Human Resource Planning for Logistics Department

Executive Summary

The paper discusses and analyzes human resource planning and its impact on the organization, Unilever. Special attention is given to organization, industry analysis, and current HR strategies used by the company. The paper discusses research methodology used to collect the data. Also, the paper analyses HR department and its performance, current policies and strategies used by HR professionals, recruitment and selection techniques. In addition, using theoretical materials and current studies, the recruitment and selection plan is developed. The aim of this plan is to provide Unilever with innovative and more effective techniques for recruiting and selection stages.

Introduction

Human resources practices have a profound impact on the company’s performance. The aim of the assignment is to collect the data and evaluate current HR practices and approaches used by Unilever. The objectives are to analyze Unilever’s current practices and propose possible improvements for the HR department.

The report analyses strategies and techniques used by the HR department of Unilever and proposes new methods and tools for recruiting and selection procedures. Ina modern business environment, performance tests help companies to analyze and examine competitive moves and create unique practices in order to compete in the market. The paper will discuss some of these tests and evaluate their effectiveness.

Research Methodology

For this research, primary and secondary data will be used. The research adopts a mixed methodology approach in data collection involving the use of qualitative and quantitative methods. The primary data will be collected through the interview method and direct observations. This method is the most common in HR research and allows companies to gather information from different sources and diverse population groups. The interviews will be conducted at Unilever and will involve 10 employees working in the HR department in London. Once interview data have been collected, one can determine how well the interview explains certain underlying constructs related to the purpose of the interview¹. The secondary data will be collected on the basis of theoretical literature about Unilever, and theoretical studies related to the human resource management and planning process.

Organizational Background

Organization planning is a systematic, planned change effort. Organizational development involves a systematic analysis of the organization and recognition of the need to understand and effectively deal with changes. It also involves strategic thinking and the development of a plan for improvement. Organization development is an effort that is planned organization-wide and managed from the top.

Industry Background

The retail industry is one of the most dynamic and fast-growing industries in the world. At present, all the retailers have been affected by the emergence of the one-world marketplace. Some decades ago it was expected that by 1992 twelve nations of the European Community, namely Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, and a newly united Germany would merge into a united market of 350 million people of different nations united by a common currency and a pent-up appetite for consumer goods and services. This is almost exactly what the modern market can observe now. New retailing concepts which appear every day attract the attention of retail traders and consumers from different countries. This leads to a cross-border flow of ideas that is often expedited by personal visits and observations by retailers. Still, long-standing contrasts persist, rooted in deep-seated cultural differences².

The UK is strongly influenced by new concepts in the retail industry. Its regional free trade structure allows the government to address rural demands, stabilize expectations, and moderate domestic perceptions of the risks of trade liberalization. Unilever is one of the organizations through which these demands and expectations are met. This is why the department responsible for marketing activities of Unilever across the country was located in London. Currently, this division involves 1200 employees.

Company Information: The Company, The Products, The Market

Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch company founded in 1911 by William Lever. Today, Unilever is the largest producer of branded consumer goods operating in around 100 countries worldwide with 227,000 employees. Unilever is designed to assist this market by providing timely and critical market intelligence necessary to aid in strategic and tactical planning for the fast-growing market in the world³. With time Unilever is planning to enter a new market that covers cancer patients⁴.

The management of the company keeps to an idea that “the greater the perceived consumer value, the better the strategy”⁵. Currently, Unilever employs about 180,000 people around the globe⁶; each of these employees takes care of consumers and their needs through manufacturing products of high quality. The company produces food, personal care, and home care products. The most famous food brands of Unilever Company are The Becel/Flora which offers consumers heart-healthy products, Lipton, the world-famous tea brand, Knorr, Bertolli, Rama, Hellman’s, and others. The company’s personal care brands include Axe, Dove, Rexona, Lux, Sunsilk, etc. The main home care brands are Cif, Omo, Radiant, Domestos, Sunlight, and Surf.

There exist numerous global markets in which the company operates. The most widespread are North America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Western Europe, and Latin America.

Vision & Mission

The Unilever management made vision and mission a core philosophy of the company: “Our mission is to add Vitality to life. We meet everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care”⁷. Unilever has a strong statement of mission because this ensures consistency and clarity of purpose and stimulates understanding and support from without⁸. The vision of Unilever can be expressed in the following statement: “Vitality means different things to different people. Some see it as energy; others view it more broadly as a healthy state of body and mind – of feeling alive”⁹.

