Developing a Strategic HRM Plan: Unilever's Practice & Delivery

This report details the development of a Human Resource Management (HRM) plan for Unilever, a British multinational consumer goods company. It begins with a departmental strategic analysis using SWOT to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within Unilever's HR department. Key strategic HR issues such as legal compliance, cultural diversity, recruitment challenges, and developing future leaders are explored. The report also identifies ongoing HR issues like performance management, ineffective employee relations, rising conflicts, and change management challenges exacerbated by remote work. Prioritization of these issues leads to a focus on change management, recommending the implementation of Kotter's change management model and proactive communication strategies. The HRM plan itself includes elements such as determining needs, recruitment strategies, selection processes, training programs, compensation structures, and performance appraisal methods, all aimed at improving Unilever's HR practices and addressing identified challenges. This strategic approach ensures the smooth functioning of the company by effectively managing and resolving HR-related issues.

HR professional practice and
service delivery

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
HRM PLAN.....................................................................................................................................1
Step 1- Departmental strategic analysis ................................................................................1
Step-2 Identify Strategic HR issue.........................................................................................2
Step- 3 Identify ongoing HR issues........................................................................................3
Step-4 Prioritize the issue and determine the actions.............................................................4
Step-5 Draw up the HRM Plan...............................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
References:.......................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The human resource is the most crucial and essential part of an organisation for the
functioning of the business. The human resource defines the potential, capability, skills and
competency of an organisation (Sydow, Wirth and Helfen, 2020). The effective connection and
interaction of the workforce with the organisation is highly important for the successful business.
The strategic human resource plan is developed by the HR professionals of the company to
deliver the quality services to the system and to satisfy the needs of the workforce. The present
report will outline the development of the HR plan for the multinational organisation Unilever.
The company is the famous British multinational Consumer goods company headquartered at
London, England. The report will highlight strategic HR issues, ongoing HR issues, prioritize
HR issues and actions. In the end the whole HRM plan is drawn.
MAIN BODY
HRM PLAN
Step 1- Departmental strategic analysis
In the subject of human resource management strategic analysis is the complex process
that involves the deep evaluation and analysis of the organisational environment and culture in
which it operates. The SWOT analysis is the effective tool to analyse and formulate the strategic
human resource planning for effective decision making in the Unilever. The strategic analysis of
the HR department of the Unilever using SWOT framework is discussed below:
Strengths Weaknesses
 The company has highly effective
salary packages and other beneficiary
overhead along with the monthly pay.
This creates huge employee
satisfaction.
 Very slow problem solving and
decision making process of the HRM
which results in ineffective employee
relations. This also results in bad HR
decision making.
Opportunities Threats
 The Unilever has highly effective
resources which gives company an
 The company has threat of high conflict
between the employees of the company
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opportunity to train and develop their
employees regarding new trends
through compliance of effective HRM
training and development strategy
(Currie, Spyridonidis and Oborn,
2020).
due to slow decision making and
ineffective HR planning and employee
relations this may cause loss for the
firm in future long term perspective.
Step-2 Identify Strategic HR issue
Operating and managing the Human resource across the geographic and cultural
boundaries is proven to be a difficult task for the businesses. The economic uncertainty, tighter
labour market, globalisation has caused the several strategic HR issues in the business of the
Unilever thus decreasing performance of the HR professionals and workforce of the company.
Some of the key identified strategic HR issues are:
 Legal compliance issue: As the Unilever start expanding at global scale the recruitment
and hiring of employees is more diverse culture and geographic locations. For which new
labour laws and taxes liabilities are required to be adapted which is issue for the HR
manager of the company to have compliance with international laws which are complex
to tend and difficult to implement. Thereby this complexity lands business into legal
trouble.
 Cultural diversity a global HR issue: Unilever has a diversified human resource in
order to maintain cultural diversity in its HRM system. Working in the business
environment with the people of different cultural , languages is not easy as it sounds
therefore in strategic planning of the Unilever this factor is the key issue (McDonald and
et. al., 2020). As when working diversity means there must be acceptance of new ways of
communication, new style of working etc. this creates the issue of mismanagement and
miscommunications Unilever.
 Recruitment: with the shift in the demand and requirements of the industry in the
business world in the strategic human resource management the key issue is regarding the
recruitment of the talent. The Unilever face issue in developing a strategy of recruitment
by which company can hire and recruit those employees that can meet the standards and
culture of the company.
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 Developing leaders in next generations: as complicated this issue sounds it is more
difficult in understanding. As the businesses like Unilever are investing huge amount of
money in order to develop leadership in the new upcoming generation employees. But
scarcity of the in- demand talent, retaining talent the company cost is wasted due to the
excess of leaving jobs. The employees are highly showing disinterest and dissatisfaction
with employers in learning opportunities and want quick results with real world
application learning.
Step- 3 Identify ongoing HR issues
As per the above strategic analysis of the HR department of the Unilever some key
ongoing HR issues that organisation is facing in its Human resource management are discussed
underneath:
 Performance management issue: in the Unilever currently there is the issue of
performance management as after the Covid-19 the company has been operating
remotely and this has caused this issue. The company is facing huge issue in recording
the performance of the employees and then managing performance as per the company's
objectives (Okolie, 2020).
 Ineffective employee relations: due to the remote working the company is facing the
lack of connection between the employees and employers. This because of ineffective
communication as the employees only communicate virtually in meetings. This has
developed the issue of ineffective employee relations.
 Rising conflicts: While communicating through video conferencing and e-mails there is
no face to face conversation between the employees. There is also the misinterpretation
of the messages between the employees of the Unilever which is resulting into higher
conflicts at the workplace between the workforce.
 Change management issue: after the Covid-19 scenario the Unilever has to adapt
several changes such as hybrid working mode, safety measures, online working and
delivery system etc. and many other technology changes in its operations all these
changes are difficult to adapt by workforce with gout proper training and development
strategy due to which the company is facing change management issue.
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Step-4 Prioritize the issue and determine the actions
The step at which the the HR manager of the Unilever will prioritize the issue and
identify the relevant strategy as the action to mitigate those issue. After the deep analysis of the
above HR issue the key prioritize issue of the HR manager is change management issue. The
issue of change management is complex as with the changing technology, current environment,
Covid-19, globalisation the company is evolving its business and bringing several changes which
are essential to be implemented and adapted by employees for successful orientation of
organisation.
To manage this issue and to manage the change the Unilever and its HR professionals
should improvise the effective change management tool such as Kotter's change management
model (Sundara and et. al., 2021). Most importantly the company must make there employees
aware about the change through effective mode of communication such as through conducting
meeting, through personal mail or call etc. Collect the resources for the effective implementation
of change of the Covid-19 such as for safety measures temperature reading machines must be
installed, vaccination camp should be arranged. For hybrid working the proper timetable and
schedule of each department must be circulated to their heads. Thus, the company must make
effective change management plan to have effective direction of planning and implementing the
change by mitigating the milestones.
Step-5 Draw up the HRM Plan
HRM plan
The HRM plan is the systematic and structured document that highlight different activities
related to the management of the employee from the starting of the recruitment to retirement.
The different elements of the HR plan are discussed below:
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Determine need: The first stage to determine the needs of the HRM plan in an organisation. In
case of Unilever the HR issue of change management is the need due to which new HRM plan is
developed. The need of the company is because the company is facing many issue due to
inappropriate management to the change occurred after the Covid-19.
Recruit: for this the Unilever must develop the recruitment strategy for the hiring the new talent
that are more comfortable with the current environment and are easy to adapt the change. The
company should opt for the virtual interview process as the recruitment option (Sara, SAPUTRA
and Utama, 2021).
Select: the Unilever must use effective brainstorming technique to selected the talented
employees for the company that could help the company in mitigating the other issue and raise
the bare of performance of Unilever.
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Illustration 1: Writing the HRM Plan,2021
(Source: Writing the HRM Plan,2021)

