BTEC HND Unit 35: HR Report on Developing Individuals at Unilever Plc

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's human resource management practices, focusing on the development of individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole. It begins with an introduction to the importance of employee development and its impact on organizational performance. The report then delves into the knowledge, skills, and behaviors of HR professionals, followed by a job advertisement example and a skills audit to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A detailed development plan is presented to address skill gaps. The report further explores organizational and individual learning, training, and development, emphasizing continuous learning to drive sustainable business performance. The contribution of a high-performance workforce to employee engagement and competitive advantage is discussed, along with various performance management approaches. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and providing recommendations for Unilever to enhance its HR strategies and achieve its business objectives.

Table of Content
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours of HR Professionals.............................................................1
Job Advertisement.......................................................................................................................3
Skills Audit..................................................................................................................................4
Development Plan........................................................................................................................5
LO2..................................................................................................................................................6
Organizations and individual learning, training and development..............................................6
Continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business performance 8
LO 3...............................................................................................................................................10
Contribution of HPW to employee engagement and competitive advantage............................10
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................12
Performance Management ........................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Development is the process of increase the performance according to requirement in
order to achieve objectives and increase the potential of an individual effectively (Ożga and
Stelmaszczyk, 2016). It is very essential for business to adopt development process to increase
the performance of the organization and increase the productivity in the market effectively. It is
very important for business to determine skills and knowledge of human resources as they are
the key resources which help to achieve objectives of business organization effectively. Human
resources management is responsible to understand all the requirement of skills and knowledge
of employees in an organization which help to increase the potential of the company to achieve
objectives effectively. Due to increase in competition in market there is an urgent need for
businesses to attain leadership by increasing the potential of employees and improve customer
service engagement level effectively.
This report has a detailed study of skills and knowledge of human resource management
of Unilever Plc which deals in consumer products in international market. Company is
established in London, UK. Report provides a detailed job description and portfolio by
conducting skill audit and development plan to increase efficiency of workforce of Unilever. In
addition, report highlights importance of training and development of employees and need to
personal development in company growth. Furthermore, report discusses value of high
performance workforce which contributes in increasing competitive advantage of Unilever in
market and analysis of different performance management approaches which helps organization
to achieve their objectives by making their high performance workforce and teams effectively.
LO 1
Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours of HR Professionals
Human resource managers are the individuals who have the potential to increase the high
performance workforce of the organization by developing their personal skills and knowledge to
understand all the factors to attract better employees in the organization (Mahatanankoon, 2016).
Unilever has to understand all the skills, knowledge and behaviours of human resource managers
in the organization which help them to improve healthy working environment effectively.
Knowledge
1

Human resources managers have the knowledge to improve employee relation sin the
organization and increase the potential of company. Human resource manager has the ability to
perform job analysis to gather better information about all factors to develop effective job
description and formulate effective recruitment and selection process of Unilever. Human
resource manager also have the ability to motivate their employees by formulating effective
strategies and increase the quality of healthy working environment to retain them in the company
effectively (Bogler and Somech, 2019). They also have the knowledge to develop effective
human resource information system which helps to increase the potential of the company to gain
higher information to take decisions effectively. Human resources manager has knowledge to
analyse performance of employees to provide them training and development and increase their
required skills and knowledge of Unilever to achieve market competition and gain higher profit
margins to grow and expand business in new markets effectively. They also have the proper
knowledge of management principles to motivate employees and increase their team work and
collaborative practices which helps to increase the shared value din the company and make them
more effective to achieve the objectives effectively. It is very essential for human resource
management to adopt different techniques to evaluate the needs and wants of employees to
develop effective motivation strategies and increase their performance effectively. Human
resources have the potential knowledge to increase the effectiveness of the company effectively
to draft pay scale of the employees to increase their job satisfaction.
Skills
Communication Skill
Every human resource manager need to have effective communication skill which helps
to increase the transparency of information which is provided to employees (Hanlan, 2017).
Effective communication skill in organization will help Unilever to retain more employees with
increased organization culture due to improved shared values. This also helps employees to
integrate with the vision of the company and increase their efforts to achieve objectives
effectively.
Organisation Skill
It is very essential for manager to develop effective organizational structure which helps
to increase potential of company by providing more authorities who can guide employees and
support them to attain better performance to attain objectives. Unilever has very effective human
2