HR Department and its Role

The HR department in London (England) consists of 10 employees. The task of the department is to recruit, train, motivate, promote, reward, and support employees. Each dependent manager is responsible for the complete operation of his/her organization, including planning its growth in sales and profits. These managers constantly get ideas for improving their respective product lines either through internal developments or through the acquisition of other companies in related businesses. This is an important part of their general management function. However, unless their authority to investigate, evaluate, and negotiate for the acquisition of a promising company is circumscribed thoughtfully, unforeseen and undesirable company liabilities can be created quite innocently¹⁰.

My role in the Department

I work in the logistics department. My duties at this department include:

• Monitoring and reporting growth opportunities for staff¹¹.
• Identifying skills shortage
• Identifying motivation problems and rewards¹².
• Reporting training needs and identifying future needs of the department.

Organization’s HRP & Strategy

Organization’s Strategic Plans and Objectives

The main goal of Unilever is to create a positive and favorable environment for diverse employees. Its strategic plans are to support all the employees and eliminate gender and racial differences. The management of the company is perfectly aware of the diversity of its personnel: “Unilever understands the importance of diversity and that’s why it is a critical component of our business strategy and an integral part of everything we value and do”¹³. At Unilever, aspects of corporate identity include the values, the history, the coping and defense mechanisms, the decision strategies, the self-imposed rules and regulations, the habits, the norms, the goals, the attributions, and the self-evaluations¹⁴. Its manifestations include symbols, rituals, ideologies, language, stories, myths, assumptions, relationships, and humor. The goal of Unilever is to keep and support this unique corporate culture and positive employee’s relations¹⁵.

Role of Different Departments Staff in Achieving the Objectives

Each of the staff members contributes to organizational objectives and goals fulfillment. Different departments are provided to workers during orientation and specific job training. It is one of the management’s ways of providing leadership, particularly if the procedures and their methods of presentation and follow-up are consistent with policies and principles. “Good” corporation values, in broad terms, might include closeness to the customer, respect for the individual, innovations and entrepreneurship, leadership, and the organization’s impact in society¹⁶.

Definition of HRP

Human resource planning can be defined as an increased ability of managers to evaluate, select, and implement alternative approaches to the financing and delivery of the public services which the company requires. It can positively influence the efficiency of the company, the improvement and simplification of selected service delivery functions, and the financial viability of individual agencies and jurisdictions¹⁷.

HR Policies and Procedures of Unilever and Strategic Objectives

Critical analysis of HR Policies and Procedures

SWOT Analysis

Unilever, like any other company, has strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The management of the company believes their recruitment strategy allows them to keep “Unilever competitive and successful now and in the future”²¹. The company’s other strengths involve strong corporate culture and positive atmosphere, friendly relations between staff members, and support from the management. However, the most important strength of Unilever is the diversity of its products. World-famous brands attract investors from all over the world, because, even if one of the branches is ruined, it is always possible to compensate for it with the profits from other branches. The diversity of the products allows the customers to make choices, which is extremely important because choice increases the value of the products.

The main weakness of the company is its cultural diversity. Unilever has divisions in different countries, which means that the manufacturing of products may differ in these countries. Moreover, due to the company’s popularity, there arises a risk that its products will be forged, especially when it comes to underdeveloped and developing countries. In contrast, the company’s opportunities are numerous; its financial position is stable which will allow it to diversify its products even more and invest in human resources and training programs; this will increase the strengths of the company making its weaknesses insignificant. The greatest threat for the company is high competition in the global market, as well as trade unions²², because engaging in them may lead to monopolization of the industry.

Contribution of My Department to HR Planning

The logistics department plays a crucial role in an organization’s marketing delivering goods and raw materials from suppliers to the end consumers. It proposes new training programs for its employees and reports possible difficulties in staff training and skills shortage. The goals and objectives of this department are finding the resources and implementing the strategies which may foster the development of the company and help it distribute its products successfully.

HR Planning and Success of Logistics Department

HR department makes it imperative for planning to be a continuous activity, especially responsive to measurement indicators and feedback monitors. The logistics department needs an operating system within which the goals and objectives can be implemented and the impact on Workers and Work can be tracked. Principles that reflect values, policies that implement principles, and procedures that implement policies are the day-to-day activities of the operating system. A conscious recognition and means must exist to resolve the problems that inevitably occur between various components of the operating system²².