Develop training: the company must conduct different training programmes such as technology
training in order to work through software's while working on hybrid or remote working. Also
for the diversity the cultural and language training should be provided in Unilever.
Compensation: after the employees are trained and working hard to give their best
performance. The compensation is best part of the HR plan as by this employees feel motivated
and encouraged to work more hard and to give their best.
Appraising performance: the employees performance are re-evaluate and recognised in
Unilever through different KPIs which help in appraising the performance of the employees.
This is best as this makes the employees recognise their efforts are appraised by company
through higher employers (Qamar and Samad, 2021).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that for every organisation the human resource are
highly important for the smooth functioning of the company. But large or small organisation face
several HR issues that are irresistible and are required to be address to managed and solved. To
do this the HRM plan is derived that helps in easy analysis of the company's HR issue and also
develop some actions through which issues can be mitigated. As per the current business
environment the change management is the key HR issue for every brand.
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References:
Books and Journals
Currie, G., Spyridonidis, D. and Oborn, E., 2020. The influence of HR practices upon knowledge
brokering in professional organizations for service improvement: addressing
professional legitimacy and identity in health care. Human Resource
Management, 59(4), pp.379-395.
McDonald, C and et. al., 2020. Professional Practice in Human Service Organisations: A
practical guide for human service workers. Routledge.
Okolie, U.C., 2020. THE ADVANTAGE OF INTEGRATING HUMAN RESOURCE
PLANNING WITH CORPORATE PLANNING. Annals of Spiru Haret University.
Economic Series, 20(1), pp.25-50.
Qamar, Y. and Samad, T.A., 2021. Human resource analytics: A review and bibliometric
analysis. Personnel Review.
Sara, I., SAPUTRA, K.A.K. and Utama, I.W.K.J., 2021. The effects of strategic planning, human
resource and asset management on economic productivity: A case study in
Indonesia. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(4), pp.381-389.
Sundara, W.C and et. al., 2021. EFFECT OF HUMAN RESOURCES AND BUDGET IN
PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT FOR ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
SYSTEMS. Journal of Innovation Research and Knowledge, 1(2), pp.125-130.
Sydow, J., Wirth, C. and Helfen, M., 2020. Strategy emergence in service delivery networks:
Network‐oriented human resource management practices at German airports. Human
Resource Management Journal, 30(4), pp.566-585.
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