HLL

A PROJECT REPORT ON





Hindustan Unilever Limited







PREFACE

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) was earlier known as Hindustan Lever Limited and it has its presence since 1956 in India. The Company Hindustan Unilever Limited is the country's biggest company in the consumer products sector and it has its head office in Mumbai.
The company Hindustan Unilever is a subsidiary of the UK based company Transnational Unilever which holds 51% share. The company is the topmost marketer of detergents and soaps and it has also the biggest business in India in personal care products like deodorants, color cosmetics, fragrances, and products of skin care. Hindustan Unilever Company is also a leading company in ice creams, squashes, jams, tea, branded flour, processed coffee, and tomato products. The company also manufactures bulk and specialty chemicals, fertilizers, and animal feed.

Hindustan Unilever Limited 's home and personal care brands are


* Lux * Breeze * Pears
* Lifebuoy * Surf Excel *Rin
* Pepsodent* Lakme * Axe
* Ayush * Rexona.



Hindustan Unilever Limited’s food brands are

 Annapurna
 Brooke Bond
 Lipton
 Brooke Bond Bru


 Kissan
 Knorr
 Kwality Wall's

Hindustan Unilever has more than 80 manufacturing facilities that are spread all across the country. All the production units of the company are highly technologically advanced. Also Hindustan Unilever Limited uses the best quality of raw material for the production of its products. This measure has ensured that the products of the company are of good quality. The Company Hindustan Unilever has more than 15,000 employees.
The Company Hindustan Unilever is one of India's biggest exporters and this is the reason that the government of India has recognized the company as a super star golden trading house.


The company has merged with a number of companies such as


 Lakme
 Ponds
 Brooke Bond Lipton India
 Modern Foods.

Hindustan Unilever Limited’s total income amounted to Rs. 31646.30 million in 2005- 2006 and the next year, this figure stood at Rs. 35877.20 million. The net profit of the company stood at Rs. 3805.90 million in 2005- 2006 and the next year, this figure increased to Rs. 4930.80 million. This shows that the Company Hindustan Unilever Limited has registered a significant growth in its profit levels.

Hindustan Unilever Limited has become one of the leading company in its sector in the country. This has been possible due to the fact that the company has strictly maintained the quality of its products which has led to customer satisfaction and loyalty. And so in the future also the Company Hindustan Unilever Limited must continue to supply the best quality of products to its customers so that it can retain its leadership position in the market.


UNILEVER KALAWA

This plant is not established by lever, this plant has acquired from Best foods .Its 26 year old company, company was established by CPC so at those days it was known to CPC food division.

Earlier it was into manufacturing of
 Custard powder
 baking power
 corn flower
 jelly
Later early 90’s it was taken over by IBL ,The logic behind this take over was The IBL brands would nevertheless get the required financial dose and distribution boost from HLL.
Says Birla Sun Life head of research K Ramachandran:

"The Indian impact is not significant, and even the Bestfoods brands in India deal in small markets. However, HLL's financial clout and distribution strength will boost IBL's brands fortunes and grow the market. HLL's media buying strength will also give the brands the required reach to a wider audience".

While IBL's brands would diversify HLL's food portfolio, the real impact on the multinational's vision to expand its food business will have to wait for a few years more, say analysts. Describing the Indian impact of the deal as "non-meaningful", an analyst from a leading research firm pointed out that financially IBL would form just about 1 per cent of HLL's turnover of Rs 10,142.49 crores.

"Levers is strong in all aspects of finance, distribution people and brand, and IBL will not make much of a difference", concurs Ramachandran.
Analysts, however, are of the opinion that HLL will be a significant player in the soups market. They say that HLL wold rather hone the growth of Knorr-soup in the Indian market than launch an extensive drive to introduce its international brands of Bachelor's soup from Lipton.
Finally HLL took over IBL, as worldwide policy in Augest 2007 HLL become Hindustan Unilever Limited.


