Hrm Unilever

HRM FUNCTIONS IN UNILEVER PAKISTAN Letter of Transmittal DATE: February 28, 2013 SUBJECT: Human Resource Management Practices at Unilever Pakistan I am pleased to present my report on “The Human Resource Management and H. R activities and procedures at Unilever Pakistan”. This report strengthens my recommendations on the importance of Human Resource Management activities and practices in an organization in order to remain competent in today’s’ changing world of cut-throat competition. My research has been very productive, especially receiving first hand knowledge from the company website itself i. e. www. nilever. pk & also through my visit to the organization which opened new ways of learning & experience to us & helped us in implementing the theories which I learnt in the course of Human Resource Management. This report as per your instruction has covered all the authentic areas of concern and contains all the relevant information. I would dearly like to thank you for the faith you showed in our capabilities and the encouragement you gave us when assigning us the report which helped a lot in our learning process & accede us in experiencing and exploring real world practices of Human Resource Management.

I have enjoyed a lot working for this report as it has explored us with the real world practices of HR and has explicitly affected our learning in this area. Faiza Javaid B80 DEDICATION I dedicate this report to my parents and friends in recognition of their worth and to my teachers who are the guiding force for us and it is their effort and hard work that showed us the path of success and proprietary which would be there for us for the rest of my lives.

My thanks to all those who have generously contributed their theoretical knowledge to this report including my teachers, without their understanding and support completion of this work would not have been UNILEVER PAKISTAN For our HRM report purpose, we have selected “UNILEVER PAKISTAN” formerly Lever Brothers Pakistan Limited, established in Pakistan in 1948. Unilever Pakistan is the largest FMCG Company in Pakistan, as well as one of the largest MNCs operating currently in the country. There are many factories operating at different locations around the country.

Unilever’s head office is in Karachi at Avari Plaza Fatima Jinnah Road. INTRODUCTION & HISTORY One of the largest consumer products’ companies in Pakistan Unilever Pakistan Limited is a part of the consumer products’ giant Unilever. UPL was established in 1948 in Pakistan. Today, Unilever is a force to reckon with. Its contribution to Pakistan’s economic development cannot be underestimated. Operating in six factories at different locations around the country, contributes a significant proportion of the country’s taxes.

Unilever take it as their primary responsibility to meet the everyday needs of people for nutrition, hygiene and personal care and help them to get more out of their lives. In Unilever Pakistan there are a large number of local managers and workers that are provided with all facilities to work at their best, they are highly motivated people with self-determination to work. They are well-trained and are familiar with the new and innovative technologies and are competent enough to work in today’s challenging environment.

In this report we will look into all the matters that are related to Human Resource Management practices at Unilever Pakistan. Unilever’s corporate vision helping people to look good, feel good and get more out of life – shows how clearly the business understands 21st century-consumers and their lives. But the spirit of this mission forms a thread that runs throughout their history. Human Resource Management In UNILEVER: HR supports and develops Unilever’s most important asset – the people – by enabling them to deliver outstanding business performance.

In HR, they’re not just a part of the Unilever culture; they help create it. Their environment is all about empowering individuals, both in terms of contributing to business objectives as well as achieving their own personal and career goals. HR’s job is to make sure that UNILEVER has highly skilled people across the organization. RECRUITMENT PROCESS Personnel Department makes arrangements for the recruitments of the employees. For this purpose it collects information about the desired employee’s functions and then defines the job requirements and job profile.

The Personnel Department makes all the arrangements for the report meant of new employee, It sees better such employee is available in the organization or not. In case of no, it gives the advertisement in the newspapers. It also collects all the applications of the applicants. It also makes arrangements for test. The Personnel Department uses different tests for different applicants. After that it arranges the interviews for the succeeded applicants. Usually the interviews are bland of different types of interviews.

These interviews include panel interview, structured questions etc. The background information about the succeeded applicants is also gathered by the Personnel Department At Unilever, the career opportunities are many and varied. CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR MANAGEMENT TRAINEES & GRADUATES: What makes Unilever the perfect choice for ambitious graduates with bags of potential? Quite simply, everything about it…! MANAGEMENT TRAINEE PROGRAMME: This one-year program is designed to turn creative, talented and ambitious graduates into the future senior managers of Unilever.

