Unilever's Response to Equality and Diversity Issues: Project Report

This report analyzes Unilever's strategies for addressing workplace equality and diversity issues, such as the gender pay gap, sexual harassment, and gender disparities in leadership. The project sets aims and objectives, develops a project management plan with a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Gantt chart, and conducts small-scale research using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Data is collected through questionnaires and analyzed to understand the current situation and identify areas for improvement. The research explores the value of equality and diversity, potential threats of a diverse workforce, and strategies to promote a more inclusive environment. The report concludes with recommendations for Unilever to enhance its approach to equality and diversity, aiming to improve employee productivity and foster a more equitable workplace. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the project's methodology, findings, and conclusions.

Managing a Successful
Business Project

TOPIC
“How organisation responded to current issues faced due to equality as well as diversity
at workplace such as gender pay gap, sexual harassment, difference in leadership based on
gender.” A study on Unilever.
INTRODUCTION
For managing a successful organisation at international level a business needs to recruit
many individual's who consists to the various cultures, nations as well as they all have various
sets of behaviour and values which creates workforce diversity in an organisation (Allaoui,
2019). Equality refers to the term in which all individual's are treating equally or can say that
there is no discrimination on the behalf of their gender, caste etc. Which helps facilitating equal
opportunities for growth as well as development. In addition, diversity can assist in creating
more innovation in the products as well as services as all individual have unique ideas and
concepts. Workplace equality and diversity assists in responding towards the many challenges
that are currently faced by a company which includes sexual harassment, gender pay gap and
gender divide in leadership. In this report Unilever is chosen which is a British Dutch
transnational consumer good company which headquartered in London, UK and Rotterdam,
Netherlands. Under this research study about the research aims and objectives that should be
studied in this report along with the preparation of a project management plan and WBS using a
Gantt chart in order to track the activities. Moreover, conduct a small scale research and analyse
or interpreted them appropriately as well as produce recommendations and reflection on entire
project research report.
TASK 1
P1 Devise project aims and objectives.
Due to the increment in globalisation and integration of businesses the demand of
workplace equality and diversity is increasing for growth and success of an organisation
(Christian, 2019). This will helps Unilever's in optimising the workers potentiality through
provides motivation to them that are required for achieving the organisational goals as well as
objectives within a specified period of time.
AIM:
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“To find out how an organisation responds to issues related to the equality and diversity
at working premises so that employee's productivity can be improved by giving them equal
opportunity which creates healthy competition among them.”
Objectives:
 To form a broad understanding towards the concept of Unilever's workplace equality and
diversity.
 To define the influences of diversity on the performance of Unilever's manpower.
 To ascertain ways and methods through which issues related to gender pay gap, gender
divide rule in leadership as well as sexual harassment can be solved by an organisation.
Questions:
 What is the meaning of equality and diversity at workplace?
 How can the diversity influence the performance of Unilever's workers?
 What kind of strategies and ways can be adopted by the company in order to minimise
the influences of workplace equality and diversity?
P2 Produce a project management plan.
Project management plan: It is outlined as a written representation that helps to guide in
implementing and monitoring every stages of the project. This plan is developed in order to
know about the cost, scope, time, resources, risk etc. can be determined for accomplishing the
organisational objectives. The respective elements of project management plan are discussed
below: Scope: It has a wide scope for planning and developing appropriate strategies which
assists in bringing diversity and equality at workplace as well as serves more chances in
future also. Investigators realise the entire concept and value of equality and diversity that
are useful for future investigation (Dhanraj, 2015). Whereas, Unilever will be capable to
apply effective strategies in order to live long in the marketplace. Cost: This is defined as an essential aspects as it involves the estimation of overall
projects and its activities which is to be required in attaining goals and objectives of
company. Unilever assign £60000 for executing several activities like new assets
investment, changes implementation, fulfilling the needs of resources, employees training
and development program and for research and development activity which are necessary
for the completion of project according to the research data. Whereas, investigator
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approximate actual cost for managing investigation in effective manner as well as gather
valuable informations as they needed £8000. Quality: It is required while conducting research activities as that assists in collecting
precious and reliable information regarding a specific topic (Erickson, 2014). researchers
exercise qualitative and quantitative methods for this whereas, project manager of
Unilever gets benefit of correct data for executing project activities within a specified
time period. Resources: A project needs several resources such as human, technological and financial
which aids in developing their employees towards the attainment of organizational goals.