Company has
 141 empolyees
 5 managers
 28 officer



Company is into manufacturing of

 knorr soup
 kissan tomato ketch up



Organisation Hirarche & name are as followes :

 Factory Manager : Mr. Pradeep Kirshnamurti.
 Production Manager : Mr. Atul Kambli
 Finance Manager : Mr. Gopal Nadella
 Personal Manager : Mr. Kamlesh Chavan.
 Quality Manager : Mr. Vijay Rangarajan
 Supply Chain Mgr. : Mr. Aniket Murkute.


Products & services :


Knorr soup is the major brand of this plant, It is the only plant in India, who produces knorr soup. Ever got into a soup wondering what broth to have before dinner? Baffled by the bewildering variety on offer? This winter, Hindustan Unilever Limited. (HUL) has attempted to ease decision-making for its customers by categorizing its soups under three simple heads
 Snack
 Oriental
 Classic.

Explaining the strategy for Knorr soups, Sidharth Singh, General Manager- Category Head Foods, HUL, says, “What we found is that consumers could not distinguish among the 14 different kinds of soups that we have whenever they went to a soup shelf. Today we have made it easier to navigate.”

In fact, the segmentation strategy even comes into play at a distribution level when deciding on the right kind of soups meant for a particular outlet or region. So while its Oriental soups in Thai and Chinese flavors would find more visibility in modern trade and up market outlets, its classic tomato soups would probably be more visible at kirana stores and smaller towns and cities.

At the same time, Knorr is becoming a high-profile brand in HUL’s foods kitty. As Singh says, “Today Knorr is a high-focus brand for us and getting a lot of attention from the company.” The brand almost 150 years old belonged to International Best Foods and was acquired by Unilever. It has been part of HUL’s portfolio for the past 12 years. Now with HUL increasingly banking on its global portfolio of brands, building higher margins in the foods business through its more premium brands is a conscious strategy being adopted by the FMCG behemoth better known for its soaps and detergent brands.
Knorr has been positioned as a savory brand and globally is into soups and cooking aids. In India too, HUL has extended the brand into cooking aids and today intends straddling the entire value chain of the cooking process.
“We have found that that there is an opportunity to convert from cooking from scratch and that Knorr can play a big role in it.” Bringing in Chinese gravy-bases, there are chances the brand could be extended to a range of cooking aids which could include basic flavored cubes for vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. “We intend playing the entire piano from simple to complex cooking aids as we believe in developing this market in India,” states Singh. HUL is betting on Knorr to make a mark in its category.
Soups are a relatively small category (estimated at Rs 50 crore) recording growth rates in excess of 40 per cent. HUL’s nearest competitor is Maggi and both brands are running neck and neck.
According to Minitha Saxena, Vice-President, Cogito Consulting, “The Knorr brand is more serious about its soups than Maggi. It has the connotation of a functional brand and after coming into the Levers fold, its visibility and presence has been noticed more by consumers. On the other hand, Maggi came into soups at a much later stage and it is more than just a soup brand.”
Industry observers say Knorr has always had an edge over Maggie in soups as the latter was never a big player. However, soups is still a small market, and for its consumption to become a habit, companies need to invest heavily. In fact, unlike the rest of the categories where some amount of indigenization may be required, Unilever can always import its Knorr soups and its ice-creams as it wants to build better margins in the foods business through its international portfolio. But HUL certainly does not believe in merely transporting its products from its international portfolio.

Unilever's number one brand, Knorr is a limitless global brand with passion for food at its heart. Knorr's history dates back to 1838 when Carl Heinrich Knorr pioneered experiments in drying seasonings and vegetables to preserve their flavor and nutritional value. Knorr has grown to become a well-loved, international brand with a wide range of
 Bouillions
 Soups
 Sauces
 Snacks and
 complete meals

to help people around the world to enjoy the taste and flavor of good food without the hard work that usually goes with it.

This plant of the HUL is very unique, because of the nature of product of this company.
This is basically Food division of lever. Though plant is very small, it produces two of the most valued brand in its food category atom.