The Management trainee (MT) program at Unilever offers a comprehensive and rigorous one year agenda that aims to develop future leaders by exposing the individuals to key areas of the company. It challenges individuals from the time they fill in their application, during assessment stages, presenting themselves in front of the key decision makers and finally through a comprehensive rotation plan in different areas of the company. In short, throughout the MT program trainees get the opportunity to work on exciting yet challenging assignments with various managers, which provide them with invaluable nsights into how the entire organization works. The program invites the following persons to apply: • Fresh Graduates • Masters or 4 year Bachelor Degrees • Not more than 27 years of age The key benefits this program offers are as follows: Wide ranging opportunities: Every year Unilever recruit management trainees from campuses across the country to join one of their functions. That could be in HR, Finance, Supply Chain, Marketing, Customer Development, Research & Development and IT. A real job from day one The program focuses on building leadership capability and accelerating employees development.

And from the moment you join, you’ll be doing a real job. One that will provide insight to the business, continually test and develop your skills, and make a genuine contribution to our business. The trainee is involved on every level. As one progresses, the roles get more challenging which can mean managing larger budgets, bigger brands or more people. Support and empowerment The company supports individuals every step of the way to senior management but much of your progress will be up to you. Individuals need to be focused and ambitious to get where they want, identifying opportunities and taking responsibility for their own development.

INDUCTION PROCESS The company’s induction program helps new recruits in quickly getting to know the business and the way work is done at the company, as well as the role and colleagues. INDUCTION PROGRAM The induction program is a sort of orientation lined up for the new employees at Unilever Pakistan in which they are introduced to the company operations, values and culture. They are been introduced to the company business and related principles. The employees are also given the code of business principles and are acquainted with the hierarchy of the company.

The work responsibility and other work related things are clearly defined on the very first day so that they could know what they actually are there at Unilever. It motivates them in a positive manner that they are valued at their company and the company believes in their abilities that’s why the work is given to them, it energizes them and the results are shown in the form of their work productivity. SELECTION PROCESS: TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT Learning is an integral part of life at Unilever & there are many ways in which the company helps to develop its employees’ skills, both professional & personal.

Training & Development involves improving the knowledge, skills and abilities of the individuals. A continuous training is conducted inside the organization to improve the performance of the employee. There are two types of trainings conducted at Unilever: In-house Training: In-house training is customized training which is only for Unilever employees. External Training: External training is carried out through trainers in training institutes. Employees at Unilever are usually trained through Rameez Allahwalla (in Karachi), Possibilities and Intec (two well-known training institutes).

Before training “Training Need Analysis” (TNA) is conducted by the manager of the department. After the completion of training program feedback from the employee is taken. Training and development at Unilever can be explained further in a more descriptive way as follows: On the job: Employees learn much of what they need to know by working with knowledgeable colleagues and receiving regular coaching and feedback. Wherever a new employee joins, in whatever capacity, he will have a wide variety of experiences developing skills relevant to his job and giving him an overview of how the company works.

Professional skills: Specific programs ensure that an employee builds expertise in his chosen career. The courses often use e-learning that enables him to learn at his own pace and take control of his development. In some areas an employee can study for professional qualifications and, as he progresses, he will develop his leadership capabilities. Continual update: Each function has its own Academy – a team that continually updates its professional learning curriculum. E-learning modules are then made available on a dedicated intranet portal. Here the very latest news, articles and thinking can be found.

Essentially, everything an employee needs to keep in touch with the business. Personal development: Passion, energy and creative thinking are traits that are required by the company have when a new employee joins. But equally important is the ability to understand who you are as an individual and what you want to achieve from your career. The company offers a whole range of personal development opportunities which can be tailored to one’s specific goals. Mentoring: There are many people on hand to help with a new employee’s learning and development, in particular his mentor.

They will encourage and support him, answer questions, help build his self-confidence and offer invaluable advice. Training is provided on continuous basis and employees are trained to built relationship among jobs, work units and company. Employees acquire new skills and apply them on their jobs. Managers take an active role in identifying training needs and help to ensure that employees use training in their work. Managers have a look on the performance of the employee so that they can have a check and balance of the training procedures.