HR Plan for the Organization/Department

PESTEL Analysis:

Impact of various Factors on HRP

At Unilever, HRP depends upon internal and external factors. Such internal factors as personnel productivity and motivation seem to be of the major concern of the company’s management because they need experienced personnel able “to anticipate and respond to changes in the marketplace”²⁵. If the personnel is unproductive, the company may feel insecure this is why the management should make the employees motivated (this is usually achieved by better working conditions and higher salaries). The main external factors are technological developments and the need for experienced personnel. The latter can be easily coped with due to the company’s cultural diversity. The former, however, is more complicated to deal with, because the company will have to spare out money for technological development. On the other hand, these investments will bring a significant return with time making the manufacture more modernized.

Labor Market

The labor market of Unilever is extremely diverse. The company saw the modification of recruitment policies already in the 1980s when concerns arose regarding the growing volatility in the labor market. This was when women started to be employed as managers and when management trainees entered the company. These days, due to the company’s divisions functioning in underdeveloped and developing countries, such as India and Africa, it is often blamed for abusing child labor. Unilever denies that any of its divisions use child labor because it is strongly opposed to child labor. The company’s labor market consists exceptionally of experienced professional workers entering the labor market at will.

Organization’s Audit Matrix of Current Staff

Vacancy Identification/ Demand and Availability Forecast

Current vacancies are sales managers in the London division and an accountant position²⁶. Using Forecasting and Statistical Analysis methods, it is possible to say that Unilever will need an additional number of IT professionals and sales managers. The company works on new projects based on Internet solutions and IT.

Forecast for Sales Managers and IT professionals in London

The following forecast shows that the company will need 6-7 new IT professionals during the next several months, and 10 sales managers during the next month. These changes are caused by high turnover rates and new demands created inside the company. The table shows that 5 employees in sales and 1 employee in the IT field will retire during the next year and the department will need to hire 5 new professionals. In order to avoid a shortage of staff in the future, Unilever should hire new people and train them in accordance with the needs and demands of the department.

HR Budgeting with respect to Strategic Goals

HR planning should involve not only goal setting and environmental analysis, but it must also serve as a means of intervening in the policy-making process. Indirect influence techniques such as information dissemination, persuasion, and consultation provide a strong base for influence in the early stages of policymaking. However, initiation of the change in the public sector must evolve from creative strategic planning styles. Innovative and advocacy planning are two such styles²⁷. During the next year, Unilever will need £4 billion for salaries. Also, it will need £1 billion for advertising and training, career promotion and development programs.

Job Descriptions for Identified Jobs

Description for Technology Intelligence Manager²⁸

Account Manager

Recruitment and Selection Plan

Existing Recruitment Process and Review

Unilever follows traditional recruitment practices involving newspapers and the Internet.

Employers need to share with prospective workers both the advantages and disadvantages of employment in their organization. This includes providing information about (a) the job opportunity and the workplace setting in which it occurs; (b) the vision and mission of the organization; (c) the functional performance levels needed to accomplish the outputs; (d) the working conditions: effort, responsibility, environment; (e) growth opportunities: educational support, promotions, compensation; and (f) accommodations the employer makes to meet special needs. This information can be provided by brochure, interview, video, or some combination of these modalities. This open and forthcoming approach at the first meeting lays a foundation for trust that becomes a vital element in future productivity²⁹.

New Recruitment and Selection Plan

The main steps will involve planning, the establishment of merit criteria, and the assessment of the plan³⁰. In order to consider this basic information in some depth, HR managers should organize information into six main areas³¹. These areas are: (a) a description of the job position and place of work ; (b) the vision and mission of the department and the aims that flow from its purpose; (c) the functional levels needed to achieve the outputs of the department; (d) the working conditions-physical, setting, social, as well as effort, responsibility³², and type of management–in which the work will be done; (e) the career opportunities, including training, personal development, promotion, and compensation³³; and (f) the accommodations the department is prepared to make for disabilities, daycare, flextime, and the like.

When the applicants are interviewed, the HR manager will analyze their personalities and make appointments. After the waiting period, the person who fits the position best will be hired³⁴.

Key Result Areas and Timelines

In order to introduce the new recruitment and selection techniques, Unilever will have to spend 1 month and recruit 2 HR professionals in this field. It is highly suited for structured interviewing and performance testing, as well as for types of paper-and-pencil testing that focus on past experience or task preference. These behavioral predictors ensure reliability, validity, and little or no adverse impact against minority groups³⁵. The reliability of these methods consists in the anonymity of the testing system, which will help to avoid biased attitude towards the candidates; the validity consists in the fact that the information will be obtained from the candidates themselves both orally and in writing which would minimize falseness regarding the previous working experience and already existing skills.

