that it has large number of applications so it becomes difficult for recruiters to differentiate and
identify more skilled people.
Selection
This process include identify, interview, assessment of the candidate which is helpful in
selecting right candidate for the company. Selection process is different in every company, it
depend on the size of an organisations (Pizzol, 2015). There are multiple methods which
company use to select employees.
 Preliminary interview – In this process interviewer conduct basic interview of the
candidate so they can eliminate those candidate which are unfit for the company.
9

 Receiving applications – Selected candidates send applications to the company so
interviewer can know about the candidate like their Bio-data, work experience, hobbies
etc.
 Test situational judgement – In this method interviewer give different scenarios to
candidate so they can check decision making power of the candidate in various situations.
 Measure employee integrity – It is very important for an organisation to hire honest or
reliable employees. This test help the company to know more about the candidate by
giving them digital personality questionnaire.
 Test job knowledge – It is very important that the candidate have knowledge about the
job role as candidate can not learn everything in the company. In this process candidate
have to give typing or language proficiency test which are useful in every organisation.
In context of Unilever, the strength in process of selection is that it has many skilled and
efficient candidates from whom they have to select the most desirable candidate for job role.
Thus has variety available for selection. Whereas the weakness of the company is due to large
number of applicants, it incur high cost and expenses and is time consuming.TASK 4
P6 Stages of HR life-cycle in the context if human resource department.
HR Life-cycle is a concept in human resource management that describes stages that an
employee undergoes in a particular organisation and the responsibilities played in each stage. All
10
Illustration 1: A Guide to the HR Life cycle, 2020

stages of HR cycle have unique opportunities and challenges both for employee and
management. It is also known as employee life cycle. There are several models of HR Life-cycle.
7 stage HR cycle model is discussed below in context of Unilever:
Attraction – This is the first level of HR Life-cycle. It is attracting potential employee
towards organisation. It is more than advertising for a position in an organisation. Unilever is a
brand and thus, attracts good quality candidates. Disadvantage which Company is facing is it
attracts diverse workforce which sometimes are not able to work in harmony with people of
different culture. Advantage which company would able to gain in this stage is that it would be
able to attract the skilled and potential candidates to perform the job role.
Recruitment – It is the process of hiring right candidates. Hiring right people is critical
to growth of an organisation. Unilever HR department creates a strategic staffing plan,
competitive compensation and benefits packages and finally a suitable interviewing protocol. HR
department places job ads to attract right talent. Then, they select and interview such candidates
whose resumes they find suitable for the job position. They seek employee with specialisations
which increases cost to company and act as disadvantage for company. Whereas the advantage is
that they would be able to hire the potential candidate who has the ability to carry the work in
most effective and efficient manner.
Onboarding – It is the process of welcoming new employees to the organisation. They
are then briefed about the organisational values and culture. Unilever has special employee
engagement program. They believe engaging employee in organisation increases employee's
enthusiasm which provides benefit to the company. They get to learn about their new job duties
working in coherence with co-workers and seniors. This independence to employee has a threat
of misuse of leniency as they would not work up to their capabilities and it would effect the
performance of the business.
Enablement – It is the process of conducting orientation of the employee. Orientation
means formally introducing employee with organisation's vision, mission and values. HR
department of Unilever introduces company policies in an interactive conference-style and
answer their questions about how to use them. They are provided with all kinds of information
they'll be needing at the job. Giving out all information to employees at so initial stage increases
the chance of breach of confidentiality or organisational policies which act as disadvantage to
company. Moreover on the other hand the information provided to employees helps in bring
11

clarity among employees so they would be able to make their performance better and it will
provide advantage to company.
Development – At this stage employee and HR department decide on long term career
goals and growth with the company. This is usually done by HR Managers with the help of
personality profile testing. HR managers of Unilever take regular feedback from and about
employees. They establish effective communication with them and get to know their personal
goals and objectives (advantage). It helps them in bringing a confluence between two objectives.
This approach helps in increased sales and customer satisfaction. The development phase act as
disadvantage too where the efficient employees leave the organisation due to which production
activities are effected.
Retention – This stage of life-cycle is where HR department works on motivating
employees. They are showered with unique benefits such as increased compensation, flexible
work schedules, employee stock options, better work opportunities, etc. to recognise their hard
work and contribution in the growth of the organisation. HR managers of Unilever make all the
efforts to retain employees as experienced employees are able to handle complex situations
better and provide benefit or advantage to the company. This also saves the cost of employee
turnover to Unilever. But, this also prevents fresh talent from entering the organisational space
which act as disadvantage for business.
Separation – This is final stage of HR life-cycle in which employee parts way from the
company. It might be due to retirement of employee or may be because of employee leaving
organisation for better growth opportunities. Sometimes, even organisation undergo downsizing
due to economic or strategic reasons, then employees are laid off by organisation. HR of
Unilever make sure that all exit policies of company is duly followed and all the dues related to
employees have been smoothly cleared. Separation gives chance to induct fresh talent and
Unilever prefers diverse workforce and provide benefit to the company. Sometime the situation
of separation lead to misunderstanding and conflict which effect the business operations and act
as disadvantage.
P7 Evaluate how HR life cycle stages integrated within organisational HR strategy.
All the stages of HR life-cycle has developed with advantages and challenges within the
organisation which has helped in the growth of business. The manager is responsible for
converting these stages into actions and align them in proper sequence with HR planning
12

