Good Example Of Mission, Vision, And Values Essay

Application of Human Resource Techniques to a Real Job

Section I
The purpose of this paper is to apply the basic concepts and techniques of human resource management to a real job by examining an organization that is involved in the manufacture of fast moving consumer goods and agricultural products. The selected job is extensively discussed, and recruitment and selection processes for the job are enumerated. The organization chosen to serve as a case study is Unilever. The company was founded in 1930 after Netherlands’s Uni-margarine and United Kingdom’s Lever Brothers merged to form one entity. The combination of Uni and Lever yielded Unilever. Since the merging, the company has grown in leaps and bounds achieving an annual turnover of 4.3 billion Euros (Unilever, 2015). The company has corporate offices in Rotterdam and London, and it has a wide global presence operating in 100 countries that are spread across the world.
The company prides itself as one of the major employers in the world since it offers direct jobs to a quarter a million (250,000) people in its subsidiaries across the world. Millions of people are also indirectly employed by Unilever as suppliers, growers, service providers, distributors, and contract manufacturers. Research and development, and Corporate Social Responsibility are two areas of prime importance to the company accounting for 2.5% and 1.5% of turnover expenditure respectively. Unilever’s business is in three categories; Personal Care products, Homecare, and Foods. The Foods manufactured by Unilever include margarines such as flora and Blue Band, food seasoning products like Royco and Knorr. Other food items include Lipton tea and Ice cream (Unilever, 2015). In addition, the personal care products they produce include Close up toothpaste, Lady Gay, Vaseline, and soaps such as Geisha, Lifebuoy, and Dove. The home care products are detergents such as Omo and Sunlight. Apart from the foods, personal and home care products Unilever makes, it is also engaged in the tea business; large scale growing of tea, buying mature tea leaves, manufacturing and eventually marketing it. The integration of manufacturing and agricultural businesses also includes production of wood fuel, intensive research and development programs, and sustainable agriculture.

The mission of this company is working each day with a goal of creating a better future for all its stakeholders.
The vision of the company is tied on four pillars that guide the company on a long-term growth path. The four pillars include working to create a better future daily, helping people look and feel good and reap more out of life with product brands and services they offer, inspiring people to take the small daily actions which add up to make a big difference for the entire world, and developing new innovative methods of doing business which create a precedence for the company to grow but similarly reduce its global environmental impact (Unilever, 2015). The strengths of Unilever include having robust research and development departments that play a great role in maintaining or improving product and service quality. The second strength is the active involvement in Corporate Social Responsibility which earns it good will from communities they operate in. The weaknesses the company has are absence of a strong marketing team to market its products to every household. Revamping its marketing departments will see enhanced uptake of its products.

