Unilever – Transforming Global Training Through Employee and Supervisory Feedback

About Unilever

Unilever, a leading multinational consumer company, with 250,000 employees in 134 countries, is highly regarded for its product quality and sales effectiveness. The company runs an internal global training center, providing training in scores of key skills and competencies, for its salesforce.

The Challenge

Unilever needed to optimize the effectiveness of their company-wide, global training program. Although effective, the systems relied on voluntary initiatives or a supervisorʼs recommendations, for staff to request and receive training. The company did not have a system to actively identify gaps between an employeeʼs skills and required key skills for their position. Filling such gaps and equipping each person with all the skills required for their position will help the individual to achieve their full potential while helping the organization achieve higher productivity and greater revenue.

The PeriscopeIQ Solution

PeriscopeIQ and the company worked closely to develop a Skills Optimization System that:

• Helps individuals assess their own skills relative to skills required for their position
• Helps the individualʼs supervisor assess their skills relative to skills required
• Identifies gaps between the individualʼs and the supervisorʼs perceptions, leading to a dialogue
• Identifies the right training courses according to skill gaps, and allow individuals to sign up for these courses
• Automatically builds an executive reporting system allowing managers to look at skills need and gaps on an aggregate and individual basis for all the employees reporting to them
• Allows senior executives to drill down and identify skills needs and gaps by managers, departments, positions, or key skills
• Allows training director, for the first time, to have a predictive look into training needs and tailoring the program to meet such needs

Based on the PeriscopeIQ’s Employee Insights solution’s 180-degree feedback system and leveraging PeriscopeIQʼs powerful analytical engine and assessment design capabilities, the system was developed in less than two months. Key attributes of the systems included:

• Completely online system with results available in real-time
• Immediate feedback on skills gaps, targeted training courses and access to training signups upon feed back submission
• Immediate, real-time updating of the Executive Reporting System
• Automated workflow system allowing an employee and their supervisor to know the status of the assessment submission
• A permission-based portal allowing managers and executive to login and have access to only the right information
• Turnkey project requiring zero IT or other resources from the company

The system was first used in the United States to assess skills needs and gaps of nearly 500 professionals, and then expanded to Caribbean countries where it was deployed in Spanish and English. The system will next be deployed in scores of countries in Asia and Europe in multiple languages.

Outcome and Impact

For the first time, Unilever was able to develop a profile of skill needs and gaps across multiple groups, departments, positions and individuals.  At the executive level, this knowledge is transforming the way the company manages its training needs and development, and allowing managers to map skills and competencies in their departments as never before. At the individual level, the professionals are now able to see the competency gaps, apply for targeted training and have a basis for meaningful dialogue with their supervisors for professional growth and development. For these reasons, the company is launching the system globally.