Choice of Selection Methods and Rationale for These

The main selections methods are unstructured interviews and CVs analysis. Unstructured interviews lack focus and are poor at identifying the best candidates for a job or promotion. Structured interviews, on the other hand, ask job-relevant questions that can considerably improve an employer’s ability to select the best candidate. This section discusses how FJA (Functional Job Analysis) can be used to structure an interview so that employers selected or promoted the right person. It also shows how to use FJA to present a realistic job preview during the interview, thus promoting applicant self-selection and contributing to a more satisfied worker³⁶.

Monitoring the Effectiveness of the Proposed Recruitment and Selection Process

The interviews with 10 people will take place after standardized psychological and performance testing. The control technique will be based on a comparison between previous methods and new methods introduced by the HR department. The main criteria will include time, effectiveness, and effective assessment of skills and knowledge³⁷. This procedure will allow defining which methods applied by the HR department are more efficient and which give better results regarding the proficiency of the recruited personnel.

Introducing Changes into Recruitment and Selection Plan

In order to improve recruiting and selection methods, Unilever should introduce a performance testing technique.

Step 1 The applicants will be required to fulfill the task connected with their past job experiences

Step 2 The applicants’ responses will be evaluated by trained observers according to criteria of effectiveness identified for that job.

1. For instance, the criteria for a salesperson in a work simulation would be to remain calm and polite in dealing with a rude and verbally abusive customer.

Step 3 The behavioral sample will consist of an interaction between the prospective salesperson and a difficult customer–possible a trained actor –under conditions closely approximating the job.

1. The evidence for the person’s future job performance will be direct and behavioral.

This technique is advantageous for both the company and job seekers. Many applicants prefer performance tests, because they give a real-life preview of the job and encourage self-selection³⁸.

Recommendation

It is assumed that the proposed strategies will help Unilever (England, London) to get the desired outcome and introduce necessary changes in recruiting and selection procedures. The nature and focus of the HR practices process should ensure that the means of creating and delivering value to the job applicants are improved. One major point of difference in the figure is that the selection procedure focuses on “practices” that satisfy HR needs. The proposed changes in HR practices will provide a logical and equitable change approach.

Conclusion

The analysis of Unilever (England London city) revealed that HR planning is vital for its success, effective performance, and recruiting and selection procedures. New recruiting programs, proposed for the HR department, will inevitably lead to job changes and recasting of employee skills. It is advised for the management of the company to follow all the abovementioned techniques to ensure proper development and performance of the company.

Appendices

Questionnaire

1. What are the most important requirements you seek in your selection plan?
2. What method of communication with job seekers do you prefer?
3. What are the most important requirements you seek in your selection planning?
4. What are the main problems you have encountered with job seekers?
5. Does selection tools processing include tracking internal candidates?
6. What are the types of job postings (continuous, internal, etc.)? Please provide examples of each type you use.
7. Are job descriptions and/or qualifications for postings standardized?
8. Are preferences for filling jobs and special requirements specified on the job?
9. What is the average number of job positions per month? Highest month?
10. Describe the process when a job seeker wants to apply for additional positions.
11. Describe the selection process. Please give examples of manuals or references used for screening and selection at Unilever
12. Describe the job seeker interview process. Attach examples of interview documentation.
13. Describe the hiring process as it pertains to recruitment.
14. What is the average number of requisitions filled per month? Highest month?
15. Do you perceive recruiting process at Unilever as effective?
16. What would you change in the selection process?

(Note: Answers for each question are collected from 10 employees of the department).

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Footnotes

1. Oppenheim 52
2. Company Profile of Unilever 2004
3. Unilever Home Page.
4. Fill 11
5.  McDonald 2002, p. 67
6. Campbell 82, Company Profile of Unilever 2004
7. Unilever Home Page
8.  Armstrong 33; Armstrong and Baron 92
9. Unilever Home Page 2008
10. Doyle and Stern 22
11. Taylor 29
12. Ulrich and Lake 12
13. Unilever Home Page 2008
14. Storey 77
15. Stacey 71
16. Schuler 82
17. Schuler 22
18. Unilever Home Page 2008
19. Salancik 92
20. Senge 52
21. Unilever Home Page 2008
22. Becker 101
23. Campbell 72
24. Unilever Home Page 2008
25. Unilever Home Page 2008
26. Grant 92
27. Fill 92
28. Unilever Home Page 2008
29. Fill 62
30. McDonald and Christopher 89
31. Kay 33
32. Lawton and Rose 72
33. Lynch 82
34. Heene and Sanchez 33
35. Paley 44; Robertson 11
36. Robbins 33; Mayo 55
37. Reed 31
38. Rosow and Casner-Lotto 39