Managers use informational maps that show where the knowledge lies in the organization. They are providing educational training to every employees, it include support of courses offered outside the company, self-study, and learning through job rotation. Courses are taught by the professors of Lahore University of management sciences and Lahore School of Economics and some other universities of Lahore. Yes, training is an on-going process in the Unilever because they continuously want improvement in the employee’s performance.

As environment is changing rapidly and accordingly the needs and wants of the customers, so for the satisfaction of customers they want to improve their products and services. For improvement and innovations they need on-going training. So, with the change of the world they can change their skills and knowledge accordingly. Training Process Feed Back Our Company is product oriented through the very innovative and hi-tech network. To meet the technical requirement and to ensure customer satisfaction, our company has very strong training infrastructure.

We have one university at IBA and 15 management staff colleges along with many training schools for lower staff workshops throughout the country. Our training policies and procedures are very accommodating to all employees without any discrimination. Training institutes conduct TNA before the commencement of new fiscal year. On the basis on the need analysis, these institutes chalk out the training programs for whole year as per their specialties. These training programs are endorsed to all field regions from where staff is deputed for said course accordingly.

The trainings are normally for one week; however some training spanned over 3 to 9 Months. Almost, Unilever is conducting every sort of the training which is basic requirement for the operations of the company. All our trainings needs are being fulfilled through our training programs and institutes; however foreign trainings are also imparted to the engineers and managers of the company. Training Incentives Wage & Salary administration. Incentive Pay Insurance Vacation Leave administration Retirements Plans Profit Sharing Stock Plans

Every training program is formatted to evaluate the trainees during the process and course of the training. However, the trainees do perform after training very successfully to operate and maintain the Unilever Network. The Company has endorsed education policy, in which 75% expenditure will be born by the company for the professional degrees at the 10 best universities of the country. Employees are encouraged to get admission in the degree courses and they are given the NOC’s for the study purposes. These are very innovative ideas which are now being implemented by new management.

Career counseling is not being made at this moment. However, there is career planning wing which shall also offer career counseling plans in future. Definitely, the performance appraisal is the process of individual performance evaluation and our company has very strong & effective performance evaluation mechanism. Very recently this concept has been implemented for the company managers. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are developed for the managers and their performance is judged on the basis of the achievement of those very objectives. This mechanism is on the quarterly basis and is very effective so for.

There are three to four different Performa’s used in the company for the performance evaluation of the employees. These Performa’s are placed at Annex-H, I & J for officers, officials and MT’s. The performance evaluation reports (ACR’s) are recorded in dossier of each officer and official. The reports are very confidential and used for performance improvement, compensation plans, promotions and transfer programs etc. Our ACR’s system is traditional and need improvement. In the new management setup, all these things will be shifted on the corporate information system (CIS) for online performance evaluation reports.

Our performance reporting system contains double signing system. Officers and officials ACR’s are reported by the immediate supervisor and countersigned by the second higher officer. In case of MT’s the reporting officer and HR manager jointly rate. In the new system, the concerned employee is also involved in the appraisal system. Hence, involvement of the two superiors reduces the errors and biases in the rating of the employees. The Company is giving pay and allowances about 80% above the other government employees. Our managers and engineers are getting 4 to 5 times more than the pay and perk of the other companies in the country.

Employees and managers are getting almost same type of pays and allowances. However, the non-managers or non-gazette employees are getting additional benefits i. e. Twice a year uniform allowance, wedding allowance for daughters of Rs 50000, Burial charges of Rs. 10000, Death compensation Rs. 200000, interest free advances/ loans and leaves encashment annually etc. Unilever is providing complete medical facility to the employees and his dependents in the three hospitals at Lahore. Same type of the facility is available throughout the country for all employees.

