Unilever South Africa
CRF Institute’s Best Employers 2011/2012 Ranked Overall Number 4 Ranked 1st Ranked 1st
Best Large-sized Employer Best Employers in Industry:
Consumer Goods and Services U
nilever South Africa is a dynamic fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) organisation with their head office situated in scenic La Lucia. They lead the market in 12 of the 17 categories in which they compete and all of their brands are highly recognised house-hold products.
There is nothing complacent about this vibrant organisation. On a typical humid Durban summer day, Management Today met with Antoinette Irvine, HR Vice- President (main picture) and Kathy de Gouviea-Smith, HR Business Partner (pictured overleaf), to discuss the benefits Unilever have experienced by being part of the CRF Institute’s Best Employers 2011/2012 project. We also touched on areas of excellence within the organisation.
Unilever adopted the CRF project in 2008. Irvine elaborates, “It was new to us and we accepted that it would be a continuous learning curve. We went into it thinking that we would come out at a certain level, but did not anticipate immediately what we would do with the ranking once we were awarded it. We were pleased when it dawned that the results form a highly effective external benchmarking methodology.
44 Management Today | March 2012
Since that first year, we have used the feedback to define our HR retention and recruitment strategies more clearly, and we are extremely proud that we are reaping the benefits. In 2011 we halved our attrition rates across the business, and we aim to achieve improvements across all dimensions.”
Unilever has seen some pertinent benefits from being awarded this external Best Employer award. It strategically increased their desire to position themselves as an Employer of Choice and the CRF project serves as additional platform to achieve this goal. Another platform is the annual South African Graduate Recruiters Association (SAGRA) Graduate Recruitment survey completed by 1,500 graduates across South Africa. Unilever South Africa achieved 4th place overall, and 1st in the FMCG sector.
Internally Unilever run their uniquely
tailored Global People Survey (GPS). Irvine warns that if organisations are not clear about the strategy and rationale behind such internal conversations it could just become an exercise in navel-gazing. At Unilever HR and the Board are accountable for the improvements in year-on-year results.
- Amanda Dormehl
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