Unilever's HRM: Impact of HR Activities on Organizational Strategy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's Human Resource Management (HRM). It begins with an introduction outlining Unilever's purpose, mission, vision, and goals, emphasizing its commitment to sustainable practices and its impact on various stakeholders. The report then examines Unilever's products, customer base, and services, highlighting its diverse portfolio and customer-centric approach. Further, it investigates the influence of external factors, including political, social, technological, and legal aspects, on Unilever's operations. The core of the report delves into Unilever's organizational structure, specifically its divisional structure, and explores the functions of Human Resources, Marketing, Research and Development, and Finance. The report also examines the cross-functional relationships between these departments, illustrating how they collaborate to achieve organizational objectives. Additionally, it analyzes Unilever's organizational culture, focusing on its role culture and its impact on employee empowerment and organizational performance. Finally, the report analyzes how HR activities support the organization's strategy, emphasizing the role of HR professionals in supporting line managers and contributing to the overall success of Unilever.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Purpose and Goals of Unilever.........................................................................................1
1.2 Products, customer's and services of Unilever.................................................................1
1.3 Impact of External factors on Unilever ...........................................................................2
2.1 Divisional Organisational structure: ................................................................................3
2.2 Cross functional relationship:...........................................................................................4
2.3 Culture of the organisation:..............................................................................................5
3.1 Analyse how HR activities support Organizations Strategy ...........................................5
3.2 Role of HR professionals in supporting Line managers...................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
MAIN BODY
1.1 Purpose and Goals of Unilever
Unilever is a British company that deals in consumer goods that includes food and
beverages, Beauty products, cleaning agents and personal care products. The company was
founded in 1929 by William Lever. It is amongst the oldest MNC's and it's products are
accessible to 190 countries. Unilever possess more than 400 brands(Kadiresan and et.al., 2015)
Purpose : The purpose of Unilever states that to achieve success it requires the company to
maintain the standards towards each and everyone Unilever is working with that includes the
communities for whom they are producing the goods and the environment which is impacted by
the operations of the company.
Mission : The mission of Unilever is to add energy to customer's life. To meet the day to day
necessity for nutrition, personal care and hygiene with brands that enhances the feeling inside
people to feel good, look great and get the most out of life(Pereira, 2017).
Vision : The vision of Unilever is to make their customer's life sustainable. And the company
believes that this best way that will help their business to grow in long run.
Goals : The goal of Unilever is to help more than a billion people in taking such action that will
improve their health and well being by 2020. By 2030 the goal is to half the environmental
effects on the business as it grows and by 2020 will improve the living standards of millions of
people as their business grows.
The company is motivated by a sense of aim that connects them to the foundation
companies and their missions to improve the health, hygiene and livelihoods in the society.
They believe that organizations must contribute positively to address the issues faced by the
world and by this they can also succeed. In 2010, Unilever launched a Sustainable Living Plan
that laid the design plan for achieving the Sustainability targets(Homberg and Vogel, 2016)
1.2 Products, customer's and services of Unilever
Unilever owns 400 brands and is dealing in various kind of products such as beauty
products, personal care, cleaning agents and food & beverages. It is a dual listed MNC.
FOOD:- Salt, Atta, Coffee, Tea, Ketchups, Knorr soups, Ice cream, etc.
HOME CARE BRANDS :- Active Wheel, Comfort, Domex, Rin etc.
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PERSONAL CARE BRANDS :- Axe, Dove, Close Up, Clinic Plus, Fair & Lovely, Lakme etc.
Unilever provide quality products and services to it's customer's that why since 89 years the
customer's are trusting the brand and the products created by Unilever. Services provided by the
company is are satisfactory that consumers never thought of turning their back towards the
brand. Company has developed a process to collect the customer's feedback regarding the
product and services and consider every single detail and if needed they bring the modification in
their process accordingly. As in the modern world everything is developing through internet the
company thought of promoting their products and services and increase their sales through
digital market. Unilever after launching new products has developed such strategies that attract
the customer's and they promote their product by giving sample's of the products and by
providing discounts on the products, so this will attract the customer's and will increase the sales
of Unilever. These all services has hold the trust of the customer's and they stick by the
brand(Ridder and Baluch, 2017).