Besides medical facility, company is providing transport and telephone call facility to the employees. In Unilever about 80% employees are getting formal training. They are spending about $20 to $30 billion. 53% of training was received by employees, 27 % by managers, 20 % by executives. Yes, the money spend on training on different department varies because of the need of employees. Some employees need more training than other employees. Unilever reports that they use both in-house and outside suppliers of training for all levels of employees. Outside sources deliver 56% of training and others are doing by other resources. 0 % instructors led in a classroom and rest of the training is given by using different resources and technologies. All the training is controlled by the HR manager. Conclusion Uni-lever has a well managed process of training and they are giving good training and development facilities and incentives as compare to the other companies. Unilever culture is about empowering employees, both to contribute to their business objectives and to achieve thier own personal and career goals. They also keep an eye on the future, with ‘leadership behaviors’ initiative aiming to identify the next generation of leaders.

HR’s overall function is to devise and implement strategies and policies to ensure that they have the right people with the right skills. Within that, there are numerous options for employees. For example, it could be covering culture change, leadership development, strategic talent management, coaching and skills development or alignment of reward with performance. COMPENSATION MANAGEMENT: A competitive salary is likely to be high on list of any individual’s requirements but Unilever believes that there’s so much more to it than that therefore it provides its employees with a package of benefits and pay plans.

Unilever Pakistan is working on different social and environmental projects to improve the living standard not only of their external stakeholders of the organization but also working to improve the living standards of their employees in the organization. Unilever believes that improvement in living standards of employees will put a positive effect on their performance and they will contribute batter to the success of the organization. (Hockerts.

K and Morsing M 2011) In their CSR report of 2010, they appreciated the performance of their employees as the organization showed 17% growth despite the fact that the country situation was not good because of floods and other country’s internal problems. (Unilever annual report 2010, p. 14) Unilever Pakistan is developing the concept of corporate social responsibility among the different groups of employees. They are working on different projects that are helping them to improve the employee living standards as well the internal environment of the organization.

For Unilever Pakistan, Occupational health and safety is among the Unilever Pakistan top priorities. Company management is determined in achieving excellent safety, 57 health and environment (SHE). Unilever Pakistan top management was continually monitoring the SHE measurement in their manufacturing and non-manufacturing units. Internally they also organized the safety and wellness weak to create awareness among the employees and business partners about different health and safety issues and also conduct learning programs for their employee’s families. (Unilever sustainable report 2010, p. 1) Unilever Pakistan operates different schemes for the benefit of their employee’s in which some of them are as follows: Pension scheme for their permanent employees and management of the organization, the pension scheme is of two types one is for those permanent employees who joined Unilever Pakistan after January 1, 2009 and the other is for that permanent employee, who has joined Unilever Pakistan before December, 2008. Gratuity scheme for employees and management of the organization and its contributions were made on the basis of actuarial valuation.

The last actuarial valuation was done in December 1, 2010 by using “Projected Unit Credit Method”. Pensioner’s medical plan for employees and management which is book reserve plane, and returned actual medical expenses which are defined in the plane. Medical plane is also available for those employees who have joined Unilever Pakistan before December 31, 2008. In Unilever Pakistan groups operate and approved provident funds for their employees. Monthly contributions were made on an equal basis by both the employees and group as well at the rate of 6% of the gross salary per annum.

Unilever Pakistan also provide interest free loans for their employees for their purchase of a car, computer and houses which are repaid by the employees in monthly instalments in a specific period of time. Unilever Pakistan under the plan of Variable Pay in Shares (VPIS) eligible employees according to the policy can chose between 10% and 25% of their gross variable can pay in shares of Unilever NV or Unilever PLC. Unilever Pakistan believes in equal opportunities while hiring employees and provides all the facilities for the special persons.

Unilever Pakistan organized different activities to make the employees to work under the company code of business principle (COBP). Employees are also required to sign the COBP each year. These activities are organized to ensure business ethics and Anti-corruptions measures. (Unilever annual report 2010, p. 28) Unilever Pakistan is working hard to create a perception of corporate social responsibility among their employees they are involved in 59 different activities to improve the living standards of their employees. Unilever Pakistan gives value to their employees by giving different facilities inside and outside the organization.

