Employee selection builds Unilever’s organisational culture and employee behaviour. Unilever procedurally hires individuals with the right skills to respect its core values and ethos (Unilever, 2024; CIPD, 2016). The company seeks candidates demonstrating a commitment to its principles. These principles are sustainability, social responsibility, and high performance in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. Hiring people who fit its corporate values creates a culture where employees naturally live these values at work. Unilever’s former leaders, like Paul Polman, prioritised purpose and ethics (CIPD, 2016; Faragher, 2023). This targeted hiring the best candidates to drive purpose and cultural performance. Unilever also prioritises diversity and inclusion in selection, bringing in varied perspectives. This fosters an organisational culture of openness and a global mindset for innovation with its customer base. As Unilever’s CHRO Leena Nair stated, the competitive advantage lies in “the ideas, the ingenuity, the passion of its people” (McKinsey, 2018). Finding the right people is vital for value creation. Unilever’s recruitment assesses attitude and potential that matches competence. Behaviours like collaboration, learning agility, and commitment to Unilever’s purpose get one hired and promoted.
Employee development at Unilever invests in leadership development programmes and internal talent growth. This is because Unilever values continuous learning and long-term careers (Black Pearl Consult, 2024). Employees develop a growth mindset and show loyalty. Development initiatives like training, coaching, and evaluations build a high-performance and quality culture. Programmes such as the Unilever Future Leaders Programme promote business principles, ethical standards, and collaborative behaviours in future managers (Unilever.com, 2025). These shared experiences influence behaviour and sustain the culture. Unilever’s performance management approach supports its values. Managers are trained to coach rather than command. This reflects that Unilever has a culture of supportive leadership. Unilever uses tools like pulse surveys to monitor culture and trigger developmental interventions (CIPD, 2016). When seeking more entrepreneurial behaviour, it launched initiatives like reverse mentoring. Furthermore, development supports succession planning to ensure cultural continuity (Karthik, 2023). Thus, this development supports Unilever’s culture of performance and quality to equip employees with the necessary mindset and skills (Gregory, 2024).
References.
CIPD (2016). CIPD | Valuing your talent: Unilever. [online] CIPD. Available at: https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/case-studies/value-talent-unilever/. Unilever (2024). Business integrity. [online] Unilever. Available at: https://www.unilever.com/sustainability/responsible-business/business-integrity/. Faragher, J. (2023). CIPD good work index 2023: Workers less fulfilled and more stressed. [online] Personnel Today. Available at: https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/cipd-good-work-index-2023/. Black Pearl Consult (2024). Case Study: Unilever’s approach to talent engagement and retention through sustainability and purpose. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-study-unilevers-approach-talent-engagement-retention-c8k0f. Karthik, V. (2023). Role of HR in talent management and succession planning. ResearchGate, [online] 4(5), pp.3412–3415. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370924652_Role_of_HR_in_Talent_Management_and_Succession_Planning. Gregory, L. (2024). Unilever’s organizational culture of performance. [online] Panmore Institute. Available at: https://panmore.com/unilever-organizational-culture-of-performance.
