Introduction: company profile
Unilever is a world leader in Fast Moving Consumer Goods,with its products being bought 160 million times a day and used 2 billion times a day in nearly over half(nearly 55%) of the households on the planet. Unilever has dual headquarters in Rotterdam and London. This was after the merger in 1930 of Margarine Unie(Rotterdam) and Lever Brothers(London).

Unilever has more than 400 brands, 12 of which generate sales in excess of €1 billion a year. Its top brands include Dove, Knorr, Magnum ice-cream, Lipton tea, Axe/Lynx deodorant, Hellman’s mayonnaise and Omo, Persil and Surf. In 2011 Unilever worldwide turnover was €46.5 billion, with the underlying sales growth of 6.5%.

The mission of Unilever is to help people everywhere increase the quality of their life without increasing their environmental footprint. As a result, Unilever has set out an ambitious plan to help more than a billion people to improve their health and well-being, to halve the environmental impact of its production activities and to improve the livelihoods of half a million people in the supply chain by 2020.

Unilever’s human resource is its key asset. Census reports of 2010 indicate that the employees were 171,000 who composed of a cultural diversity such as the markets that the company operates in. The company operates in 180 countries; the map indicates the presence of Unilever. Of these employees top leadership consists of representatives from 22 nationalities. In 2010 employee engagement scores reached 73%, a remarkable increase as compared to 65% in previous years.

Due to the nature of the firm, our attention has greatly been focused on Unilever global office, which in many ways is representative of the entire Unilever. This is because for instance they have a ‘People Strategy’ that stipulates employees activities including training, recognition etc. So