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Innovative hiring pays off

Says chief human resources officer of FMCG giant Unilever

Sohel Parvez
Every year Unilever gets 1.8 million job applications from across the world, some 7,000 of them coming from one of the 190 countries the company has operations in, Bangladesh.
The leading fast moving consumer goods company calls very few of the jobseekers for interviews. Prior to the one-to-one conversations, the company analyses the applicants' performance by engaging them in different games.
Each gets a chance to play 8-10 games. The two-minute games can be played anytime based on the convenience of the applicants.
“Based on that, using predictive analytics and some algorithms, we do first level of screening of who fits Unilever and who does not," said Leena Nair, chief human resources officer of Unilever.
"We look for qualities like resilience, ability to learn and change things. And it is all possible through games," she told The Daily Star in an interview in Dhaka.
Nair—the first female, the first Asian and the youngest ever chief HR officer of the company—came to Dhaka early July as part of her regular visits to countries where Unilever sells its products.
She is responsible for human capital of Unilever, having more than 160,000 employees across the world.
She discussed the hiring procedure, challenges of women, importance of continuous learning and re-skilling to keep pace with the ongoing
technological advancements.
Unilever has digitised its recruitment process to assess the skills of the entry level jobseekers, Nair said.
Following the gaming session, every applicant is encouraged to record a 30-minute video of oneself answering questions coming from a computer generated figure and upload it, she said.
Facial expressions of the applicants on the videos are analysed using advanced computing systems such as machine learning, she said.
"Based on analysis, we finalise who will go for the interviews."
The beauty is every single person is provided with a two-page report which depicts what qualities s/he has and what qualities they need to develop, she said.
Unilever's digital recruitment process has won 50 awards and was dubbed as "the best innovation in the world" on many forums.
Nair began her career as a management trainee with Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) in 1992.
She has many firsts to her credit, from being one of the first women managers to becoming the first woman on HUL's management committee and its youngest executive director.
She has also served Unilever as the global senior vice president for leadership and organisational development and global head of diversity and inclusion.
"Women should dream, dream big," said Nair, opining that in most cases, especially
those involving women growing up in many parts of Asia, social conditioning blocks thoughts of being very ambitious.
Secondly, having confidence and the courage to handle difficult projects is also necessary, she said, citing that her first three assignments were in three factories. "And it was hard. It was not easy."
The grassroots jobs are very difficult and "that is how you learn about the business", Nair said.
She also stressed the need for having mentors and networking to navigate careers.
Shedding light on patriarchal
societies which bar women from working outside their homes, Nair said her journey to the current position had not been that smooth.
There was no school for girls in Kolhapur, a small town in the southern part of India where Nair grew up.
She was in the first batch in the first school that came up in the town famous for Kolhapuri Chappal, a type of hand-crafted sandal.
"I have also faced the same age-old challenges. My mother used to say, why are you studying so much? Who will marry you? Do not study so much."
Nair focussed on getting
educated at first, she said. "I never discussed career." She suggested women should focus first on education.
"Once you have education, you will have some ways to find a career."
She also recommended people be "very careful" in deciding when the time is right to choose a partner for life.
"It is important to find a supportive life partner even if it takes some time and effort. This is another practical advice I would like to give people from our region, from our South Asian countries."
"And last but not the least have a little bit of a thick skin.
You know what happens, because we are trailblazer, people will say things. There will be people asking reasons behind your working. Does your husband not have a job?"
"There will be people saying you are women. Why are you working in a factory? So, be less sensitive about these comments and focus on the aim only," she said.
But once a person becomes successful, everybody becomes happy, she said.
"My mother is so proud now that she cannot stop telling the whole world. Many people discourage you because they do not know it is possible. But once you can show them it is possible; they will be encouraged."
She said female representation was 46 percent in Unilever and the goal was to reach a ratio of 50:50.
She said Unilever has taken various initiatives to reduce gender inequality.
At the same time, the company also works on the culture. Unilever has an initiative called un-stereotype where it educates all its employees internally and externally through educational workshops to help them come out of prejudices and assumptions about people.
"It lets people to think about what are the assumptions they hold about women and their careers, about how men should behave. So, we run this because people have unconscious biases."
She said Unilever has created a lot of flexible options so that women can work half time, part time or on projects.
The company has a facility called job sharing where two
women or two men can share jobs such as working half of the week,
"Paternity leave is also as important as maternity leave. So, we have announced a global paternity policy where everybody at Unilever gets three weeks off if they have a child."
She also wanted other employers in Bangladesh to go for innovative practices to ensure women come back to the workplace after having children.
"We cannot say women are problems, as they have children."
It is important for every industry to see how the jobs are going to change and see how they can re-skill people to do the new jobs, Nair said.
Citing expansion of e-commerce and online sales and marketing in European countries, she said companies in Bangladesh and India should train their front line sales people to understand what it takes to sell on the internet.
She recommended that the government and the private sector should work together to create maps to re-skill the workforce.
Nair was also upbeat about Bangladeshi youths. She said she had met many talented young minds who participated in Unilever's global programmes like Future Leaders League, a competition of teams from different countries.
"I have always been impressed by the teams that come from Bangladesh. I think you are really fortunate. You have good human capital, talented, bright who want to make a difference."