Talent Management & Resourcing Strategies at Unilever
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Introduction: Unilever's Talent Management and Resourcing Strategies for a Shifting Business Landscape
Task 1: Email
To
The CEO
Unilever, UK
Subject: Change of business environment and its impact on the management of talent and resourcing with practice and strategy.
Respected Sir,
I am HR of the organization Unilever, and the purpose of the email to you is to represent the strategies of talent and practice and the impact on the business sector. Reading this I am glad to inform you that organizational resource refers to the productivity, skills of the employee, and business environment of the working place (Al Aina and Atan, 2020). Additionally, equipment like computers and mechanical tools are one of the most essential resources of an organization. Regarding this, there are basic resources in an organization like human resources, energy resources, the development resources (Goh and Okumus, 2020).
Recent development impact on the business environment
Apart from this, other resources like capital resources, skilled employees and the experiences of the employees, leadership quality, and educational qualifications are also important to adopting the strategies for the profit generation of an organization (Ibrahim and Daniel, 2018). All the resources and the practical application are implemented by strategy and policies. In the organization, Unilever uses "satellite imaging" as well as artificial intelligence" which are also included in the resource sector of the organization. Additionally, the use of technology and eco-friendly product manufacturing is also part of the resource. Regarding this, the resources are used in a very strategic way that secures about 4.5% growth of sales in 2021 and the predicted revenue of 2022 is about 1.4 billion Euros (Unilever, 2021).
The result of the huge growth of profit is the reflection of the practical use of strategies practically. Additionally, I can include the current development of the organization like the use of science in the manufacturing sector, emphasis on sustainability, and workplace development for woman employees (Crowley?Henry et al. 2019). Additionally, the organization's accessibility switched to online mode, and also the selection of policies is always harmless for the environment which is the most contemporary business development for Unilever. In this context, the organization invested about 800 million Euros in the year 2020 (Unilever, 2020).
Besides that there are some of the other development of the organization is executed by resourcing as well as by practice like planning for the digital hub for the future generation to increase the accessibility of the organization (Theys and Schultz, 2020). The innovation of the business is the key factor and it is practiced by the "Material innovation factory" or MIF. The change of the business strategy is willing to shift the economic system into e-commerce. Additionally, the increase in awareness of nature also builds the bridge between nature and capital. This is the biggest impact and modification to establish the balance with the environment by reducing the use of plastic and pollution (Drewery et al. 2020). Besides the business strategies adoption the application of climate-changing actions, and human well-being security, the water recycling sectors are also raising the company's faith. All the execution of the modification of the business by the use of talent and strategies are interlinked with scientific collaboration.
Potential future development
The future goals and objectives of the company, Unilever are to up-skill or re-skill employees and staff with future skills within 2025. The company also focuses on increasing employees' capabilities by enhancing their competencies with the help of training and onboarding programs. On the other hand, the company is also responsible for pioneering new business m models to offer employees various employment options that include flexibility by 2030 (Unilever, 2022). The new business model of the company can provide flexible options to employees in terms of job schedules, working shifts, and others. On the other side, the company, Unilever, is focusing on recruiting 10 million young individuals by 2030 who possess essential skills. The concerned company is now helping their employees and staff to enable them to fit into future environments and requirements. In addition to this, Unilever utilizes several artificial intelligence as well as robotics that can assist them in changing the nature of certain jobs specifically in the areas of manufacturing. According to Eby et al. (2019), employees and staff of organizations need proper training sessions to become competent, skilled, and future-fit for their respective job roles in the workplace. Organizations need to pay attention to the requirements in skills, competencies, and others that an employee needs to become a future fit in a specific job role.
The chosen company, Unilever, shows that employees not only need new skills but also seek smart and advanced ways of performing in the workplace. Unilever is committed to upskilling as well as re-skilling its employees in 2025 to gain future-fit skills in the workforce inside the organization and beyond. Flexibility is the motto of the concerned company and it is trying to provide flexible employment to employees and staff (Unilever, 2022). Unilever has observed flexibility in job roles; working shifts and other areas facilitate good and effective productivity among employees as they can balance both home life and work effectively. The ultimate aim of Unilever is to implement a workplace that can embrace adaptability and openness for the better working performance of employees. As per the views of Pischke (2018), flexibility refers to an effective factor for increasing the productivity and motivation of employees that enhances their working performance and skills. Development of skills and improvement of competencies of employees are effective for making them future-fit for organizations. Skills and competencies are responsible for enhancing working performance as well as job engagement in the workplace. On the other hand, advanced and innovative technologies require proper handling that an efficient worker can do. Unilever has taken several initiatives for improving the skills and competencies of its employees such as the "LevelUp program" in South Africa.