resource managers as they provide effective coordination between all the human resource
function like, recruitment, selection, motivation and retention to grow company and reduce cost.
Decision-making Skill
Potential human resource manager has the skill to make effective decisions by analysing
available resources and experiences. Human resources has the ability to develop effective plan
and policies to increase fundamental functioning of Unilever effectively.
Training and Development Skill
Human resource manager need to develop effective training and development skill to
provide effective knowledge and information to employees of the organization effectively.
Financial Skill
Financial skill helps to increase the potential of human resource manager to develop
effective budgets for all the recruitment and selection activities. Remuneration calculation to
reduce cost and increase profit margins (Meneghel, Martínez and Salanova, 2016). This skill
helps Unilever to motivate employees by financial benefits.
Interpersonal Skill
Interpersonal skill is very essential for human resource manager to increase employees
relation and understand their feelings and behaviour to make effective policies and increase their
performance. This skill also help Unilever to retain employees in the organization effectively.
Behaviour
As human resource managers are very essential for growth of the organization they are
also having very high accountability which develop stress and workload to provide potential
workforce and provide them adequate salary to retain and also keeping in mind the limited
resources of the company and focus on improving brand value with high performance workforce
(Hornsby, 2018).
Job Advertisement
This is a job description by Unilever company for external learning and development consultant
to increase performance of employees.
Job Title: Learning and Development Consultant
Reporting : Human Resource Head
Main Function: The main function of external consultant is to provide learning and
development action for employees of Unilever to increase their performance. To provide
3

effective guidance to human resource managers about effective development and learning
techniques which help to formulate effective strategies to improve efficiency of employees of
company.
Role Responsibilities :
 Providing knowledge and experiences to human resource department and formulate
effective development plan for Unilever.
 Analysing all the available resources to increase the potential of training and
development activities.
 Generating and rectifying policies for employee benefit.
 Increase satisfaction of stakeholders by increasing performance of company in the
market with effective strategies.
 Perform all the human resource function to improve the quality of company's working
environment.
Skills Audit
It is the process to identify personal skills to become more potential and gain higher skills
and knowledge to achieve objectives (Thayer, Petruzzelli and McClurg, 2018). Skills audit is a
gap analysis of person or company between current skills and expected skills to increase
performance.
Strengths
 I am effective in managing people and understanding their behaviour to make effective
strategies.
 Effective communication skills help me to provide effective information to listener and
also have ability to listen by noting all the information in a notebook. I also have effective knowledge about technological skill to make adopt current trends.
Weaknesses
 I am ineffective in personal development planning which can reduce my chances to be
selected as external training and development consultant of Unilever. I have effective knowledge to guide other however I lack influencing abilities to
4

motivate them and increase their performance.
Opportunities
 By developing all my skill I can be selected as an external employee of Unilever to
support human resource functions and provide them information. After developing all the factors it will also help me to increase my personal skill like
interpersonal skills, innovative skills, influencing skills.
Threats
 As all the skills are common and I need to increase my uniqueness and confidence skill
to become Unilever's consultant.
 There are many potential consultants in the market wit more experience to get the job in
Unilever effectively.
Development Plan
Skills to develop Activities Resources Needed Time Interval
Time
management skill
I will divide my task in
small parts and allocate
time to each part to
increase my
performance to attain
efficiency.
I will need to develop
action plan before
starting work.
3 weeks
Innovative skill I will read more books
and interact with more
people to gain better
information.
With the help of internet
I can learn more and
develop effective
thinking process by
eating and sleeping
healthy (Thayer,
Petruzzelli and
McClurg, 2018).
6 weeks
Team work skill By playing games in a
team it will increase my
By learning about every
team member it will
5 weeks
5