In response their employees also give value to their organization and are working hard for the success of the organization. They are also working side by side in the company social activities and helping the company to achieve company different social goals. Unilever Pakistan employees work together with their company to help the people affected by the floods and gives donation which was then donated by the company to the citizens Foundation for their school rehabilitation program. Unilever Pakistan employees also provide their skills as well as monetary support to various organizations with whom

Unilever Pakistan is working together on different social project like UN World Food Program, the citizen foundation, WWF Pakistan, Karachi Vocational Training and Layton Rehmatulla. Unilever Pakistan employees help the organization not only by giving donations to their different social project but they also actively participate by providing their skills and monetary supports. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT An employee’s progress is important. That’s why the company invests a lot of time ;amp; effort in supporting its employees to perform well and in building their capabilities. Past, present ;amp; future:

Performance and Development Planning (PDP) helps employees make the most of their working life at Unilever. The process supports employees in identifying and delivering against challenging goals that impact the organization. It also helps the employees plan how to develop skills and leadership behaviors for current position and for the years ahead. It also provides employees the opportunity to clarify expectations and discuss their future opportunities. Ongoing commitment: PDP provides a continual process that allows for a thorough evaluation of performance of each individual working for the company.

It’s an approach designed to encourage clarity and transparency throughout the year. The key thing to remember is that this is an ongoing dialogue between an employee and his manager. It’s about listening, sharing and accepting feedback, and taking responsibility for the next step in his career. MOTIVATION AND REWARD: MOTIVATIONAL PRACTICES The motivational practices executed at Unilever Pakistan are competent enough to drive the employees to work well at the company. It reflects in their performance, leading them to exert the directional and persistent effort for the attainment of organizational goals and helps in maintaining good mployee-management relationship that results in better performance, ultimately leading to job satisfaction and lowering the absenteeism and turnover rate. The motivational practices used in Unilever Pakistan are described below: STANDARD VARIABLE PAY PROGRAM There is a standard variable pay program for all the employees at Unilever Pakistan in which the employees are paid according to their performance which the increased productivity is rewarded as a percentage of the gross pay. There is a standardized method to measure the performance and then to reward it accordingly.

There is another yearly performance rating program in which there are slabs been given in the salary to the employees according to their performances that leads to the increased organizational productivity. IPF (individual performance factor) as stated earlier is a yearly bonus and reward that is given to the employees based on their performance. As the employees get the rewards in correlation with a specific performance, it also motivates them and helps them in learning the desired behavior and work patterns to follow.

There is a separate budget for the IPF which is lined with the line managers and they assign the proper allocation of the productivity criteria and results according to which the additional pay is given. EMPOWERMENT At Unilever Pakistan they offer careers, not jobs. The employees are provided with empowerment; they are neither coerced nor persuaded to do things. They all know their responsibilities and their work very well.

As there is employee participation and involvement in all related matters so the employees have their own concern in doing the things, they take pride in being associated with their work so they exercise empowerment which motivates them to do old things in a new way; that along with the top-management support and appreciation results in good work and fine accomplishments. FLEXIBLE BENEFITS The employees at Unilever Pakistan are provided with flexible benefits, these benefits are granted to both the full-time employees as well as the contractual employees.

Contractual employees might be on Unilever contract or on a third party contract, they do not get any medical allowance or conveyance allowance however non-monetary benefits are given such as agile working, convenient time slots, balanced work ;amp; life. On the contrary, the full time employees are given with many flexible benefits according to their designation as well as work performance such as medical allowances, pension, gratuity, variable pay, provident fund, conveyance allowance, house allowance etc.

Also at the Avari towers there are special discounts at lunch time for the Unilever employees. Following are some flexible benefits explained as given by Unilever Pakistan to its employees to motivate them and make the work for them a carefree thing to do. FLEXI WORK HOURS The employees at Unilever Pakistan are provided with flexible working hours, they can make their own working patterns according to their own suitable timings. There is no compulsion from the management to do their work on some particular time of the day. DAY CARE CENTRE

There is a day care centre situated in the company premises for the female workers where they can leave their kids while they are on work. They can monitor their kids through a monitor that displays the day care centre, can also go there if they want to see their kids and they can easily continue their work without being worried about their kids. PAID MATERNAL LEAVES The female employees at Unilever Pakistan are also provided with paid maternal leaves. The female employees can have their days off without any salary deductions and can come back to work as soon as they get well. AGILE WORKING

This is a very new concept in our country now executed in Unilever Pakistan. Agile working has been implemented with the mutual consent of all the employees. Before its execution groups were made from all the departments and then their opinions were taken on this idea of implementing agile working. This participative decision ends in the acceptance of this idea and agile working was implemented at Unilever Pakistan. Resident style: In this type of agile working, the employee has his regular working pattern in which he has to be physically present in the company premises and do his work.

