Personnel Training of Unilever Company

"If the UK doesn't, we will go to the Netherlands. If the Netherlands doesn't have it, we'll go ... "If Unilever needs an experienced technician in a newly developed market, and the local people can't find the right talent right away, then Unilever will look for it in several developed markets around. Unilever's international talent training and development system built over the years has made executives feel at ease at this time.

It has established 300 operating organizations in 88 countries, has more than 1000 very successful brands, and sells its products in more than 150 countries. The name Unilever is familiar to most people. But if you think that Unilever is just a manufacturer of high-quality products, it is too simple and superficial.

"We don't rely on product quality to win the competition, but on people's quality. In an international competitive environment, all enterprises must rely on high-quality talents to succeed. High-quality products are only the inevitable result of high-quality talents. " Frank Braeken, president of Unilever Greater China, said, "For Unilever, the most important condition for high-quality talents is internationalization. We attract the best talents from all over the world to join Unilever. However, Unilever is a better company in the world in terms of talent retention and successor training. "

Compared with Unilever's full preparation for international competition, at present, more companies are facing the threat of losing competitiveness due to the lack of global vision and multicultural management talents. High turnover rate, high training cost, stagnant market share, failed joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions, and high opportunity cost are all inevitable consequences of improper global management choices. In the talent training and development system owned by Unilever, the most unique point, which also gives Unilever a competitive advantage, is that it puts forward and implements the theme goal of "international" talent development. According to the research of Professor John A. Quelch and Professor Helen Bloom of London Business School, Unilever has long established the great importance of human resources and established an organization focusing on developing internal talents and future hot leaders in all regional and national markets. As a result, 95% of Unilever's 300 senior managers are completely trained internally. Indoctrinate managers with international vision and ideas through work content and overseas tasks. Since 1989, 75% of Unilever's management positions have always adopted "international" names, and the number of foreign managers has doubled.

"Talent training must have an international perspective, so that we can have higher abilities, such as decision-making ability with a global perspective." Bo Ruikai said, "Of course, this is an extreme way of training and development, with certain risks. Take me as an example. I have been sent to eight countries to do different jobs, and sometimes I know nothing about the assigned jobs. It's like throwing a man into deep water. Those who can swim out must be very good swimmers. Of course, some people will drown. However, in Unilever, the company will help people who are thrown into the water not to be submerged. "

Unilever now helps managers gain an international perspective through training courses. Its development planning system includes education and training plans (consisting of three stages of courses: primary, intermediate and advanced). The content focuses on the improvement of business understanding, professional ability and comprehensive quality), as well as domestic rotation plan, overseas rotation or participation in multinational project plan, coach support and performance evaluation.

"For every employee, there should be opportunities for development, but what we should also do is to find high-potential managers as soon as possible. Unilever should identify 20% of the most promising managers for intensive training every year. Give them the most challenging jobs and opportunities. " Bo Ruikai said.

John A. Quelch and Helen Bloom found a new trend in Unilever, that is, international career development training began to be implemented among younger managers than before. Wu Limin, the current financial controller of Unilever in China, was transferred to Singapore in May 2000. She just graduated for four years. Wu's work in Singapore is internal auditing, including auditing related to risks and internal control of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. He returned to China at the beginning of 2002 and was transferred to the business manager of the food business group, and later promoted to the business director.

"We do this because young managers have a more international perspective than their predecessors, such as their language, travel experience and so on. Unilever needs these people, and they also want to work for an organization that can provide foreign work tasks at an early stage. " Former Unilever compensation and industry relations manager explained. In the past 40 years, Unilever has developed an extensive talent pool system. John A. Quelch and Helen Bloom said that Unilever has a five-level "talent pool", which runs through all levels from individual companies (such as Goodhumbreyers Ice Cream Company in the United States and Walls Ice Cream Company in the United Kingdom) to overseas branches (such as Unilever USA and Unilever UK Real Estate Co., Ltd.) to global corporate headquarters.

To accomplish all these tasks, the first prerequisite is to establish a global human resources database. Whether the enterprise establishes itself or a professional organization, the enterprise should start with the job description and a series of personnel files. The questions asked in the file involve the manager's extracurricular activities, major cultural relations, language skills, countries visited and hobbies. Although in the past 10 years, some multinational companies have established databases all over the world, they still tend to pay attention to high-level positions in their organizations, ignoring the emergence of middle managers and high-potential stars in various countries.

John A. Quelch and Helen Bloom believe that the main tool of global human resource policy is still a global database, not only because multinational companies now have more strategic positions distributed around the world, but also because multinational companies must monitor more managers' career development.

Apart from human resources, most multinational companies are now doing well in the globalization of their main raw material supply chains. Talent competition is becoming more and more fierce, and supply is less than demand. In order to have the multicultural skills and vision to win success, enterprises must carry out the necessary projects of recruiting, training and retaining local marketing managers.

Don't let talents be "bound" by direct superiors.

"We attach great importance to sending talents to various places to realize their internationalization, because our talent development management must gain international experience, which is a very important part of talent training and development. The condition for this is that we must ensure that all Unilever organizations around the world can work together. " Bo Ruikai said.

From the first day, the new manager who received training was given personal development goals. Those who show rising potential are quickly put on the "development" list. Their promotion in the talent pool (companies, countries, business groups and/or regions, global and senior management committees) is not only guided by their immediate superiors, but also guided by the managers at the above three levels.

"We have to make greater demands on these people and don't want their direct superiors to' bind' them." Former Unilever compensation and industry relations manager said.

The expatriate will keep in touch with a department of the company that is responsible for his or her career. The department must include managers in its annual performance evaluation and career planning system, and in the performance evaluation of the department and its supervisors. The purpose of this is to maintain continuity, so that the manager will not interrupt the training and development plan because of the assignment.

"If enterprises want to seize the challenge of globalization and turn to knowledge economy, they must develop and practice the concept of' people are their most precious resource'." Wu Limin said, "The purpose of the global human resources project is to ensure that a multinational enterprise has the right talents, management flexibility and multicultural combination to achieve effective management of all operating departments and seize growth opportunities, and its managers are integrated into a knowledge sharing network with the same values."