team coordination skill. help me to make
effective decision and
manage them
effectively.
LO2
Organizations and individual learning, training and development.
Organizational learning can be understood as the criteria of formal learning of new
technology implementation, creating innovation in business learning and transferring knowledge
in employees to enhance their fundamental skills, flexibility at workplace. Organizational
learning motivates employees by giving them platforms to enhance their operational skills and
build their competitiveness to reach the set benchmarks with strong performance. Unilever
company aims to build diverse workforce structure by providing training and development
platforms to employees and valuing their contributions as long term asset of brand value
(Antony,Laux and Cudney, 2019).
Whereas individual learning can be understood as self-growth accomplishments and
enhancing the parameters of knowledge for learning advance skills to reach high performance in
career goals. The need for learning and professional development is highly important to drive
high sustainable business performance and grow dynamically with evaluation of personal growth
factors. Individual learning can be done with strategic and tactical gaols formulation to learn
innovative skills for applying in business performance delivery.
Gap analysis- It refers to method of assessing the differences in performance standards between
business information systems or software applications for determining quality of present
production standards. Unilever company by using GAP analysis establish ideal future state
production targets and compare with the current scenario of business revenue, the gap will be
able to describe how much progress has been achieved by company management and quantity
percentage of increase in revenue margins can be assessed.
Skill evaluation- Unilever must conduct seminars and barnstorming sessions for skill evaluation
of employees and analysing their growth potentialities from past and present platforms and
determining their future growth parameters. Skill evaluation helps leaders and supervisors to
6

record employees performance reports and train them to increase performance standards in
production department and customer satisfaction services (Azzam, He and Sarpong, 2020).
Individual, teams and organization skill sets Formal learning: Top management and HR professionals have the role to build diverse
skill sets and advanced technology usage in employees as part of formal training in
Unilever. Formal learning parameters involve leaders training the employees for cost
effective production targets and reaching the set benchmarks with strong efficiency.
Employees and management are the real face of brand whose operational efficiency has
long termed impact on reaching customers in market share. Informal learning: Learning new interpersonal skills while working in groups evaluates
personal growth on various parameters as computers gain knowledge on communication
skills and management principles. Informal learning experience prepare individuals for
longevity in their business careers and academic professionals. Learning is determined
and implemented by gaining training from superiors and leaders in company. Informal
learning paves out ways for employees to gain practical experience of working under
pressure with other supervisors and team members which motivates and skill them to
reach high performance standards (Crews and Butterfield,2020).
Kolb Learning cycle:
 The four stages of Kolb learning cycle theory includes concrete experience, reflective
observations of experiences, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation which
determine present growth factors and future potentialities.
 Implementing learning cycle theories is of utmost important for continuous professional
development as it generate innovative learning opportunities for employees which builds
them with high competitive strengths for facing contiguous situations in production
fields. Kolbs learning cycle theory emphasis on reflection learning where employees gain
new experience and build new advanced skills while working with superiors and leaders.
 Unilever company can train employees in production and other departments by
evaluating there performances with Kol learning cycle theory, where they can enhance
their skills by observing and assimilating the key areas where they need to learn from
supervisors (Kulakow, 2020).
7

 Unilever by providing training to employees keep them highly motivated and retained in
company for longer periods. High retention power keeps company brand value high in
industry as large cost-effectiveness is maintained of resources.
Continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business performance
Continuous learning and professional development is highly relevant need important for
driving sustainable business performative growth for reaching long term profits and high revenue
margins in dynamic business world. Unilever management may focus on various theories which
can be used to implement innovative learning potentialities in employees for reaching high
performance standards in completion of set benchmarks and production targets (Li and Miller
2020).
Cognitive learning theory
Cognitive learning Theory is broad framework which explains deep thinking abilities and
mental processes if individuals and how they are able to gain positive influence from internal and
external factors in order to produce innovative learning. The cognitive processes are observing,
categorizing and performing generalizations about company operational structure. Cognitive
learning theory explores the material and develop deeper understanding of cognitive skills which
enables employees to gain practical field knowledge and enhance their mental abilities to
generate ideas and innovation in thinking patterns for reaching new potability margins and
paradigms of company success.
Kurt lewin learning cycle theory
Kurt Lewin learning theory is another important model of learning which explains
psychological learning impacts with variable behaviour patterns of individuals. Awareness of life
space and external business world learning platforms helps people to make logical prediction
about future p performance growth. Unilever by applying this model of learning enable strong
behavioural motivation patterns between individuals ad their respective team leaders as every
person behaviour can be analysed and positive learnings can be taken as motivation.
The need of recognition also motivates them to learn new advance skills and perform according
to new parameters set by leaders in their working department.
Barriers to learning
8

