Human Resource Management Report: Unilever's HRM Practices Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company. It examines the purpose and functions of HRM, including its scope encompassing personnel, welfare, and industrial relations. The report explores the strengths and weaknesses of different recruitment and selection approaches, such as internal and external recruitment methods, and selection processes like interviews and assessment tests. Furthermore, it evaluates the effectiveness of key HRM elements like training and development, motivation, performance-based rewards, and flexible working arrangements. The report also analyzes the impact of HRM practices on productivity and profitability, as well as the significance of employee relations in decision-making and the influence of employment law. Finally, it illustrates the application of HRM practices within a work-related context, offering a comprehensive overview of Unilever's HRM strategies.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Strength and weakness of different approaches of recruitment and selection ...........................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
Evaluation of effectiveness of key elements of Human Resource Management .......................7
Effectiveness of HRM practices..................................................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
Analysing the significance of employees relations in context of influencing HRM decision
making ........................................................................................................................................9
Identification of key elements of employment law and its effect on decision making ............10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
Illustrating the application of HRM practices in work related context ...................................11
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is that approach which is being done in order to effective
management in the organisation. So that all the functions and employees can help the
organisation to obtain the overall competitive advantage in the market. This report of Human
resource management is based on the Unilever company, which is the British, consumer goods
company based in London UK. This is one of the oldest multinational company of UK which
deliver their services across the world.
This report will include the purpose and function of HRM in Unilever. Also explain the
strength and weakens of the different approaches of recruitment and selection process. Further
more, explain the benefits of different HRM practices within the Unilever organisation for both
employees and employers. This file will evaluate the effectiveness of the different HRM
practices in term of increasing the productivity and profit of company. Key elements of
employment legislation and its impact on HRM decision will also be included. Lastly application
of human resource management.
TASK 1
Unilever is the UK based transnational consumer good company. This include the
different products included food, beverages, home utility products, personal and beauty care
products. It is the seventh most valuable company in Europe.
Mission statement – Mission of Unilever is that, to add vitality to the life. They meet everyday
need of the customer by providing nutritions, hygiene, and personal care with their brand to feel
good, look good and get more out of the life.
Business objective – Unilever has three business objectives for 2020, to help one billion people
to improve their health and well-being, improve livelihoods and environment footprint of tit
product (Clinch and et.al., 2019).
Purpose of HR functions
There are different purpose of Human resource management of Unilever. These are:
 One of the main purpose is to maintain and arrange the adequate manpower for the
Unilever company that can help to achieve the target of company.
 HRM of Unilever act as liaison between the employees and top management.

 Human resource management another main purpose is to create the benefit scheme for
the employees.
 They work in order to increase and enhance the work life quality of employees by giving
different benefits.
Scope Of HRM
There are different scope of Human resource management of Unilever.
Personnel or labour aspects
In this planning, placement, recruitment and selection, promotion and transfer and
deployment, incentive and productivity are included (Donate, Peña and Sanchez de Pablo, 2016).
All these related to the personal and employees of the Unilever and to enhance their work life.
Welfare aspects
Housing, medical assistance, canteen, rest rooms health and safety, education all are
included, all of these are the extra benefits which given to employees of the Unilever. To retain
them in the organisation.
Industrial relation
Dispute settlement, union management, collective bargaining, grievance and disciplinary
action all of these are given by the HRM of the Unilever to maintain the strong relation and
positive healthy environment in the organisation.
Functions of HRM
HRM of the Unilever play different function in the organisation in order to increase the
productivity of the organisation and their employees (Farouk and et.al., 2016).
Managerial Function
 Planning is the one of the main function, in which they build different strategies and plan
for the organization. In this HR managers plan and create the job specification, identify
the requirement of the job post in the company.
 Organizing is another function, in which they organize different resources for the
employees to enhance work life. HR managers of the company organize the workforce of
their organization and their operation by making different policies and make availability
of the resources for smooth functioning.

 Other functions are directing, controlling all the activities and operation of employees.
Through which they monitor all the performance, strategies of their employees and
operations.
Operative function
 Recruitment is one of the main function, in which they recruit or hire the best employee
for Unilever. These best employees will work better in order to achieve the target of the
Unilever and this will help the company to increase its profit.
 Training and development facility provided by the HRM of the Unilever in order to
enhance the skills of the employees. This function is also beneficial for Unilever, when
employees get skilled by training then will work effectively to attain the goal.
 Other operative functions are Job analysis, performance appraisal and many more (Holm
and Haahr, 2018). Other functions also helps to increase theproductivity and profit of
Unilever. By giving them rewards and appraisal as according to their performance.
Strength and weakness of different approaches of recruitment and selection
Recruitment is the method of creating more jobs and attracting more number of
candidates toward the vacant post in the organisation.
Objective recruitment
 Main objective of recruitment in Unilever is to attract the pool of the candidates which
are suitable for vacant post.
 Another objective is to make sure that all recruitment activities will contribute in the
achieving organisational goal of Unilever.
Internal recruitment
Promotion – this is the process where HR manger of Unilever promote their existing employee
to higher level.
Transfer – This is another internal recruitment, in which existing employee transfer and moved
another office to vacant post.
Strength
 It is the less time consuming, and need less paper work to recruit employees internally
only bases of their performance (Hunter and et.al., 2017).
 This help the employees of Unilever, increase the morale and also help them in retention
of the employees in organisation, they see that there is large room for their career.