Section II

Supply Chain Manager
Supply chain management is the largest business unit at Unilever. It is the work of supply chain manager to source for high-quality raw materials, monitoring the efficient conversion of the raw materials into finished products, and ensuring that the finished products reach consumers and customers (Christopher, 2005). The supply manager is actively involved in planning how the company will meet any envisaged demand. This is called demand planning. He or she uses demand models and collected market knowledge that is available to come up with forecasts of product sales within a given period of time (Chopra and Meindl, 2007). This is crucial because needs of consumers should be made, and the company should not run out of products to sell to consumers. Demand planning will lead to the supply chain manager communicating to the production department information about what amount of each product they should produce depending on the demand in the market. This ensures that only products required in the market are produced and in the right quantities. For the supply manager to be successful in this role, he or she must have profound knowledge of the market and its extent so as to be able to ascertain product demand levels.
Additionally, the supply chain manager is in charge of managing the logistics of delivering the product to consumers. This involves ensuring that the products are available on shelves at all times. This is necessary to enable consumers access the product at all times they want to use it. At no times should detergents like Omo and Sunlight or Blue Band margarine run out of supply. These are fast moving consumer goods which should always be in constant supply to afford consumers the convenience of using them in their lives. Moreover, the supply manager is the link between warehousing and transportation department (Mangan and Christopher, 2005). He or she has to ensure that goods are stored in the appropriate conditions to reduce chances of spoilage and eventual deterioration. Moreover, he or she monitors the orderly removal of goods from the warehouses and their transportation to far flung warehouses or markets. Goods should be removed from the warehouses in an orderly manner to avoid pilferage or theft. Only the required amounts of products are what he or she is supposed to authorize to protect the company from suffering transit losses. In addition to being in charge of warehousing and authorizing transportation, the manager has to ensure that only high-quality products find their way to the market. The products being transported to the market must meet the market requirements in terms of quality, durability, and toxicity.
Furthermore, the supply manager has to optimize the quality and cost of the raw materials used in the production process (Mangan and Christopher, 2005). To achieve this, the supply chain manager has to source for raw materials, non-production and packaging materials intelligently. At all times, the supply chain manager is focused on procuring high-quality materials to ensure that the quality of products will be realized. For example, in making Lipton tea, green tea leaves have to be sourced. The supply chain manager guides the procurement department on how to go about this. A company like Unilever uses enormous quantities of packaging materials, and the supply manager has to ensure the required make and quality is sourced so as to maintain the appeal to consumers. Procurement is an important facet of the company since it is the beginning point of ascertaining the quality and lowering costs incurred in raw material sourcing. The input of the supply chain manager during procurement is essential in ensuring the company produces quality products at an acceptable cost of production.
Moreover, the supply manager is part of the factory department, and he or she should possess the requisite knowledge about the industrial process and skills required in the production of Unilever products. Essentially, he or she is part of the team involved in the conversion of raw materials into finished products ready for the market. He or she has to understand the methods a Unilever factory uses to improve the production efficiency and adapts to demands that are ever changing while at the same time maintaining quality standards that are world-class. This is essential because he can provide guidance on how to increase the production capacity while maintaining quality whenever demand of Unilever products outstrips supply. In addition, he or she is important in guiding the production department in infusing the various demands the consumers want to be included in the product. All these are geared towards ensuring that the needs of consumers are met through the various Unilever products.
In addition to the tasks mentioned above, the supply chain manager is at the center of maintaining customer service through the timely provision of Unilever products to all shelves of retailers who stock Unilever products. The products should be available to consumers at all times so that they can buy them and utilize them in their lives. To ensure that is achieved, the supply chain manager has to work with people in the sales department so as to understand the demand patterns and be informed on how to authorize the distribution. This is crucial in avoiding the occurrence of artificial shortages due to poor and misinformed distribution. The accessibility and satisfaction of products by the consumers is hinged on the efforts and thoroughness of the supply manager.
Moreover, the supply chain manager is actively involved in the customer development process. Customer development entails efforts used for the satisfaction and retention of customers resulting in repeat purchases. The supply chain manager is tasked with understanding the needs of customers and being at the forefront in meeting these needs in order to attract and retain customers. The supply chain manager at Unilever is part of the team that educates customers and consumers about products, their manufacturing process, and their long benefits (Mangan and Christopher, 2005). Essentially, the supply chain manager coordinates the steps a Unilever product goes through from inlet of raw materials and packaging resources, the transportation of the finished products to the market up to the uptake of the products by consumers.

Section III

Selection and Recruitment
Currently, the supply chain manager position has fallen vacant, and Unilever is focused on filling this position with a competent and skilled person. Unilever runs an in-house training and development program for recent graduates, and it is from this pool that future managers are plucked. The company is currently welcoming applications from recent graduates before the training and development program will commence for successful applicants. It is envisaged that the future supply chain manager will be picked from the group of applicants who will participate in the program. Against this backdrop, the supply chain manager’s position will currently be held by the marketing manager albeit in an acting capacity.
The selection, training and development program is extremely thorough and lasts for one year. It targets fresh graduates who barely have amassed a year or work experience. To be considered for a management position in supply chain management one must have earned a bachelor's degree in either chemical engineering, pure sciences, or procurement (Unilever, 2015). A possible selection procedure for a person competent and skilled enough to fill the position of a supply chain manager is as listed below.

Online Application

Online Test
Psychometric Evaluation
Interview
Online Application
The initial step is filling the online application form accessible on the Unilever’s website. During the application form stage, the important information collected by the company about the applicant includes their education background, their past leadership and work experiences, and the motivating factors that make them want to join this company (Unilever, 2015). The online application form is designed in such a way that it is possible to gather as much information from an applicant as possible. The applicants are expected to fill all the fields that are required and provide answers to all questions included in there. The applicants will have to provide the answers in an essay form enumerating their possible reactions or decisions when subjected to a variety of situations. After that, the applicant is expected to attach their academic testimonials such as scanned copies of their original University degree, high school certificate, and Identification document or passport. The extensive application procedure will be crucial in enabling the company glean as much information from the applicants as possible. This will guide the company in their selection of candidates who meet the expected requirements and, therefore, who can participate in the training program.