(Sonnemann, 2018). The evaluation of each stage in relation to Unilever HR strategies are as
follow-
 In first stage, HR manager need to focus on building and developing appropriate policies
and strategies which helps in recruitment and selection process. The focus of manager
shifts to hiring process due to which they are not able to focus on the current business
operations which effect and have negative impact on the performance of business. On the
other hand help in hiring the fresh, skilled and efficient candidates in the organization.
 In case of second stage, HR manager is responsible for building and creating healthy and
safe environment. The safe working conditions make employee feel secure which helps
in accomplishing business goals and objectives. In the good and safe business
environment employees work more effectively in order to complete the work on time
which act as advantage to company. But also lead to the situation where conflict and
misunderstanding among employees effect the business activities and operations.
 In third stage, HR manager need to focus on the performance of employees in order to
identify the high and low performing employees. The high performing employees are
promoted or assign work accordingly in order to provide better results to company and
provide benefit in the growth and development of the company. Where as low performing
employees are given training and their week areas are identified in order to improve their
performance which is for their betterment but sometime employees take it on their ego
and are not willing to improve their performance.
 In fourth stage of HR life-cycle, manage perform the function of formulating and
developing innovative strategies which provide benefit to the management and
employees in appropriate manner (Tipton and et.al., 2016). The effective strategies helps
in achieving desire results.
 In the last stage, HR manager of Unilever is responsible for maintaining appropriate
database and record of employees for future use. It will help in providing benefit to
company as proper data lead to effective implementation of strategies which lead to
accomplishment of goals and objectives of the company.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been concluded that human resource team play very
important role in workforce planning and talent management within the organisation. It provide
13

grate support to the business by allocating responsibilities and authorities to right person which
lead to overall improvement in the performance of business. The human resource management
helps in building and developing the organisation structure as they are one who is performing
activities in coordination with other departments so has overview of the whole business. They
help in improving the productivity by focusing on effective workforce planning and talent
acquisition. With the help of proper workforce planning company get to know about the
capabilities and skills of its employees and accordingly mould them in order to achieve desire
goals and objectives.
REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Ashton, D., Maguire, M. and Spilsbury, M., 2016. Restructuring the labour market: The
implications for youth. Springer.
Berman, E.M. and et.al., 2019. Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes,
processes, and problems. CQ Press.
Bicer, Y. and Dincer, I., 2018. Life cycle environmental impact assessments and comparisons of
alternative fuels for clean vehicles. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 132.
pp.141-157.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
14

Campos-Guzmán, V. and et.al., 2019. Life Cycle Analysis with Multi-Criteria Decision Making:
A review of approaches for the sustainability evaluation of renewable energy
technologies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 104. pp.343-366.
D'haenens, F. and et.al., 2020. Towards an integrated perinatal care pathway for vulnerable
women: The development and validation of quality indicators. Midwifery. 89. p.102794.
Galgóczi, B. and Leschke, J., 2016. EU labour migration in troubled times: skills mismatch,
return and policy responses. Routledge.
Gough, D., Oliver, S. and Thomas, J. eds., 2017. An introduction to systematic reviews. Sage.
Joll, C., McKenna, C., McNabb, R. and Shorey, J., 2018. Developments in labour market
analysis (Vol. 11). Routledge.
Lu, H.R., El Hanandeh, A. and Gilbert, B.P., 2017. A comparative life cycle study of alternative
materials for Australian multi-storey apartment building frame constructions:
Environmental and economic perspective. Journal of cleaner production. 166. pp.458-
473.
Morgeson, F.P., Brannick, M.T. and Levine, E.L., 2019. Job and work analysis: Methods,
research, and applications for human resource management. Sage Publications.
Pizzol, M., Weidema, B., Brandão, M. and Osset, P., 2015. Monetary valuation in life cycle
assessment: a review. Journal of Cleaner Production. 86. pp.170-179.
Schiebener, J. and Brand, M., 2015. Decision making under objective risk conditions–a review of
cognitive and emotional correlates, strategies, feedback processing, and external
influences. Neuropsychology review. 25(2). pp.171-198.
Sinclair, S., 2017. Urbanisation and labour markets in developing countries (Vol. 8). Routledge.
Sonnemann, G., Tsang, M. and Schuhmacher, M. eds., 2018. Integrated Life-cycle and Risk
Assessment for Industrial Processes and Products. CRC Press.
Tipton, E. and et.al., 2016. Site selection in experiments: An assessment of site recruitment and
generalizability in two scale-up studies. Journal of Research on Educational
Effectiveness. 9(sup1). pp.209-228.
Mathew, A., 2015. Talent management practices in select organizations in India. Global
Business Review. 16(1). pp.137-150.
Online
A Guide to the HR Lifecycle. 2020. [Online]. Available
through:<https://xceed365.com/blog/2018/11/30/a-guide-to-the-hr-lifecycle/>
15