Unilever Organization Analysis - Assignment Example

? Unilever Organization Analysis AFFILIATION: Unilever Organization Analysis Describe the organization, what it does, the customers it serves, and its size. Unilever is a multinational organization that conducts its operations in various countries around the globe. It conducts its operations in around 190 countries and it has a customer base of about 2 billion. In other words, 2 billion customers are using the products of Unilever every day. It produces products of different product lines so that various needs and requirements of the customers are met through Unilever products. Unilever produces around 400 brands for the customers around the world with their main focus being directed towards the healthy lifestyle of their customers. There are around more than 171,000 employees working in Unilever. Out of their product range, 12 brands of Unilever have a sales figure of more than €1 billion. Unilever claims to impact the lives of the people with the usage of their products (Unilever Facts, 2013). The product range of Unilever ranges from nutritional foods to various flavored ice-creams. It has a product line of various types of household products such as soaps and shampoos. Some of the top leading brands of Unilever around the world are Dove product range, Lipton, Suave, Blue Band and other such type of products. Unilever aims towards promoting their missions which are strong and which possess a standing on long term grounds. It works upon developing a strong and loyal customer base and accordingly works upon their advertisements so that their customers can associate the brands with their daily household care (Introduction to Unilever, 2013). An example of their ads is the lifebuoy ad soap which displays hygiene through the use of lifebuoy soap. Unilever spends a huge budget on their research and development department and they create their labs around the globe in which their scientists are working on new and innovative products that can be created for the consumers worldwide. The experts are constantly in the working and research phase of testing out new possibilities and this is one of the major strengths of the organization (Introduction to Unilever, 2013). Through research and development, Unilever gets a good chance or remaining a competitive organization. Research allows the invention of new products in association with their current products. Unilever also conducts a proper consumer research so that their new research and development can be tested in the market about whether it is acceptable to the consumers or not. Unilever claims that they understand the needs and requirements of the customers and accordingly research and come up with better products (Introduction to Unilever, 2013). Unilever aims by its advertisements that they have strong associations with their consumers in the consumer’s everyday life. Research the organization’s mission statement. Discuss the role HR will play (or does play) in fostering the organization’s mission statement. The mission statement of Unilever is that it works towards making the future better for the individuals. Unilever values its customers and hence work towards producing products that are beneficial to the customer in their everyday life so that customers look and feel good about them. Unilever also adds on to their mission statement that they act as an inspiration for the customers in taking small actions in their daily lives to make a difference in the world around (Annual Report & Accounts 2011, 2013). Unilever also implements strategies towards promoting sustainable growth and they have crafted their business model according to this scenario. They work upon producing products that allow the consumers ease and convenience in their household care. Unilever has a large interest and focus towards a sustainable growth of the business and it plans all its business strategies accordingly (Annual Report & Accounts 2011, 2013). The Human Resource Management plays an important role in fostering the organization’s mission statement. The mission statement of the firm states the aim and direction being taken by the firm. The goals and objectives of the organization are outlined by reviewing the mission statement of the organization. The mission statement of the organization reflects upon the path which the organization is taking and where it wants to see itself after working in a productive and successful manner. Hence the human resource professionals of the firm need to recruit and hire the talent according to the needs and requirements of the organization. They need to constantly keep updating their applicants’ database so that as and when required vacancies can be filled up. The HR department also needs to ensure that they are able to retrieve fresh graduates in the organization so that new ideas and innovation can take place in the organization. For this they need to conduct seminars and workshops in universities for the final year students so that the young new minds can be attracted towards working in Unilever. They also need to assess the expertise of the candidate according to the requirement of the designation. They need to ensure that the applicants being hired serve the organization with full sincerity and dedication so that the desired results can be achieved for the organization as well as the organization achieves its mission successfully. The HR professionals also need to ensure that the employees of the organization are well versed with the mission and vision of the organization so that they perform their job roles as per the requirements. The HR department may have to conduct performance appraisals in the organization so that they can review the performances of the employees and accordingly conduct training for employees that need to be given training. HR department needs to train employees in areas where there is a requirement for the organization to become a competitive organization. Assess the common HR challenges facing this organization (e.g., high turn-over, low wages, lack of skilled workers, etc.). Recommend an HR strategy you would implement to overcome the challenges assessed. As the business environment is getting competitive and challenging, the organizations have to ensure that