Online Assessment

The applicants who make it to the first shortlist are required to complete an online test, and this should take place a week after the applicants have tendered in their application forms. The online test will be structured in such a way that it tests the spatial thinking of applicants, examines their ability to think fast and provide solutions to problems, and their language skills. The tests will last for 1 hour only and after this time elapses; the applicant will be expected to hand in their responses. The applicants are expected to be alert to what the questions want, have reliable internet connection, a calculator, and stable power supply to avoid interruptions during this timed test.

Psychometric Evaluation

The performance in the online test will narrow down the total number of applicants. Those who perform well in the online test will make it to second short-list. However, special consideration will be made for the applicants who do not perform well in the online test but have outstanding academic record, are very creative in their answering of the questions on the online application form, or have a good leadership background as evidenced in the application form. Those who make to the second short-list will be required to attend a psychometric assessment. Psychometric evaluation refers to the process employed to measure the strengths and weaknesses of candidates. They consist of verbal and numerical reasoning, situational judgments and diagrammatic reasoning (Cohen et al, 1996). Tests in numerical reasoning are conducted so as to demonstrate the ability of an applicant to deal with numbers accurately and quickly. Questions in diagrammatic reasoning assess the applicant’s ability to reason logically. Elsewhere, verbal reasoning tests are designed to assess the ability of the candidate to think in a constructive manner. Moreover, situational judgment tests are used to assess the approach a candidate will have to situations that will encounter in their jobs. The various facets of psychometric evaluation help to assess the suitability of the candidates to be employed or if they fit the ideals of the company. The tests are aimed at gaining an accurate analysis of the behavioral and cognitive abilities of candidates.

Interview

After the candidates have finished the psychometric evaluation, they will attend a scheduled interview. A one on one interview with a recruiter will be held, and the aim of the interview stage is to find more about the candidate and establish the leadership experience and skills of candidates. Some of the questions that will be included in the interview include:

What are the three things most important to you in a job?

This question is included in order to help the recruiter establish the culture fit of the candidates and what kind environments would they prefer to work in. This is important because it enables the company to avail this kind of environment.

Why should we hire you?

The question is included to enable the recruit identify factors that made the candidate apply for the particular position. It helps identify the competence, skill set, and what he or she wants to bring to the company. The potential contribution the candidate wants to bring to the company will be identified. Moreover, the question establishes if the candidate is selfish or selfless and ready to help the company grow.

Where do you see yourself in 4 years?

The question is important because it helps the recruiter identify if the candidate is ambitious or the kind of a person who gets employment and the only thing they look forward to is a paycheck. A candidate is expected to work hard for the betterment of the company and themselves.
The selection and recruitment process is exceedingly rigorous, and it is expected that the best candidates make it the in-house training and development program. During the 6-month program, every candidate is affixed to a senior manager. The work of the senior manager is to monitor the performance of the candidate and appraise his or her performance regularly. After the appraisal, the manager is expected to provide feedback to the candidate and engage him or her in career coaching. This will help the candidate to build on their crucial strengths and areas they can develop fast and easily. Once the six month training and development program is over, various candidates are given managerial positions in their areas they strongly qualified and best suited. It expected that Unilever Company will fill the vacant supply chain manager’s position by a candidate from this pool because that is what has been its policy for a decade now.

References

Cohen, R. J., Swerdlik, M. E., & Phillips, S. M. (1996). Psychological testing and assessment: An introduction to tests and measurement. Mayfield Publishing Co.
Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2007). Supply chain management. Strategy, planning & operation (pp. 265-275). Gabler.
Christopher, M. (2012). Logistics and supply chain management. Pearson UK
Mangan, J., & Christopher, M. (2005). Management development and the supply chain manager of the future. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 16(2), 178-191.
Unilever. (2015). Application process. Retrieved March 29, 2015, from http://www.unilever-esa.com/careers-jobs/graduates/application-process/index.aspx