Our Compass strategy - Unilever

In China, for example, we identified
a shortage of talent in the leadership
pipeline and difficulties in retaining young
talent. So we developed a recruitment
scheme for students studying overseas,
offering opportunities back home once
they have finished their initial training
at Unilever after graduation. In Latin
America, our Unilever in your Class
campus programme targeted college
students across eight countries. The
programme has helped almost 1,700
students learn more about Unilever and
the consumer goods industry. We will
roll it out to more countries in 2011.
Business Week Turkey recognised us as
the best consumer goods employer in the
country, the first time we have achieved
this honour. We were named most
preferred employer in the Benelux
countries in a number of surveys, including
Universum and Qompas, and Unilever
Indonesia received Asia’s Best Employer
Brand Award from the Employer Branding
Institute in conjunction with the Chief
Marketing Officer (CMO) Council in Asia.
Meanwhile in India, Unilever came in
ahead of all other consumer goods
companies and achieved a ranking of
third overall for business school students
in the Nielsen Employer of Choice national
employer survey.
Diversity
Unilever needs a diverse team – across
gender, nationality, race, creed and culture
– to be able to connect with the widest
range of consumers. Currently, we have six
nationalities represented on the Unilever
Executive team and five on the Board of
Directors. This diversity delivers a wealth of
experience which is critical to our success.
In terms of gender, the number of women
in senior positions increased from 23% in
2007 to 27% at the end of 2010.
Unilever: the place to succeed
With the launch of the Compass strategy,
we developed a performance culture
toolkit and held workshops for all
managers across the company. The
programme, run and owned by leaders
within the business, places strong emphasis
on leadership and personal responsibility.
We know this is resonating with people
from the outstanding results of our annual
Global People Survey (GPS). Engagement
scores had been hovering around 65%
for a number of years; in 2010 it was
73%. We learnt that people are inspired
by the strategy and, while it is presenting
them with big challenges, they
understand what’s expected of them.
This level of engagement was also reflected
in our Compass Awards, launched in 2010
to celebrate employees who are making
a big contribution to our success. In all, we
received over 1,400 entries, representing
every part of our business, way beyond
what we expected.
One of the winning entries was an
employee engagement programme run
in South Africa. Aiming to revitalise the
culture among all employees, from senior
management to the shop floor, the results
speak for themselves with the business
achieving one of the most positive trends
in the GPS survey.
A genuine performance culture needs
to reward people and teams who deliver.
This year we changed our incentives
and remuneration plans for all Unilever
managers. They are now based entirely
on personal achievement, with personal
development goals also contributing
to people’s overall rating.
But changing a company’s culture takes
time. We are looking at a period of
◊ 2010 data is preliminary. It will be independently assured and reported in our online Sustainable
Development Report 2010 at www.unilever.com/sustainability.
Report of the Directors About Unilever
Winning in the universities – China
Talent is the most valuable resource in China’s
developing market place. Last year, Unilever
China ran an initiative to assess how our talent and
organisational capabilities could best be harnessed
to our strategic ambitions for 2015 – with a particular
focus on attracting the best graduates.
And we’re winning graduates over. After scaling
up our recruitment programme and strengthening
its international appeal, Unilever China’s employer
brand among graduating students at ten targeted
universities across the country moved from 38th in
2008 to the top ten in 2010, according to Universum.
sustained effort over some time to get
all our people to work in new ways.
Safety is essential
We take seriously our responsibility to
provide a safe workplace. For us this
means the health, safety and well-being
of everyone working for or on behalf of
Unilever. A key measure of progress is our
total recordable accident frequency rate,
which counts all employee workplace
accidents except those requiring only
simple first aid treatment. There was a
15.7% ◊ reduction in our total recordable
accident frequency rate in 2010.
Building a winning culture
Ensuring a winning culture truly
comes alive involves everyone from
senior management to the shop
floor. One of our Compass Award
winners in 2010 was Unilever South
Africa. They revitalised their business
through an employee engagement
drive, dramatically reducing staff
turnover and strengthening our
business where it counts – in
the market place.
Unilever Annual Report and Accounts 2010 19