Its main product is KNOOR SOUP in both vegetarian & non vegetarian category like
 Thick tomato, Sweet corn veg
 cremy mashroom, Masala pasta
 Hot & sour veg,Mix veg, Tomato pasta
 Thai curry nuddle, Hakka nuddle
 chinees chicken mashroom, Thick chicken
 chicken malai tikka,
 sweet corn chicken
 chicken malai tikka,
 Tangy tomatochinees chicken mashroom

Also company recently four month back launch New soup range of Indian style called Ganga soup range ,project name was Indain shorba Under this category they added some Indain flower to the soup these soup are now available in market like

 Tomato chatpata
 Suz hara bhara
 Corn mast masala
 corn kali mirch.




Mean while also come with gravy base like

 Bisbili baat
 Pav bhaji
 Hydrabadi biryani
 chinees Manchurian
 chinnes sechwan.

Now they are coming with very new product called marinate it is used for soking of chicken.
Company has another imp product named Kissan Tomato Ketchup, under this they got flavor like

 Chatkdar
 Chilly
 Non oninon
 Non garlic
in all sizes like 200gm,500gm,1 Kg,600 squzze PET bottle.
hottle, Macdonald outlets these are various Salsa like

 Maxican salsa
 knorr salsa
 Italin herb
 Veg mayonnaise
 Non veg mayonnaise
 Italin mayo
 paper mayo

CHALLENGES OF FACED BY UNILEVER KALAWA

1. The very important challenge face by this unit is of permanent employee, companies structure is like there are only 14 permanent employee,& rest other around 150 are Junior officer these are not part of any union They come under management category.
The age difference is also there Ave. age of Junior
Officer is 23, where as average, age of Permanent employee is 55-56.
As these permanent employee are on verge of there retirement , They are creating lot of troubles in the organization like not taking interest in any work assigned to them or any activity going on like TPM (total productive maintenance), safety related work or quality circle activity. Basic reason behind this is that they are not drawing that much salary at this point of time, in the past there has been three take over happened in company in which these people suffered growth in their salary.
Company fees that there Salary is much more than what that add value to company & another thing that these entire 14 Employees are going to retire in 2 to 3 years.
This very thing is creating problem to company & to Hr people.

2 Another major challenge face by the company is that, company has got some 37 female employee in production area under category of FTE ( fix term employee),These are working since 6 to 8 years basically in packing division, As they are not permanent they get 3500 per month salary, many of companies benefits like leaves, & canteen facilities . Now they are demanding for permanent status in company & salary revision.
But company is not in position to permanent them because overhead cost will shoot up; company is already facing pressure of cutting down operating cost.
Also top management is thinking of shifting this factory operation to either Nasik or Baddi (Himachal Pradesh). Because low humidity which is required for soup packing & also, to tackle high operating cost of transport in Mumbai

REQUIREMENT & SELECTION

Outside Appointments
All invitations addressed to Unilever Executives in that capacity to serve on outside boards as
 Directors
 Supervisory Directors
 Trustees etc.

shall be subject to prior approval by the Unilever Chairmen. All fees paid in connection therewith will be paid by the employing entity to Unilever and any share options waived.

The number of such outside appointments is normally limited tone per individual.

 There are basically two categories like recruiting from internal & requiring from external.
 Most of the time vacancies at executive level are filled by internally posting this is carried out by respective Hr team.
 For external one private consultancy are hired for this one of them is ONE March consultancy in Kandivali.
 Selection is based on following criteria.
 Candidate has to go through written technical test & psychometric test.
 Once he clear all this test ,panel of three to four people take interview
 Which include Hr person, concern department head, one of the experts in that filed?
 Then comes HR interview this is mainly carried out in company Head office located in Andheri (W) or companies training center in Udicchi in CBD Belapur.
 Final call is taken by factory manager, who takes final interview.
 Beside knowledge about the concern field, candidate is also tested in on Industrial Safety (because safety is the condition of employment) & also candidate innovative ideas which comes under TPM

CODE OF BUSINESS PRINCIPLES

Standard of Conduct
Unilever Group of Companies in India conducts their business with honesty and integrity and with respect for the interests of those with whom they have relationships.