they have a highly competent workforce which can help them in achieving their goals and objectives efficiently. The key challenges that are being faced by Unilever regarding HR are that there is an increase in the number of unskilled workers, aggressive competition among the rivals for proficient employees and enforcement of strict laws and regulations by the government for giving equal rights to the workers (“Rise to the challenge: Human resources-critical issues-innovative solutions”, 2011). The main reason for such a reduction in the qualified employees is that the education has become expensive and it is difficult for the prospective employees to acquire the respective degrees from well-reputed institutions. Secondly, the recessions has severely impacted the lives of both existing and future employees as the organizations are unable to meet their demands lucratively; as a result, the companies in a industry try to attract the employees of their competing firms by offering them salary packages higher than that are being earned by them currently. In order to ensure that every employee is treated fairly, the government has imposed various stringent laws that have increased the HR cost of many firms. Another challenge is that the social media networks are affecting the mindset of the employees and hence this is impacting the way conversations are taking place with the employees by the organization. Both the current employees and the prospective employees for Unilever may be affected by the social media networks. Unilever conducted a free event with Silverman Research to investigate and explore the social media usage by the employees in the organization. Unilever’s HR is facing challenges by the social media usage by employees and this is impacting employee engagement, recruitment and reward practices being practiced by Unilever (Inside Unilever: A Social Approach to Engaging Current and Prospective Employees, 2012). In order to cope with the challenges being faced by the Unilever’s HR department, the key personnel will have to revise their HR policies and evaluate the effectiveness of their employees in terms of their productivity level and satisfaction on the job. The employees need to be comfortable at workplace and ensure that they give in their best performance so that the organization can become productive and successful. Since there are many cost aspects that have to be considered by the professionals, they can increase their budget for certain time period keeping in mind the attractive Return on Investment that can be availed in future (“Rise to the challenge: Human resources-critical issues-innovative solutions”, 2011). They can even conduct counseling session with the employees related to social media usage and advise employees accordingly about the extent of usage and social media networking should not hinder the productivity of the organization. The job roles of the employees can be designed in such a way that keeps the employee involved in the job and concern about its accountability status. Determine how effective your recommendation above will be in making the organization more competitive. Revising HR policies would allow Unilever to make changes according to the current market trends and environment. This would allow them to retain talented and skilled employees as employees are always looking for competitive packages in their organizations. If they find someone offering better packages than their existing firm, they plan to switch. Hence revising HR policies according to market demand is very important. Unilever may be able to retain talented employees and work upon making them loyal employees in the long run for the organization. Social media networking is a common use by majority of the consumers. Social media networking has proved to be highly successful in the cyber world, hence every other person is found to be involved in social networking websites. Parting with their social network for the employees would be a difficult task, and they would like to use the social websites at the workplace too. It is up to the management to handle the productivity elements of the employees along with the usage of social networking websites. Having one to one sessions with employees via conferences or workplace sessions would allow employees to state their interests in the social networking websites. These sessions would allow HR professionals to state their expectations from the employees and in return employees can also discuss their point of views for using social networking websites in the organization. By these sessions, some general points can be considered by both ends and accordingly be included in the HR policy. The HR practitioners at Unilever need to constantly ensure that they use effective HR strategies in the organization so that they can maintain a strong competitive edge in the business market. With changing trends and advance technology, all organizations need to constantly be updating their business plans and strategies so that they can achieve their desired results. The needs and demands of employees are constantly changing with the changing lifestyles of the people around the world; hence the HR practitioners need to devise the compensation plans accordingly for the employees. The HR practitioners also need to ensure that they equip the employees with the necessary resources so that employees feel comfortable at their workplace. References Annual Report & Accounts 2011. (2013). Retrieved January 31, 2013, from http://www.unilever.com/investorrelations/annual_reports/AnnualReportandAccounts2011/ Inside Unilever: A Social Approach to Engaging Current and Prospective Employees. (2012). Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/event/inside-unilever-social-media-for-hr-and-internal-communications/#.UQkvHoW0Ols Introduction to Unilever. (2013). Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://unilever.com/aboutus/introductiontounilever/ Rise to the challenge: Human resources-critical issues-innovative solutions. (2011). Retrieved January 30, 2013 from http://www.pwc.com/en_US/us/hr-management/assets/PwC_Critical_Issues_in_HR_final.pdf Unilever Facts. (2013). Retrieved January 30, 2013, from http://unilever.com/aboutus/introductiontounilever/unileverataglance/ Read More