Weakness
 This internal recruitment eliminate the new talent in the Unilever company.
 From the internal recruitment, Unilever would not get the new, creative and innovative
ideas and views of fresh talent
External Recruitment
Media advertisement – in this HRM of Unilever, post job description in different media platform
and job portals (Holm and Haahr, 2018).
campus placement – This is the external method, In which HRM of Unilever conduct campus in
different educational institutes. And get fresh employee in Unilever.
Strength
 With the help of external recruitment, Unilever opens a large pool of the applicants,
which increase and help of HRM of Unilever to find right candidate with right skill for
the vacant jib role.
 This also help The HRM to bring fresh and new talent ion the Unilever company.
Weakness
 Weakness of the external recruitment is that it takes long time to recruit and see the
number of resumes and CV of the applicants.
 This can also reduce the morale of the applicant by seeing the large number of employees
present and come to be selected.
Selection is the process of evaluating the candidates which are being selected through
recruitment process. His can be done via interview, assessment test and many other methods.
Interview – main objective of interview is to eliminate undeserving candidate for vacant post in
Unilever by m-personal assessment (Islam, 2015).
Strength
 Interview help the employer of Unilever to get their employee personally and create
strong bond with them.
 This also give opportunity to employee to be reduce and eliminate their hesitation.
Weakness
Assessment Test – This include the different test like aptitude test and other analytical test to
know their competencies of candidates.
Strength

 This give the strength top the employers of Unilever to know the skills and competencies
of candidate in particular field.
 It also helps management to know, whether selected candidates can solve any problem or
critical situation of Unilever by analytical test.
Weakness
 It is time consuming method to evaluate and check results of each candidates.
TASK 2
Evaluation of effectiveness of key elements of Human Resource Management
There are number of practices which are played by the Human resource management of
the Unilever,
Training and Development – Training and development provided by the human resource
management of the Unilever to enhance the skill and competencies of their employees.
This help the employers to get the best skilled employees in their Unilever organisation
that can help to achieve the overall target of the company.
This also give benefit to the employees, by increasing their knowledge and by giving
their best performance they can get reward and appraisal from the management.
Motivation – Human resource management of Unilever also help to motivate their employees by
supporting them and help them in various situation (Jamali, El Dirani and Harwood, 2015).
This provide the benefit to the employers of Unilever, as they get motivated employees
who never afraid of doing any work for the organisation.
Employees also get benefits from this, as the get motivated by support of Human
resource management of Unilever. This motivation help to to handle any kind of situation and
task within the organisation and also the outside.
Performance based reward – reward facility is also provide by the HRM of the Unilever. The
give reward top their best employee on the basis of their work.
This give the benefit to the employer of Unilever, as the productivity is increased, when
the employees work effectively in order to get reward from the management. And the task will
be achieve within set time period.
This also beneficial for the employees of Unilever, they get motivated by gaining rewards
from the management. They can get promotion easily on the basis of their work performance.

Reward management – One of the main practice to maintain and create the reward management
in the Unilever organisation on the basis of the work performance of their employees (Khan,
2017).
This is beneficial for the employers of Unilever, as this reward management help to
increase the performance of the employees. This help the employers they can reach to the target
effectively.
This practice also beneficial for employees of Unilever, this reward management help
them to boost their moral and enhance their performance skills.
Flexible working – HRM of Unilever help and provide the facility to flexible working in their
organisational environment. This is another practice performed by the HRM.
This flexibility of working is beneficial for the employers of Unilever, as they can
explore the new working skills and techniques of their team members or other employees to
compete the task.
Flexible working is beneficial for the employees, because this facility give them freedom
to work according top their techniques related to the task. This help to increase their performance
in the organisation.
Effectiveness of HRM practices
As the Human resource management perform different practices in Unilever organisation.
These practices help the company to enhance the productivity of the employees and organisation
both. This increased productivity help the organisation to gain more profit in the market as
compared to other competitors.
Training and development – As the Unilever apply the continuous training and development
program to their employees to make improvement and update their knowledge and skills. Skilled
employees work effectively to produce different things and quality products and they also have
the clear understanding f job role. This increase the productivity of organisation and employees.
And this increased productivity help to gain more profit in the market.
Motivation – Unilever apply the positive and some time informal communication and reward
system to motivate their employees. This help the employees to get motivated and work
effectively without hesitation. Motivated employees work efficiently with clear goal. This help to
increase productivity of employees in production. This help to fulfil the demand of costumers,
and this help to increase profit in market as compared to other competitors (Noe and et.al., 2017).