Obeying the Law
Unilever companies are required to comply with the laws and regulations of the countries in which they operate.

Employees
Unilever companies are required to recruit, employ and promote employees on the sole basis of the qualification and abilities needed for the work to be performed.
Unilever is committed to providing safe and healthy working condition for all its employees worldwide.
The companies believe it is essential to maintain good communication with employees, normally through company based information and consultation procedures.

Conflicts of Interest
The group expects its employees to avoid personal activities and financial interests which could conflict with their commitment to their jobs. Steps are taken to ensure that employees receive appropriate guidance in areas where such conflicts can arise.

Public Activities
Unilever neither supports political parties nor contributes to the funds of groups whose activities are calculated to promote party interests.
Unilever companies are encouraged to promote and defend their legitimate business interests. In so doing they may either directly, or through bodies such as trade associations, raise questions and discuss particular government action or decisions.
Where their experience can be useful, they are encourage to cooperate with governments, individual, agencies and other organization in the development of proposed legislation and other regulations which may affect such legitimate interests.
Unilever companies are also encourage to respond to request form governments and other agencies for information, observations or opinions on issues relevant business and the community in which they operate.

Product Assurance
Unilever is committed to providing products which consistently offer value in terms of price and quality, and which are safe to their intended use.

Environmental Issues
Unilever group of companies in India are committed to running business in an environmental sound and sustainable manner. Accordingly they aim to ensure that process and products conformed to the standards set by the Government of India through Environmental Legislations and have the minimum adverse environmental impact commensurate with the legitimate needs of the business.

Competition
The Companies believe in vigorous yet fair competition and support the development of appropriate competition laws. Employees receive guidance to ensure that they understand such laws and do not transgress Indian laws on the subject.


Reliability of Financial Reporting
The Companies accounting reports and supporting documents must accurately describe and reflect the nature of the underlying transactions. No undisclosed or unrecorded account, funds or asset will be established or maintained.

Bribery
Unilever does not give or receive bribes in order to retain or bestow business or financial advantages. Our employees are directed that any demand for or offer of such bribe must be immediately rejected.

Application
This Code applies to Unilever companies throughout the world. Where Unilever companies participate in joint ventures the application of these principles will be actively promoted: this will significantly influences the decision to enter into or to continue in any joint venture.


Compliance
It is the responsibility of the Board of Unilever Companies to ensure that the principles embodies in this Code are communicated to, understood and observed by all employees. An independent internal Audit functions supports the Boards in monitoring compliance with the Code.
The Board will not criticize management for any loss of business resulting form adherence to these principles. Equally, they undertake that no employee will suffer as a consequence of bringing to their attention or that of senior management, a breach or suspected breach of these principles.
All cases of non-compliance of this Code will need to be reported by the Head of the Unit to the Profit Center/Functional Head with copies to the Personnel Director and Finance Director
Queries if any, should be addressed directly to the Director –
Human Resources,
Corporate Affair and Technology,
Hindustan Lever Limited,
and clarifications will be issued only by him.

PERFORMANCE APPRISALS

Very Important function in an organization

 Earlier there used to be two review in a year one was mid term review & another was final review, which was generally conducted in month of January or February.
 But now day’s Quarterly performance review is conducted.
 From 2008 unilever is giving quarterly performance bonus instead of giving it in March or April of every year.
 For very same reason there has being performance review at every quitter
 In performance review there has been few key objective which are common to all
 Safety targets- hazards observed, safety meeting conducted etc.
 Tpm edge score for respective circle.
 Training imparted
 Innovation project
 Respective departmental targets.


Following table shows performance appraisals of a production executive.