On the other hand, the creation of momentum covering the "future of work" is beneficial for making the workforce fit for future working processes. Unilever hosted its "Future of Work Summit" in 2021 which was a conference for business leaders, academics, and policymakers (Unilever, 2022).
Thanks and regards.
Yours faithfully,
ABC
HR management
Task 2: Briefing paper
Organizational selection and recruitment strategies
Organizations in different countries across the entire world utilize innovative and advanced technologies in different business operations. Recruitment processes, job analysis, competency frameworks, and others include these technologies to make those procedures better, more effective, and attractive. The stated organization, Unilever, develops its job analysis and others with the help of AI, robotics, and other innovations. As per the views of Weekley et al. (2019), job analysis of the company includes job descriptions, job specifications, and other components. Unilever pays attention to its job analysis to attract skilled and experienced employees and this improvement in job description helps the company to achieve competitive advantages over its rival competitors in the marketplace. Unilever has successfully managed to gain more than 1.8 job applications each year. The company has to struggle while recruiting new employees among a huge number of job applicants (Unilever, 2022). On the other hand, the job design of the company is attractive enough to attract a large number of job applicants. it includes lucrative incentives, flexible working schedules, attractive leave policies, and others, and even a career growth opportunity for employees.
The concerned company gets help from advanced technologies such as AI to recruit effective and skilled employees. The job analysis part of the company can be segmented into three different key areas such as the determination of duties, data on requirements of the job, and lastly systematic exploration of job activities. These mentioned key areas are well-defined in the job analysis of the company. On the other hand, the company has developed its job design that includes segmentation of job design as per the roles of various designations such as "Customer data manager", assistant manager, PMO consultant, and others (Glassdoor, 2022). Job applicants can easily identify their desired job design by looking through the list of job designs in Unilever. A competency framework is considered as a structure for setting out as well as defining the competencies of each individual required in individuals working in organizations. Competency frameworks need to include various competency types such as core competencies, common competencies, job-specific, leadership, and meta-competencies. There are two different types of approaches to implementing a competency framework such as external and internal.
The concerned company, Unilever utilizes a competency framework to maintain consistency in its recruitment procedures, fair performance, and others. It can be stated that Unilever has successfully managed to maintain effectiveness in business procedures and organizational effectiveness. In addition to this, Unilever can analyze its training needs and assist employees to re-skill their efficiencies and performance. Effective communications are required for the appropriate fit of competency framework in organizations (Cipd.co.uk, 2021). In addition to this, organizations need to tackle embedded root causes in business operations to achieve success in the implementation of a competency framework. Unilever effectively manages its competency formwork that in return helps in providing fair performance rewards, better management of career, analysis of training requirements, and others. This competency framework needs to maintain a balance in the detailing in flexibility as well as avoidance of non-inclusive and overly prescriptive approaches.
As per the evaluation of the recruitment process in Unilver, it can be stated that the company possesses an innovative way of recruiting employees. The stated company recruits more than 30000 people each year which requires a tremendous level of resources and time. Unilever faces issues while recruiting a large number of people and to eradicate this, it has implemented AI in its recruitment procedure. The company partnered with Pymetrics, an AI recruitment specialist, to create online platforms providing opportunities for people to access it from their homes (Forbes, 2018). Contrary to this, Amazon uses traditional processes of recruitment for hiring employees such as written rounds, online coding tests, multiple technical tests, and others. This company, Amazon, fails to implement innovative technologies in its recruitment process and hiring activities. Unilever also includes a process for the submission of video recordings of job applicants. The assessor in this area is an algorithm of machine learning that examines candidates' videos answering various questions for 30 minutes. This assessor is capable of determining the appropriate candidate for a specific job role by analyzing their body language, and natural processing of languages.
The hiring procedures of Unilver are effective for recruiting appropriate candidates for a particular job role. The stated company is responsible for utilizing various proprietary technologies and it selects 3500 people to check their discovery section. Unilever selects nearly 800 candidates after spending 24 hours with recruiters and leaders to offer jobs (Forbes, 2018). There are several systems providing feedback for all applicants even those who are not successful in the process. However, the company, Unilever, is not ready to hand over list entire recruitment procedure to machines and it requires further improvement in its hiring and recruitment process to get a better workforce. On the other hand, robots are there to assist employees in starting their new jobs and adapting to the new routines. Unabot refers to a "Natural language processing" (NLP) bot that is built on a framework of Microsoft's Bot. This Unabot is designed for understanding what workers and employees are required to know as well as fetching information for them during the inquiry. Employees can ask anything from Unabot starting from HR questions to IT systems and others.