1.3 Impact of External factors on Unilever
Political factors: These includes governmental factors. The policies and regulations made by the
government affect the company directly. Policies that include in the political factors are tax
reforms that impact Unilever. Political stability is an opportunity for the company as they need
not to change their policies. Intra-governmental relations will be beneficial for the and they will
provide opportunities to Unilever. The threat includes the policies of government related to
health of the population will be a major threat to Unilever.
Social factors: The social factors consist of beliefs, values and lifestyle of the customer's and the
culture followed in that particular region. In the modern states customer's want to have good
lifestyle and they found Unilever's a luxury product. The population of States is more conscious
about the health and Unilever is making products that are good for health and has differentiated
on the basis of diabetic and non diabetic products. But there is a threat that customer's even
believe in purchasing from local and cheap brands and that will be impact the growth of
Unilever(Gill and et.al., 2018)
Technological factors: The research and development in the good producing companies is
always moderate and this is an opportunity for Unilever. The improvement in technology is an
opportunity for Unilever. As the trend of automation is increasing so companies like Unilever
has the opportunity to expand their businesses in the international companies. The other
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technological advancements are promoting the products through internet and other modern and
new tricks.
Legal Factors : The legal factors bind the competitors and Unilever together. Regulations like
health and safety are providing opportunities for the company. Other legal views of the
government will directly impact the Unilever. The legal regulations sometimes bind the
companies and act as a hurdle in the path of expansion. There are certain benefits of legal rules
and regulations such as this will give more organized environment for Unilever.
2.1 Divisional Organisational structure:
Divisional organizational structure manages the business activities of the organization and it
works by grouping different talents together of the employees to take the responsibility of
particular skill, for managing specific product or services. Unilever company has applied
divisional organizational division in its firm. Divisional organizational structure does not allow
different functional departments to work together to have easy communication with each other
and made them set their own goals.
Four Functions within organization:
Human resource : Human resource staff of the Unilever company oversees working of
employees and their issues or benefits along with recruiting, hiring, or training process, culture,
growth and economy of the organization. Their main goal is to increase effectiveness of the
company by managing needs or demands of the workers and they play the main role of
designing, handling, executing and supervising rules and regulations which is followed by the
employees of the organization.
Marketing : Marketing section of the Unilever company involves product development and
relationship management in between the customers and products. Their major purpose is to
develop and promote goods and services and offered by the company and to increase number of
sales. Marketing department includes research and planning of business, accompanied with
advertisement, promotion, branding and distribution of products for sale and also involve post
customer services with maintaining a link with the customers(Donate, Peña and Sanchez de
Pablo, 2016)..
Research and development : This department shows introduction of new services, and
enhancement of old one to retain marketing position and competition. This involves investigation
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about the offered goods and services accompanied, its demand in the market by customers, and
creation of new and innovative services to attract large amount of customers. They have a vital
role in developing and achieving the goals of the Unilever company.
Finance : This function describes keeping past or current financial records and managing or
planning budget for further investment. This includes managing, accounting, investing, and
raising funds of the Unilever company. Their major purpose is to maximize the economy of the
firm and to develop the business.
2.2 Cross functional relationship:
Marketing with finance : Finance and marketing department of the Unilever company closely
work together as finance section set budget for marketing while marketing section will spend
money which is given by finance section for advertising and promoting their products to
maximize the number of sales, and for organizing events to reach the objectives of the firm.
HR with marketing : Marketing staff promote the vacancies to large number of audience as
they are directly connected with the customers, and describe the need of the number of workers
required to handle different departments in the Unilever company, while HR will identify best
talents and will recruit potential employees for every available vacancy to reach the success of
the business. HR and marketing department work together to find out the best candidates for
expansion of the firm(Donate, Peña and Sanchez de Pablo, 2016).