WORK PLAN TARGETS APPRAISEE
COMMENT
APPRAISER
COMMENT
ACHIVED
Safety targets + ALL ACHIVED
= 95 %
- < 95 %
Production weekly line fill & production
compliance + PCI 100 %
= PCI 95 %
- PCI < 95 %
Depot QDI
Reduction over 2007. + < 6
= 6
- > 6
BBOEE improvement + 8 %
= 5 %
- 2 %
TPM Edge score circle leader
Impart training
Innovation project




Terms used in above table

1) PCI – Production compliance index
2) QDI – Quality defects index
3) BBOEE – Bare bone over all equipment efficiency
4) TPM- Total productive maintenance


Based on this very important decision about grading is done.
Generally there are 3 grads system in plant

1) “V” – Outstanding performance
i. If person is constantly delving a very high performance in his key area, & also taking additional responsibility in the factory, then he is liable for V grade.
ii. Too constantly motivate people to deliver performance at best of his or her ability Company gives additional 50000 rupees for archiving two “V” grade for consecutive two times.
2) “G +” – Average performance
G rating is given to candidate for his or her average performance i.e. performance in neither above par not below per candidates needs to improve this performance.

3) “G” – Below average performance
This indicates that candidate has improve a lot in his style of working & ability to deliver targets , With this grading manager also try to find out a additional training or area of improvement for candidate.


Beside this bonus & incentive also depends on two more rating these are as follows.

 Factory as a unit performance for that year or quarter, rating system is A, B, C.
 Foods as business performance of unilever overall.

Interesting examples is that two years back, employee of kalawa plant got very good amount of bonus though factory performance was not that good & rating was also poor. The reason behind that was “Kuality walls Malaysia” ice cream division has done exceptionally well in that year they have achieved targets 200 % , what they were given , resulting in good amounts of money is giving to all food unit across the globe.

There is also another method of incentive for operators & FTE (fix term employee). It called point system methods, in which each employee get points out of 5, in a shift on production targets. For example for a 200 gm ketchup targets fit shift is 5 tons/ shift so if filling operator fills 20000 bottles in a shift , which is equivalents to 4 tons . Then he gets 4 point for that shift. All this point are added in the books & some of all point are made at the end of each month before salary calculation by Hr executive.


TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT
Assess your bench strength and skills gap
Ask each executive to compare his or her skills and characteristics with the ideal requirements defined for the executive's current post and preferred next post. Invite each to propose ways to close any personal skills gaps -- for example, through in-house training, mentoring, outside courses or participation in cross-border task forces.
Compare the skills detailed in the personal assessments with those required by your business strategy. This information should form the basis for your management development and training programs and show whether you have time to prepare internal candidates for new job descriptions.
Unilever uses a nine-point competency framework for its senior managers. It then holds the information in private databases that serve as feeder information for its five talent pools. The company thoroughly reviews the five pools every two years and skims them in between, always using a three- to five-year perspective. In 1990, for example, its ice cream division had a strategic plan to move into 30 new countries within seven years. Unilever began hiring in its current markets with that in mind and set up a mobile "ice cream academy" to communicate the necessary technical skills.
Managers and functional experts are responsible for checking into the database to compare their capabilities against the relevant skills profiles and to determine whether they need additional training. Their assessments are reviewed, discussed and validated by each executive's boss, and then put forward to HR.


There are basically two types of training impacted like Inside training & outside training

1) Inside training :
These training are specially are given to s serve purpose of internal work like
A. Safety: Under this personal safety while on job, safe driving techniques, training on fire fighting equipment.
B. On Job training : Under this training is given when with practical work is going on
For example how to fill soup pouches in dispenser, fast & with checking printing is given on line.
C. TPM : There is separate training activity for TPM , which in include brain storming section , why why analysis, training on GMP & 5S.
D. Advance excels training: This training aims basically to boost knowledge about advance excel uses & implementation, training is provided to executive & officers.
The effectiveness of internal training is judged by following method in which person is given a set of questionnaires which is pre & post training. Base on what he answered in before training & after training.