The induction process refers to the onboarding process for new employees in organizations that assist them in adapting to new routines and company culture. At Amazon, the induction process is of two different types such as self-driven and self-service onboarding processes (Hollylee, 2018). It can be stead that the induction process of the company is self-guided where managers pay less attention to being present in the entire journey of recruits. Amazon has created a template for managers to fill in by entering names and other details of recruits as well as guidelines and instructions. The guideline is then handed over to recruits and they take responsibility for maintaining all of those mentioned in the guideline. As per the views of Langesee et al. (2021), the induction processes of companies need to be effective for increasing productivity as well as the motivation level of employees. In addition to this, effective induction or onboarding programs are responsible for enhancing the competencies and skills of employees and recruits. This process in turn develops job engagement of employees and increases their effectiveness in regular working performance.
Importance of workforce planning
Workforce planning refers to a procedure of forecasting, planning, and analyzing the demand and supply of the workforce, assessing gaps as well and determining interventions in talent management. All of these activities are important for ensuring that organizations have appropriate employees with proper skills at the right time and in the right areas to fulfill the mandate as well as strategic objectives. As per the study of Ayandibu and Kaseeram, (2020), workforce planning includes certain steps for implementing analytics to determine workforce planning and retention. There is various analytics to determine talent planning as well as retention strategies of an organization. The chosen organization, Unilever, has introduced effective talent planning in the form of talent management to achieve better performance in the workplace and productivity of employees. Two different types of analytics that are used in the stated company are employee management and recruitment process. Analytics utilizes algorithms that are programmed as well as applied to key areas of talent management of companies. Unilever shows efficiency in its talent management which is effective in increasing the productivity of the entire organisation in the market areas.
Analytics in areas of employee management is responsible for setting benchmarks and tracking the performance of employees for measuring future potential to estimate required support. On the other hand, workforce analytics is also helpful for identifying skill and training gaps in workers for offering appropriate training as well as support to develop employee satisfaction (Huselid, 2018). Analytics in the areas of employee management is also responsible for mapping high-performing employees to performance specifications and requirements of other job roles for facilitating succession planning. Workforce analytics is an effective tool for measuring the succession planning as well as the retention strategies of organizations. This also focuses on analyzing data and information of people to understand their capabilities, talents, and others. This type of analytics can also be identified with a reference to certain analytical software capable of managing and reporting on data and information of employees. On the other hand, is HR analytics effective in understanding different areas of an organization including day-to-day HR operations, strategic issues in organizations, procedure efficiencies, and others?
Workforce analytics in the company Unilever is used to understand skill gaps as well as required competencies and skills for a particular job role. There are various techniques through which workforce analytics can be implemented in organizations such as starting with workforce issues that require immediate solutions (Ben-Gal, 2019). The company Unilever focuses on the improvement of employees with the help of reskilling and workforce analytics in this area is helpful for the concerned company to know the areas that require further improvisation. On the other hand, the second step for the implementation of workforce analytics is to determine the information that executives and managers require for making decisions regarding the chosen issue. On the other hand, the third step suggests that the determination of a benchmark, as well as a goal for the problem, is required to implement workforce analytics. This step is responsible for ensuring that historical information and benchmark standards are there to compare with gathered data.
Unilever uses this method to know the skill gaps in their employees and the required skills in a particular job role. The last phase of the implementation of workforce analytics is to make decisions about the way to analyze as well as report metrics. As opined by Subhashini Durai (2019), this decision-making step can figure out the type of relationship and level that can be analyzed and measured. The metrics can include training results for various departments to figure out skill gaps in the workforce of organizations. This step is useful for the company, Unilever, to understand the areas and skills that need further improvisation. Workforce analytics provide certain benefits to organizations not only in supporting and providing training for mitigating skill gaps in employees but also in shaping the workforce to make them future fit for organizations. Unilever experiences certain benefits from this type of analytics in the workplace such as the capability to determine potential candidates who can match the work culture and organisational needs.
On the other hand, workforce analytics in the concerned company helps it to forecast employee performance and as per this, the right resources can be provided for employee retention. Unilever has managed to implement several strategies responsible for employee retention with the help of effective recruitment processes that come under HR analytics. In addition to this, workforce analytics is beneficial for determining the need for future requirements of organizations that in return help in aiding recruitment procedures for satisfying the talent requirements. As per the views of McIver et al. (2018), workforce analytics is also beneficial for determining the factors that are associated with employee engagement as well as job satisfaction for sustaining high high-performing workforce. It can be stated that Unilever has an opportunity to know factors associated with employee satisfaction and job engagement. This knowledge is impactful for the company to increase the motivation level of employees to bring the best performance in their respective job roles. On the other hand, workforce analytics in the organization is responsible for the identification of talent required in the succession planning of the future.