Performance based reward – Unilever, use the appraisal system to give the rewards to the
employees of their organisation to enhance their work and motivate them. This help the
organisation to recognise well experienced and effective employees. This reward motivate them
to work more and give their best. This increase the productivity of Unilever organization ion the
market, and then able to fulfil the demand by giving quality products to personal and beauty care.
These different variety of products help to gain more profit in the market.
Flexible working – As the Management of the Unilever, provide the flexible working hours and
flexible working style,. This give them to work according to their availability of time and style,
this help to employees to work effectively according to their style and techniques. This give them
confidence in their working style and capacity, and this confidence help to work effective and in
good manner to make strategies and complete task. In this way increase the productivity of
Unilever. This increased productivity directly affect the profit share in the market of Unilever
(Sparrow and Otaye-Ebede, 2017).
All of the HRM practices are being applied by the hr managers of the Unilever, in order
to effective working operations. In this training and development help the most to enhance the
skills of their employees and flexible working also helps to increase the employee loyalty and
trust towards the Unilever company. Whereas Performance reward could demotivate their
employees, when employees ee other to get reward, it may affect the a lot.
TASK 3
Analysing the significance of employees relations in context of influencing HRM decision
making
Maintaining the healthy employee relation is very much essential for the success of an
enterprise. Strong relationship between employees in an enterprise is crucial for making workers
feel motivated. Maintaining strong relation among workers is very much important fort higher
productivity of an organisation. In context of Human resource management in Unilever, the
decision taken by human resource manager is completely based on the relationship between
employees. In simple words, human resource manager in an enterprise are taking the high
initiatives by implementing the various policies as well as regulation to avoid the
misunderstanding as well as conflicts among workers (DeVaro, 2016). The relationship between
workers within an enterprise has great significance in context of decision taken by Human

resource manager. For instance, in context of Unilever, there are few factors such as increase in
absenteeism, unethical behaviour of workers, poor performance and increase in number of
grievances has encouraged human resource manager in Unilever to take decision related to
implementation of strict regulation. The strict regulation has been employed for positively
influencing employees to change their behaviour (Donate, Peña and Sanchez de Pablo, 2016. ).
It is the relationship among employees which assist human resource manager in determining the
need of bringing change in the culture or environment within an organisation. Relationship
between employees is significant in context of decision making by human resource manager as
it provides them in development of various policies as well as designing of different procedures.
In case the workers have failed to achieved the tasks due to the conflicts with other
people or politics workplace , then it is also the factor which has great influence on the decision
taken by Human resource managers. In such situation the Human resource manager in Unilever
have to make decision related to identification of techniques for eliminating the differences
between people (Farooq and Shafique, 2016). In contextual of the Unilever company, human
resource manager in an enterprise is required to provide employees with open communication
channel , as it is the best strategy through which management can enable people to develop their
relationship. In addition to this, few events such as appreciation or incentive program can be
organised where human resource manager should enable workers to spend some informal time
with each other, as it is one of the best way to help employees in developing interpersonal
relationship with each other.
This relationship affect the decision-making of HR in the Unilever company, as this
create the healthy work environment and working culture in the company. Whereas this also
affect the negatively as well, when employee ad employer relationship is not good. Then dispute
condition may arise and employees will not follow the decisions of their management. Then HR
managers make new decision for their employees.
Identification of key elements of employment law and its effect on decision making
Main task of Human resource manager in Unilever is to make sure that all the laws are
being followed within an enterprises. The different legislations which are required to be
followed by Unilever are :
Health and safety law : According to this legislation, it is required by Employer in Unilever to
provide healthy and safe working environment to employees. Health and safety law in UK ,

highlights the responsibilities of both employer as well as employees towards maintenance of
safe working environment in an enterprise. As the health and safety law, it is the obligation of
employer to provide proper instruction as well as guidance to workers related to handling of
harmful substance (Ekwoaba, Ikeije. and Ufom, 2015). In addition to this, employer is required
to provide the special training to workers related to new procedure or technology implementer at
workplace.
General data protection legislation : According to this norm, it is the duty as well as
responsibility of employer in Unilever to maintain the confidentiality of information provided by
employees. In addition to this, the human resource management in an organisation is required to
provide essential information about the way information about the workers are stored to relevant
authority. If in case, management in an enterprise fails to comply with this norm then they
might have to face legal issues or might have to pay high penalties.
Employees wages act : As per this legislation , Companies such as Unilever is required to
provide standard salaries or wages to workers (Farndale, Nikandrou and Panayotopoulou 2018. ).
Employee need to pay minimum wages for the per hour work done by employees. It is the norm
in UK which also states that employer are also permitted to make deductions from salaries.
TASK 4
Illustrating the application of HRM practices in work related context
In context of Unilever, The main practices which are facilitated by Human resource
manager in an organisation are preparation of Job description, preparation of person
specification. The job description is here is related to the post of Assistant human resource
manager
Job description
Position : Assistant Human resource manager
Report to : Senior HR manager
Department : Human resource management
Summary : To support senior Human resource manager in performing routine activities such as
preparation of employees performance report, development of policies, execution of interview

procedure etc.
Essentials duties and responsibilities:
 An individual responsibility will be to develop policies, procedures .
 Manage the recruitment procedure.
 Organisation of training program.
 Oversees workers compensation
 Evaluation of performance of employees
Qualification : Candidate applying for the post of assistant human resource manager is
required to complete the Masters in Human resource management.
Experience: One year of experience in relevant field.