HR with finance : Finance department will set the budget for the recruiting process and pass it
to the HR section for recruiting the best desired candidates for the company. While HR will
spend money in recruiting or hiring process to find best and potential candidates for the
company. HR and finance department work together for identifying higher efficiency people to
achieve the higher level of profitability for the Unilever company.
HR with research & development : Research and development department of Unilever
company will investigate about the demands of the customers and for production of new
innovative products so that they can attract large audience and can maintain brand position and
their competition in the market while HR will hire the candidate with the fresh and new ideas for
achieving the demands of Research and development department.
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2.3 Culture of the organisation:
Power culture : In this type of culture, only few people have the power and are allowed to form
rules and regulations and to make decision to run the whole organisation. In this, leaders give
responsibility and make decision for employees which strictly has to be followed without any
interruption but they lacks liberty of sharing their views or ides(Budhwar, 2016).
Task culture : In task culture, teams are made mixing the right talent together, and all the team
leaders are allowed to make their decisions to. In this culture, more number of people are
available for decision making, hence different leaders are there for specific problems, or for
handling different projects. In this, all the members can equally contribute for different task.
Person culture : In person culture, employees are given more importance than the organisation.
This culture can harm and can become the reason for the failure of the firm. In person culture,
employees are only concerned for money and work only for their own benefits and never get
connected with the company.
Role culture : In this culture, every employ of the company has given equal importance and
equal opportunities. They are their own decision makers, and are allowed to choose and have the
responsibilities which is related to their specialization or their qualification. This culture helps
each and every employ to accept their challenges so that they can take out the best out of them.
Unilever is following role culture because it helps the organization to take out the best
from the employees and allow them to implement new, developed, innovative and different
strategies to run the business to achieve the goals and objectives of the firm and also helps in
maximizing number of sales to have large amount of profits(Brewster and Söderström, 2017)
3.1 Analyse how HR activities support Organizations Strategy
The Human Resource activities plays an vital role in supporting the organizations
strategies. The Human resource department of Unilever organize various training and
development programs for their employees so they can work in a more effective way according
to the business strategy of Unilever. Along with this the company go through recruitment and
selection process to Hire new potential skill candidates which can help them to achieve their
business objectives and goals according to the business strategy which the Unilever company has
implemented in the business to increase the growth of their business.
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3.2 Role of HR professionals in supporting Line managers
HR managers support the line managers by providing a peaceful environment to each and
every employee. As if the employees have a flexible working environment this will help the
managers to retain their best employees. Employees work comfortably in the peaceful
surroundings, as they will be happy when their opinions are heard and applied in the problems
they feel happy and confident that they are treated as a part of the process. This motivates them
to support the goals of the organizations (Binyamin and Carmeli, 2017). HR Managers provide
training to the employees and provide support to the line managers. Giving training and
developing the skills in the employees according to the need or the requirement is an important
task that HR managers do. The professionals provide solutions to the problem that are generated
in between employees and line managers. They listen to both the parties and come with a fair
solution and give their judgment. Grievance handling is the crucial task that a HR manager does,
to maintain a peaceful environment in the organizations. HR manager of Unilever perform all the
above function mentioned that support the line managers. They try to keep the environment
supportive and friendly for the employees, make sure that the problems faced by the employees
are resolved or addressed in the given time. And right training is given to the employees and and
at right time. HR at Unilever support the Line managers by recruiting the best candidates that
will fulfill the requirement of the company and will achieve the goals of the company on time
and as desired. Managers are very supportive as they work in accordance with the line
managers(Albrecht And et.al., 2015)
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been summarized that effective Human resource
management plays an important role in growth and development of the company. This files is
based on the Unilever company which is United Kingdom based company. The above files has
discussed about the purpose, goals and Products, customer's and services of Unilever as well as
the impact of External factors on Unilever which includes PESTLE analysis of the company.
This report has also concluded the Culture of the Unilever company, Cross functional
relationship of the company and the Divisional Organizational structure of the company. At last
the report has highlighted about the HR activities support Organizations Strategy along with
Roles of HR professionals in supporting Line managers of Unilever company
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