Mobile: In this type of agile working, the employee may be on the go. Only thing he has to do is to keep his cell phone switched on ;amp; be in contact through wireless and electronic communication. Tranquil: In this type of agile working, the employee can do his work in any other physical space outside his designated place at the company. Agile working has shown positive results and rise in the overall productivity at Unilever Pakistan as it is a contemporary work approach. The time and place does not matter, only efficiency and productivity counts in.

In this way, the employees got a better opportunity to work more effectively and thus job satisfaction increased lowering the absenteeism and the turnover rate to almost in decimals of percentage. VARIABLE PAY Another thing that motivates the employees at Unilever is the transparency that performance leads to rewards. The variable pay program intends to make the employees goal-oriented and focused towards their objectives. This leads to the increment in overall organizational productivity and ends up with job satisfaction. BALANCED WORK/LIFE Employees at Unilever Pakistan have a work/life balance.

It is not always the work on their heads. They know their responsibilities and do their work with care as they are trained enough to work in the healthy and competitive environment of their workplace. They can draw a difference between their work and life and can do their work as well as enjoy their personal lives without any hindrance and stress. The employees at Unilever Pakistan are also provided with 15 day annual holidays that they can avail anytime. CONVENIENT TIME SLOTS This is the flexibility given to the employees who normally have a continuous shift type work.

They are allowed to choose the convenient and suitable time slot to do their work, as it not only increases their productivity but also motivates them to perform well. CORPORATE AWARDS- STANDARDIZED There are two standardized awards given at Unilever Pakistan to their employees for the acknowledgment of their work at the company. One is the “Long Service Award” that is given to the employee with largest tenure at the company and the other one is V. I. P Award that is given at some exceptional work accomplishment by any employee.

Recognition is provided to all the employees at Unilever Pakistan at functional basis; all awards and rewards are given away based on the employees’ performance and its impact on the overall organizational productivity and work effectiveness. In annual conference, awards are given to the employees and the people behind the best businesses of the year at Unilever Pakistan. The employees are valued for their work and performance and thus appreciation is given in the form of rewards and awards to them in order to motivate them and enhance their working drive and persistence. ESOP (EMPLOYEE STOCK OWNERSHIP PLAN)

There is an employee stock ownership plan at Unilever Pakistan that is in accordance with the Unilever Global Stock program. This option is provided to the senior employees, on a certain rate according to their performance, in which they can invest in their own company’s’ shares, the dividend each year is reinvested and when the shares get matures they can get the shares in cashed at the ongoing market rates. It helps in the employee retention to the company, to stay there for a longer period. In case the employee leaves the organization he/she cannot get the shares in cashed neither the yearly dividends.

CO- OP STOCK OWNERSHIP This is another stock ownership plan in which the company invests equally as the employee do. Every employee can invest some amount out of its annual bonus in the company’s shares and the company will also invest an equal amount. The maturity period and the rates are same here as in the ESOP (as per global stock standards) and the dividends are also reinvested annually. However, in this stock ownership plan if the employee depart from the company before the maturity period, he can get only his initial investment back, neither the dividends nor the company’s’ investment.

Both these stock ownership plans can motivate the employees to work more hard and with full integrity to achieve the organizational goals as they can also survive well in the progress of the company on the whole. Also the productivity will increase and thus employees would be more jobs satisfied and there would be lesser absenteeism and turnover in the company. That would be again profitable not only for the company but also for the employees as well; for their personal goals and careers. HEALTH, SAFETY AND SECURITY

Health and safety of the employees remains a priority of Unilever and they keep on improving their well-being in the workplace as well as in their personal lives. Unilever’s approach The health and safety of our workforce remains a priority. Unilever regards their employees’ health and safety as an essential element of a successful and sustainable business and are committed to providing a safe workplace. They aim to improve continuously the health, safety and well-being of everyone working for or on behalf of Unilever.