 There are some barriers to learning in internal and external environment of company
where employees gain negative experience which affects their psychological abilities and
physical well-being factors. These barriers affect their potentiality levels highly by
negative percentage as it demotivate them to gain new experiences and practical
knowledge necessary for reaching the set production targets and benchmarks.
 Cognitive barriers have large negative impacts on employees' performance growth as it
hinders the generation of ideas and information networking which demotivate employees
and also lowers their productivity factors to great extent (Martínez-Costa,Jiménez-
Jiménez and Dine Rabeh, 2019). Psychological barriers can be understood as the factors which stop the growing
potentialities of individuals and negatively demotivate them and their working standards.
Such barriers create difference in employees mental process to get supervision from
leaders and supervisors and it also disables them to evolve in professional career.
Steps to overcome barriers
 Such barriers can be eliminated by motivating employees to establish strong conversation
between all supervisors and the appointed leaders in groups through which employees
can stay motivated and achieve set targets with high efficiency. They shall be given
platforms and brainstorming sessions shall be held in company for giving them
opportunities to evolve and develop their fundamental operational skills.
 Unilever company must held training and development seminars in production
departments where employees can gain new skills under strong supervision of
experienced leaders. The feedback and grievances of employees should be given high
importance and their problems should be addressed by leaders for building their
confidence in working patterns and maintaining strong evaluation points of performance
delivery in company (Saepurokhman,2020).
 Employees should be given career advancement options and professional guidance by
their peers through which they can enhance heir learning skills and develop strong
potentialities to cultivate throe functional operations in Unilever. This will solve their
psychological barriers to large extent as it will allow employees to gain knowledge of
future horizons where they can enhance their determinant paradigms.
9

 Employees can be given incentives and monetary benefits on their higher performance
records and recognition by leaders which will motivate them in future for ehanced
delivery of company et targets and goals. Through these initiatives Unilever can develop
strong competitive workforce with high commitment and strong beliefs of handwork and
advanced skills.
LO 3
Contribution of HPW to employee engagement and competitive advantage
In order to achieve the goals and objectives of an organization it is very essential for
Unilever to have a high performance of the employees so that the demands and needs of the
customers can be met from time to time. There are a lot of factors which are not working in
Unilever regarding the employees which is making the performance of the company be a
competitive advantage for a long run. Unilever is having a high labour turnover and the
performance of the company is falling with time because the company is not being able to
provide the employees with the facilities and the environment in which they will be able to
function more effectively. These factors have to be improved so that the company can get a high
performance and the company will be able to get a strong customer base in the company.
The human resource will have to understand the needs of the employees so that the
decisions can be made accordingly which is going to be very helpful for a better future of the
company in market. The performance and the revenue generation of the company is falling
because they are not being able to have a better strategy for themselves. There are a lot of
technological changes which are taking place in the organization but the employees are not
adapting to them since there is no motivation in them (Nachmias, Aravopoulou and Caven,
2019). Employees have to be motivated so that they can adapt to the changes which the company
is adapting to and the trends which are changing with the change in customer needs and demands
so that they can have a better market for themselves.
Characteristics of HPW in Unilever
There are a lot of characteristics which are present in high performance management
which is going to be very helpful for the company so that they can improve the performance.
 Collaboration
10