Talent Management Strategies: Unilever Case Study Analysis

This case study examines Unilever's talent management approach, focusing on its HR vision, leadership strategies, and recruitment processes. The analysis delves into how Unilever identifies, develops, and retains talent to achieve its revenue goals. It explores the company's emphasis on people, place, and performance, highlighting its commitment to employee growth and development through training workshops and performance management systems. The study investigates the importance of senior management's focus on market forecasts and human resource needs, including the identification of talent gaps and the use of employer branding for recruitment. Furthermore, it discusses the role of leadership in the organization, the importance of maintaining a consistent brand storyline across different national cultures, and the adaptation of recruitment strategies for diverse regions, such as Egypt. Finally, it assesses the applicability of Unilever's talent management approach to smaller organizations, proposing a talent management model for a fictional competitor.

Running Head: Talent Management
Talent Management
Unilever

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Table of Content
Task 1........................................................................................................................................... 2
Task 2........................................................................................................................................... 2
Task 3........................................................................................................................................... 3
Task 4........................................................................................................................................... 5
References.................................................................................................................................. 6

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Task 1: Carry out research and try and unveil how the Unilever People
Place and Performance HR vision works. If you are unable to find it
online, then put yourself in the position of a newly recruited Talent
Manager in the HR department and design the strategy that will help
you cover the three challenges
Unilever is one of the largest FMCG Company headquartered in London and
holding a presence in over 190 countries. The company has been serving
more than a billion customers and spreading smiles worldwide by its high
quality products. The company has recently identified that it has to reach a
target of 80 Billion Euros in revenue to bring sustainability in its business
model. The company has considers its employees in the highest of the spirit
and thus, special emphasis is given on the People, Process and Place in the
organization(Payne 75).
People-Unilever goes to some of the best universities across the globe and
picks up the best suited candidate for the job. The company then nurtures
the talent by providing them ample of training workshop for their growth
and development. Unilever scouts for talent even in the remotest part of
nations and identifies and picks the candidate whom they feel would push
the organization to the zenith of success.
Place-Unilever have appeared in the Forbes 500 list many a times and
similarly in the Top 50 places to work in, this goes on to reflect that the
organization provides for its employees a space filled with motivation,
learning, growth, development, fun, leisure and flexibility. Due to all the
above mentioned factors Unilever creates a great place for the employees.
Performance-Unilever has a responsibility towards its employees; the
company has to ensure that it extracts the best performance out of the

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individuals and then the entire team. In order to do so, the manager
motivates and pushes the staff to work with enhanced productivity. The HR
team at Unilever is always focussed on making the lives of its employees
better, easier and comfortable. Plethora of motivation theories like Maslow,
Herzberg, Theory of X & Y etc. are used to motivate the employees and
make them perform at exceptional level.
Task 2
Part 1: Why is it important for senior management, including HR
management, to focus on mid and long-term market forecasts and
human resource needs?
At present Unilever earned revenue of 40 Billion Euros and now the
company is walking on the path of achieving revenue of 80 Billion Euros.
Achieving this Behemoth number is certainly not an easy task, however
with the able help of the management and the HR team. The company can
look for the people with the calibre to carry the company to achieve
revenue of 80 Billion Euros. Thus, the teams have to start work now in
looking for the candidates in the short term, train them and prepare them
for the leadership journey in the coming years (Ulrich & James 200).
Part 2: What crucial information would you include in the analysis of
your human capital to cover foreseeable gaps?
Unilever selects and recruits the candidates on the basis of their potential
and not on the basis of the present skill sets in an individual. The company
always looks for the candidate who has the zeal, dedication and discipline
to work, irrespective of type and time of the work. The company does
training assessment of such candidates by finding the gap between the

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required skill sets and the present skill sets. Thus, helping the employees to
learn and grow along with the organization (Goodman, Edward & Paul
140).
Part 3: What procedure would you do to identify the existing talent in
your company and what tools would you use to recruit new talent?
Unilever follows a talent model, where 70% of the talent is built up and the
rest 30 % is the buy in. This clearly reflects how seriously Unilever takes
the training and development of its employees and work to build them for
the future. The company has a 360 degree Performance management
system through which it assesses and evaluates the performance of its
employees, round the clock. In the same process, it gives constructive
feedback to the employees and creates a performance development plan
for them. Thus, the company is easily able to identify the growing talent in
the organization, thus they pick such budding talent and put them into a
fast paced career graph.
It is most definitely not an easy task at hand to recruit the new talent, the
team of HR has to be extremely sharp while looking for a candidate and
then recruiting him. The first of the many strategies which can be used is
the Employer branding, conducting efficient employer branding on social
media channels, Linked in and other such platforms. This will put out the
word in the market as to Unilever is looking for new talent, who then can
be approached by the HR team (Brewster 30).