2) Outside training:
There is separate training center is established to fulfill training needs of west region of the company Udicchi training center in CBD Belapur Navi Mumbai, and also one more training center is in Warali sea phase area , that is for middle & higher level management.


These are some of the training company provides.

A. DO PONT certification training: Do Point Company provides technical know-how and safety software.
This is a three day program about safety & each & every executive is supposed to undergo this training within 1 or 2 years of services.
At end of successful training & clearing exam, do point certificate awarded to candidate. This training cost 18000-20000 rupees per person to the company.

B. Time management: As the name suggest it gives training about maximum utilization of time. It also teaches you technique like Red hour time management technique & Elephant technique.

C. SAP training : Recently company implemented SAP software in the entire Indian Operation except tea producing company ( structure is very complex special in terms of SFG booking) from each unit all executive & managers were given training .

For Maharashtra & Gujrat region, training was conducted in Amli, dapoli & Daman factories in Gujrat.
Beside this there is also many training like TPM black belt, Leadership capability, Event management.






AWARDS & RECOGNITION

This awards & recognition depends on company to company, in unilever lot of emphasis is given on safety, recently an award for safety given on 29th November

These awards included

2) 1 Best safety conscious person
3) 2 Best performance for safety circle
4) 3 Multi skill operators.
5) 4 Best hazards observation.


Exit Interview
An exit interview is typically a meeting between at least one representative from a company's human resources (HR) department and a departing employee. (The departing employee usually has voluntarily resigned vs. getting laid off or fired.) The HR rep might ask the employee questions while taking notes, asks the employee to complete a questionnaire, or both.

Purpose of an Exit Interview
Human resources departments conduct exit interviews (also called exit surveys) to gather data for improving working conditions and retaining employees. However, a hidden purpose is to help employers avoid costly litigation down the road, caused by "disgruntled" employees. In other words, your comments and the notes an HR rep takes during your exit interview might be used against you in court, should you decide to sue your former employer.



Some things to consider before participating in an exit interview are listed below.
 As a departing employee, will you benefit from an exit interview?
 Is the exit interview anonymous or must you sign a questionnaire or the HR rep's notes?
 Is the reason you're leaving any of the company's business or an invasion of your privacy?
 Why did your employer wait until you're leaving to ask your opinion?
 Will the HR department really use your comments for improvements or are they just trying to find out the "real" reason you're leaving?
 Might an exit interview burn a bridge, ruin a reference or cause an adverse background check for you?

VARIOUS SOFTWARES USED BY HR

ADRENALIN

This software basically do lot of HR function the most important are the leave processing , To apply for leave officer has to first login t adrenalin, in that in leave option he has to mark no of days he wants to take a leave .As soon as he submits his leave application on-line , a mail pop up on his boss computer desk top , showing the details of leave, boss go through this mail & if he want to suggest some changes like reducing no. of days or delaying leave or he does not want that person to go on leave at that date he again resend the mail to back to officer in other case if a boss sections leave .The mail goes to employee & t concern Hr person showing his approval in that case the leaves automatically get deducted from employees leave account , whether he takes it or not.

Another important function which adrenalin performs is processing of appraisals & grading which is very vital to keep record up to date & for performance bonus.

Adrenalin is basically web based software that automats strategic business- employee process likes

1. Performance management
2. Training 7 development
3. Man /power & resource planning
4. e-recruitment
5. Employee & managers self service
6. Payroll.







RECOMMENDATION

It has been seen that there has been too much interaction between operator and factory manager. Operator feels free to share their thoughts with factory manager. This is not a good sign for the organization.
Being an Unilever plant the internal infrastructure canteen is not so good.

Some of the positive about Kalawa Plant
As mention in the above report there is category of junior officer which are basically operator of machine but if that JO has a spark an ability to perform out standing. Company promotes such JO to the supervisory level. There are 4 such example available in the company.
Since it is a food plant the hygiene condition of the plant is very good. They used good quality nose mask, head cap.