Their principal measure of progress is the Total Recordable Frequency Rate, which counts all workplace accidents except those requiring only simple first aid treatment. Enhancing the health ;amp; safety of our employees Unilever apply the same high standards at all of the offices and factories across the world. Their goal is the total elimination of all employee and contractor fatalities with continuous improvements in their overall health and safety performance. Their internal global health and safety standards are based on the international standard OHSAS 18001. Behavioral-based safety

Unilever has adopted the DuPont behavioral-based approach to health and safety, with good results. They continue to focus their support on those sites with the poorest health and safety performance. The role of their Health ;amp; Safety at Work Committee includes: Advising the Unilever Supply Chain Leadership Team of areas of focus and then recommending and supporting specific improvement projects Reviewing Unilever’s progress against targets and then recommending and supporting specific remedial actions Follow-up on serious accidents and ensuring wide dissemination and adoption of the lessons learned.

The Committee comprises senior, experienced occupational health and safety professionals under the chairmanship of the VP, Group Supply Chain Capabilities, who reports in this role to the Chief Supply Chain Officer. The Committee meets in person three times a year. Process safety Unilever is developing new indicators for measuring process safety to complement their existing measures for occupational health and safety. These will initially be deployed for the potentially most hazardous processes. Occupational health

Unilever is developing new indicators to track their occupational health performance. A global pilot was launched in 2008 using both leading and lagging indicators. These included compliance with the occupational health standards, as well as the prevalence of occupational illness. Unilever undertook its first full global data collection exercise in 2009 using this common set of key performance indicators. Safe travel ;amp; transport Safe travel and transport continue to be a priority for Unilever.

The greatest challenge they face is in countries that lack basic road safety infrastructure and enforcement. The risk to their employees from personal street attacks is also rising. They are currently reviewing the security arrangements in those countries where this risk is significant. For two years now they have been collecting global data on driving injury and non-injury incidents and hope to start publishing this data externally once they are satisfied that the information from all regions is aligned. In 2006, they established their Safe Driving Teams initiative.

Led by a senior manager in each country, these teams identified local risk, then developed and implemented tough safe driving standards. These were published in local languages so they could be communicated to all our drivers. They have also banned the use of mobile phones while driving. They also require all our professional drivers worldwide to have regular medical check-ups to ensure their fitness to drive. Where accidents do occur, they are keen that any lessons can be learned swiftly and the findings shared throughout the company. Looking forward

Their overarching goal for 2010 is to continue improving their health and safety performance across all areas of their business. Because safe travel and transport remains a key area, they will continue to embed their global standard on safe travel in vehicles and to develop the data collection on collisions. Promoting employee health ;amp; well-being Unilever believes that healthy employees contribute to a healthy company so they have a global framework of health and well-being benefits that each Unilever operating company is encouraged to make available to all of its employees.

This framework, called Lamplighter, involves coaching employees individually on their exercise, nutrition and mental resilience, and monitoring their progress through an initial check-up and six-monthly follow-ups. Since 2005 the Lamplighter program has been progressively rolled out from their London headquarters to a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The challenge is to encourage employees to change their behavior and sustain new habits, whether it is improving or increasing their exercise, being mindful of their eating habits or adapting how they manage daily pressures both in and out of the work environment.

It has been found that if they keep employees motivated on a program of change for six months, the positive changes are likely to stay. Another important factor in the success of the Lamplighter program is leadership behaviors. People at work tend to mirror patterns of behavior set by their managers and for this reason they started their roll-out with senior managers and used them strategically to encourage participation within their teams. Positive results The Lamplighter program has shown positive results.

Success is tracked in various ways but the single most important factor is the improved health risk status of their employees. It is measured by determining how many health risks an individual faces then people are educated, taught and supported to make changes to reduce these risks. In those countries where Lamplighter has been implemented, health improvements have been significant. Participants have reported improvements in their sleep, energy levels, motivation and work performance in countries such as Pakistan, Tanzania and Mexico. Conclusion Human Resource Management at Unilever Pakistan is one of the best examples of