HR analytics is effective in the areas of measuring the hiring and recruitment processes of organizations as well as retention strategies of organizations. Recruitment processes need to be effective to better management of talent in the workplace (Williams et al. 2021). This analytics can automatically search different resumes of job applicants and check applicant information without just searching for specific keywords. It can also check backgrounds as well as social media history to understand the personality of candidates and positive indicators. Unilever gets help from HR analytics that assist it in shortlisting the job applicants' names, minimizing recruitment costs, and avoiding gender-based decisions. This type of analytics is also helpful for reducing the cost of recruitment processes with the help of automated tasks utilizing advanced and innovative technologies. Measures that can be taken by organizations are to implement supervisors for controlling the processes of decision-making and problem-solving.
Improvement of a team and individual performance
Technological development has emerged with the help of globalization in the digital era. The performance of employees plays a huge role in the organizational improvement and entire profitability of organizations in the market areas. On the other hand, technological innovations create a huge impact on the working performance of employees in their respective job roles. There are various monitoring technologies for monitoring both individual performances as well as team performance (Manley and Williams, 2022). Employee monitoring is a strenuous process and it needs a balance between the needs of companies to monitor the activities of employees and the "right to privacy" of employees. Employee-friendly monitoring processes are beneficial for companies to monitor activities and performance in the workplace. The utilization of monitoring software is effective for organizations to pay attention to the working performance of employees in the workplace. This software is the most efficient one for monitoring the individual performance of employees by tracking their activities as well as analyzing data about the tasks employees have completed. This technology is beneficial not only for measuring employee performance but also for assisting them in the areas that need improvisation.
Contrary to this it can be stated that monitoring employee performance can be against the privacy policy of companies. Organizations need to choose effective monitoring tools to maintain employee right to their privacy. Setting targets can also be impactful in measuring team performance in the workplace as providing targets to them can help measure their productivity. Organizations can implement this tool to set targets for their employees and entire teams to measure their working performance regularly (Pinter and Cisar, 2018). Setting targets is the impact for measuring departmental, individual as well and team-wide goals. Targets not only show the productivity of employees but also their interdependence to achieve a particular goal as well as to motivate them singly. On the other hand, organizations can implement certain self-monitoring tools that are beneficial for increasing the motivation level of individual employees. This process is beneficial for increasing the productivity of employees which in turn increases the efficiency of their working performance.
Additionally, with the help of this tool, employees can measure their performance and the efficiency they want to enhance. It can be added that these types of monitoring tools maintain the privacy of employees and are beneficial, for organizations as employees can measure their performance on their own. Analysis and rewards process is effective for monitoring both individual and team performance. Higher authorities play a vital role in the process as they need to provide rewards to their employees when they show improvement in their regular job performances (Liao et al. 2019). Higher authorities need to pay close attention to the working performance of individual employees as well as teams in organizations to track their improvements. This method is also responsible for increasing the motivation level of employees which in turn increases their overall productivity in the workplace. there are various strategies crucial for understanding and monitoring the performance of teams and employees in organizations. One of those strategies is the involvement of employees in different business processes such as decision-making processes and others.
Shutting out employees as well as not involving them in company processes creates a negative impact on the motivation level of employees. It can be stated that involving them in a company procedure helps them to feel valued in their respective companies. This strategy is beneficial for measuring the performance of both teams and individuals in organizations. This strategy helps employees to feel involved in their respective companies as well as increases their job engagement. Monitoring of staff and employees is easy, however, includes certain challenges regarding harming their privacy and other issues. On the other hand, there are several tools such as video tools, software tools, GPS tools, network monitoring, email monitoring, keycards, and others for monitoring employee and team performance in companies and firms. Video surveillance refers to a common technology for monitoring workforces and workplaces in recent years (Shidik et al. 2019). This type of monitoring tool is intended to preserve workplace safety as well as prevent misbehavior in the workplace. Contrary to this, it can be stated that video surveillance can harm the "right to privacy" of employees.
On the other hand, various software tools are useful in tracking remote teams and their performance and generating good solutions to certain issues. These tools can offer a direct system of monitoring by showing in-depth insights into employee performance. In addition to this, software tools assist in organizing employees and workers and increasing their motivation level. A contradiction can be added in the area of maintaining employee privacy in both remote working and the workplace. GPS tools are also effective in monitoring workers' performance in both remote working and the workplace (Uradzi?ski and Baku?a, 2020). This type of software is developed for aligning the needs of companies with the expectations of employees. GPS is effective for businesses as it assists in checking company assets, optimizing routes, and coordinating the entire workforce. This type of tool is beneficial for assigning several clients as well as tasks to appropriate employees for enhancing efficiency. Certain tools such as GPS, Software, and others are responsible for harming the privacy of employees and to eradicate this issue companies need to employ these tools effectively in the workplace.
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