Project manager of Unilever needs money, latest technologies, efforts and planned
schedule as well for gratifying the needs of customers. Whereas, investigators requires
fund, time, fast speed of internet connection etc. to gather reliable data. Time: Investigator would needed 7 weeks time for gathering actual data in a particular
time period. Whereas, company requires 2 months for adopting strategies as well as
initiatives in a successful manner (Henry, 2014). Risk: It is termed as a basic aspects which happens while performing project activities.
investigators may face many risks such as collection of unsuitable data and sample size
that leads in delay in performance. Whereas, Unilever's manager can not enforced
strategies effectively due to the imprecise data so it develops negative workplace.
 Communication: To take diversity and equality at working environment communication
is needed to formulate appropriate strategies in order to utilise effectively to create
equality and diversity workplace. Researchers usage emails as well as telephones for
conveying with clients and team members (Honeyman, 2019). Whereas, Unilever can
adopt oral and written form of communication to facilitate an equal opportunities for
decision making as well as acquire many suggestions of workers.
P3 Work break down structure and Gantt chart.
Work breakdown structure: It is an organised approach that assists company for
undertaking several project activities. It is termed as a deliverable which assist an organisation to
divide the whole project into small and manageable sections. This kind of work arrange in a
hierarchical structure in accordance to the assigned to team members who are liable to undertake
whole project (Kassen, 2018). This will help in defining the entire project activities into
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manageable manner that will aid them to complete work without any kind of delays. For this,
investigator gets benefit for distributing whole project into small tasks as well as complete all
activities within the time-frame.
Gantt chart: It is typically known as a graphical presentation through that all events or
activities are listed along with the time period in order to be completed tasks on time. It can be
represented on mainly two axis like X and Y as vertical axis consider tasks and activities and on
horizontal axis specific timing are taken in which all activities have to be completed. As
researcher will determine all activities which they have to be considered at a time of conducting
research with the specific time intervals (King, 2018). This will assist them for conducting
research in an appropriate manner as well as redundancy related to task can be avoided by
preparing lists in advance. This helps in minimising the chances of confusion as proper
sequencing of activities will be determined which are required for performing activities.
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TASK 2
P4 Conduct small scale research.
Investigation defined as a systematic process that can be used by the investigator to
gather essential subject matter about a particular topic which will spring its contribution in
responding towards the challenges or in formulating new concepts and applications. There are
several tools and techniques that can be exercised by investigator to owed, explain as well as
measure information in order to form best decision for accomplishing investigation aims and
objectives.
Quantitative research method: Investigator collects informations that is in quantifiable
form as it is observable as well as numerical in nature. This kind of research method is more
reliable, appropriate and valuable as it provides effective conclusion towards the research
(Kordova, 2019). Investigator uses several tools and techniques of statistical and mathematical
calculations in order to conclude the research questions effectively. As in this research,
questionnaire is chosen for collecting informations.
Qualitative method of research: In this, investigator focuses on open ending discourse
to collect elaborated and reliable informations towards the behaviour and perception of various
answerers that have been determined by the researchers itself. Hereby, informations are hardly
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represent in a tabular and graphical presentation. Many resources can be effectively utilised such
as surveys, interview and observations as well.
Sources of data collection:
Primary research: This source of gathering information facilitate more applicable as
well as first hand information is collected by investigator personally through using interview,
survey, questionnaire and so forth but this kind of source is more time consuming as well as
expensive to use (Larson, 2016).