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Task 3
Part 1: What role does leadership play within an organization and
why is it so crucial for Unilever and how would you describe
leadership and what main attributes/values would you associate to it?
Leadership is the art of influencing, motivating and leading the individual,
team and the entire organization on the path of sustained growth and
development. Leadership has the added responsibility not only towards the
organization, but also towards its employees. Leadership at Unilever has a
strong role to play in terms of talent management, creation of a talent pool,
creation of leadership and development program, creating effective and
fast track learning and development goals for the employees and then
make them go on the path of success. Some of the few qualities which are
essential in a leader are; Futuristic vision, communication excellence,
People skills, ability to inspire and transpire people (Demirtas & Asuman
62).
Part 2: Why is it so important to maintain the same “storyline” but
adapting it to the different national cultures where this company has
operations?
Adopting the same story line helps the organization to focus on its brand
identity. The same storyline is also an indication that the company
irrespective of its headquarters provides the same values, culture and
belief in all its subsidiary units. The storyline serves as the preamble for the
organization, and giving it the taste of national culture makes the storyline
more relevant in domestic market. Thus, same storyline is a reflection of
consistent efforts of Unilever to build a culture beyond the boundaries of

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water and land, only emphasizing on adhering and respecting the culture of
the domestic people(
Part 3: Design a story to recruit talent for Egypt and explain whether
it works for other non-Arab nations and why?
In order to recruit the talent in Egypt the company has to mostly go with
traditional recruitment strategy along with web 2.0 tools of marketing. IN
Egypt people mostly like to read newspaper, watch television and read the
hoardings outside the roads. The company thus have to come up with
advertisement in the daily newspaper, asking for a drive in the office space.
Apart from newspaper ad, subtle advertising on Billboard, hoarding and
radio will help Unilever to get a huge chunk of audience for the Interview.
The efforts have to be equally supported by Social media platforms as well.
In my opinion I believe that Non Arabian states have to go forward with the
Social media tools such as Linked in, Facebook and other digital media
tools. People staying in non-Arab countries are actively scouting for job on
various social media sites and job portals.
Task 4
Using your analytical skills, do you believe that the Unilever approach
can be used by smaller and less global organizations and why?
Design a Talent Management approach for a small Unilever
competitor (it can be a fictional organization)
It is a little difficult for smaller organisations to spend too much on the
recruiting activities for hiring the best possible talent available in the
market. Thus, these kinds of organizations have to go forward with organic

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way in managing the talent. Thus, the organic ways to manage the talent
are; Linked in, Facebook, Usage of bloggers, Website promotions, Action to
call pages on the website, referral and sharing of job post by HR
executives(Lievens & Jerel 420).
Smaller organizations have to rely mostly on social media posts and on its
employees to give referral of the candidates interested in the job. Also,
social media platforms and Glassdoor can be used as effective way to
spread the positive word of mouth about the organization, thus helping in
the talent management process.
Work-Cited
Brewster, Chris. "The integration of human resource management and
corporate strategy." Policy and practice in European human resource
management. Routledge, 2017. 22-35.
Demirtas, Ozgur, and A. Asuman Akdogan. "The effect of ethical leadership
behavior on ethical climate, turnover intention, and affective
commitment." Journal of Business Ethics 130.1 (2015): 59-67.

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Goodman, Doug, P. Edward French, and R. Paul Battaglio Jr. "Determinants
of local government workforce planning." The American Review of Public
Administration 45.2 (2015): 135-152.
Lievens, Filip, and Jerel E. Slaughter. "Employer image and employer
branding: What we know and what we need tknow." Annual Review of
Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 3 (2016): 407-440.
Payne, Alison Jane. "‘The growing practice of calling in continental film
groups’: The European influence on production of early British TV
advertising." VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture 6.11
(2017): 70-80.
Sparrow, Paul, Martin Hird, and Cary L. Cooper. "Strategic Talent
Management." Do We Need HR?. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015. 177-
212.
Ulrich, Dave, and James H. Dulebohn. "Are we there yet? What's next for
HR?." Human Resource Management Review25.2 (2015): 188-204.