MANAGING DIVERSITY – NESTLE COPORATION
Agustín López Sánchez – MIB; Group: B.

The company I have chosen to analyze how is being managed the diversity in terms of different nationalities and gender is Nestle Corp. As almost everybody knows, Nestle is a Swiss multinational company that makes food and beverages including baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffe, confectionery, ice cream, pet foods and snacks. Also it has well-known brands like Nespresso, Nescafe, Kit-Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Vittel and Maggi. At a current time they have around 450 factories around the world and operates in almost 86 countries employing 339.337 workers.
It is unquestionable that managing diversity have become a challenge for this type of company. Managing and treating people from almost 86 nationalities and try to adapt their strategy to the different customer needs and demands in those countries is an incredible tough work, and quite admirable. But it turns even more complicated inside the company at the time to transmit the company’s values, morals, know-how, ethics, etc… from the original idea. The idea that came from its foundations, in Switzerland, Europe. It is indubitable that the perspective, approaches, visions and different set of cultures that come from Switzerland are absolutely different from all of these countries the company decided to establish its operations in order to externalize their business. Therefore we can easily identify not only the challenge to repeat the business model in an absolutely different environment, (hopefully with success) but the great challenge to organize and manage a team from different nationalities expecting that every department works in a properly basis.
In this paper I will try to explain the product of my research in this company with the intention to highlight what the main Nestlé’s policies are in relation to its human resources in an international context.
NESTLE IN MANAGING DIVERSITY: A PRACTICAL APPROACH

Nestle actually is a very diverse organization in terms of geographical space and the characteristics of their employees. This kind of “international diversification” that encompasses different cultures, races, genders and finally people, has provided to Nestle a huge competitive advantage: the possibility to share different ideas from different approaches, better informed and well-based decisions, and deeper customer insights.
According to Nestle`s Corporate Business principles:
“We treat each other with respect and dignity and expect everyone to promote a sense of personal responsibility. We recruit competent and motivated people who respect our values, provide equal opportunities for their development and advancement, protect their privacy and do not tolerate any form of harassment or discrimination”
Source of information
As we can see in this policy about respect and tolerance, Nestle Group gives to their employees a sense of mutual common sense, a free space to develop themselves, working, avoiding any type of discrimination for origin, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation….
The different set of treatments that Nestle Group carries out with its employees have provided to the company an incredible competitive advantage over its competitors and this fact is being reflected in the different marketing campaigns that Nestle is carrying out around world.
For example, “Kit-Kat”, a Nestlé’s associated brand which has different delegations around the world is especially famous for its variety in Japan:

Due to the high intensity of the competition in Japan, it was absolutely necessary to provide to the customers a huge product line in order Nestle to be able to compete in this wild market. “Kit Kat” in Japan has more than 18 different flavors. Of course this kind so differentiation strategy would not be possible if Nestle had not an integrated vision of the customers and the markets of Japan.

Source of information: www.kitkat.com
It is also reflected in the TV commercials in Nestle India. In “Youtube.com” we can find a lot of examples of the marketing campaigns in this special country. For example, the last commercial is about a squirrel dancing typical Indian`s dances while people is eating a Kit Kat. Obviously they are trying to say that while eating a “kit-Kat” everything turn more fun. It is exactly this argument which Nestle has to take into account to know what “fun” is for a person from India. Anyway Nestle has always tried to do their marketing campaigns as much international as possible but, in countries like Japan or India may be a tough task. For this reason having an international enrichment within the company may be crucial for the Nestle strategy and goals.
HOW THEY HAVE PERFORMED

Nestle group has always tried to compensate its labor force in its organization. They have a policy of equal opportunities for women and men and also by age. However they have not reached the maximum equal proportion 50/50 between them. In any case they are improving in this aspect. Also, the majority of their employees, curiously, are from Asia and this figure has been increasing a lot during the past few years, meaning that the gross of its business is being currently moved out to the Asian emerging markets. Here we have some important figures that shows the diversity of the company:
Total Workforce %
Europe 97064 29%
America 112751 33%
Asia, Oceania and Africa 129584 38%
TOTAL 339397

Source of information: www.nestle.com
As we can see Nestle Group has become incredible diverse and the tendency is expected to maintain the same: increasingly diverse workforce inside its organization. The current situation of the company shows that its internationalization strategy has been successful related to the international workforce and its values, policies and companies’ set of moral will remain in the same path.

PROBLEMS MANAGING DIVERSITY

However, apart from the benefits that this company has obtained from managing such a diverse people and expand its activities to other countries, Nestle also has had important problems derived from its activity.
Given this problem, I consider that increasing cultural differences also bring potential cost in higher turnovers, interpersonal conflicts and communicational breakdowns.
In the case of Nestle, managing diversity has been incredibly hard. Despite I could not find more information about its Human Resources Department and its employee turnover, Nestle is considered one the best companies to work for in Spain according to “Merco Personas” survey.