Secondary research: Data is gathered by the researcher has already exist in the market
as provided by some other researcher after conducting research activity. Hereby, the collected
information may be sometimes outdated and based on the views and perception of other people.
In this, journals, magazines, online websites as well as publications etc. are included that can be
utilized by investigator while performing research activity.
Sampling: It refers to an activity that has used by investigator to select the number of
answerers that are needed to undertake research activity and to collect accurate and reliable
information as well as attain objectives of research effectively. The sample size is ascertain on
the basis of shared attributes of different population (Ng, 2017). As researcher is adopting non-
random sampling method as well as select a sample size of 30 to gather appropriate data.
Questionnaire
Quantitative questions
Q1) Do you understand about the equality as well as diversity at working premises?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q2) What is the value and benefit of workplace equality and diversity?
a) Competitiveness of business raise
b) Gain productiveness
c) Equal opportunities
Q3) What kind of threat occurs due to the diverse workforce in Unilever's?
a) Increased group-ism
b) Communication obstacles
c) Enhanced conflicts
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Q4) What type of issue faced by Unilever's if there is inequality at workplace?
a) Decrement in productiveness
b) Increase in jealousy
c) Demotivation
Q5) Do these concepts assist company to accomplish its objectives?
a) Yes
b) No
Q6) Why is the importance of workplace diversity?
a) Pool of varied ideas
b) Innovations rise
Q7) What type of strategy for increasing workplace equality?
a) Training and development programmes
b) Performance appraisal
c) Inspiriting equal participation
Qualitative questions
Q8) What are the issues related to equality and diversity at Unilever?
a) Increase in gender pay gap
b) Sexual harassment
c) Gender divide in leadership
Q9) Methods through which these challenges can be dealt effectively?
a) Increasing women empowerment
b) Managers awareness about these problems
c) Quick response
Q10) Any suggestions?
TASK 3
P5 Analyse research and data by using appropriate tools.
Theme 1: Understanding about the concept of equality and diversity at working premises.
Q1) Do you understand about the concept of equality and diversity at
working premises?
Frequency
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a) Agree 20
b) Disagree 10
20
10
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Interpretation: From the above data interpretation and chart it has been analysed that out of the
total 30 respondents, 20 answerers are in favour of that they know about the concept of equality
and diversity at workplace. Whereas 10 are disagree on that question as they don't understand
about the workplace equality as well as diversity.
Theme 2: Value and benefit of these concepts.
Q2) What is the value and benefit of these concepts? Frequency
a) Competitiveness of business raise 10
b) Gain productiveness 12
c) Equal opportunities 8
8

10
12
8
a) Competitiveness of
business raise
b) Gain productiveness
c) Equal opportunities
Interpretation: It has been interpreted from the above table and graph that out of the 30
respondents, 12 are in favour of that equality and diversity at working environment helps in
increasing the productiveness, 10 considers that it will helps in increasing the competitiveness
and rest of the respondents thinks that it will help in providing equal opportunities to all.
Theme 3: Threat occurs due to the diverse workforce in Unilever's.
Q3) What kind of threat occurs due to the diverse workforce in Unilever's? Frequency
a) Increased group-ism 16
b) Communication barriers 6
c) Increased conflicts 8
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16
6
8
a) Increased group-ism
b) Communication barriers
c) Increased conflicts
Interpretation: It has been viewed from the above presentation that out of 30 answerers 16
believes that due to the diverse manpower the activity of group-ism is increased. 8 thinks that
diverse workforce increases the conflicts among individual's and remaining consider that it
creates some kind of communication obstacles. (Northouse, 2017).
Theme 4: Issue faced by Unilever's if there is no equality at working environment.
Q4) What type of issue faced by Unilever's if there is no equality at working
environment?
Frequency
a) Decrement in productivity 14
b) Increase in jealousy 5
c) Demotivation 11
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