HUL halts ‘lister’ to keep pace with new talent market

The programme, which assured Listers a rapid rise in the Unilever system, has lost relevance in a fiercely competitive market in which young employees are rejecting traditional HR ideas and unwilling to wait until they are in their 40s or 50s for leadership roles, said insiders.

Listers were identified at various career stages at multiple levels across businesses and made strategic business unit (SBU) or functional heads.

Some were on an A list and became chairman or CEO.

HUL has now democratised employee development to focus on early identification and acceleration to offer faster growth opportunities on a broader level. “The focus now is to offer growth opportunities to all good talent and not just a few Listers,” said an executive.

The middle management pool in HUL has also shrunk significantly in recent years.

Company Seeing Fewer International Postings

International postings have become fewer as Unilever entities in developing and emerging markets promote locals with leadership potential, officials said.

HUL did not comment.

“In a post-pandemic world, the workforce dynamics and employee preferences are changing rapidly, with companies facing a very competitive talent market,” HUL said in its FY22 annual report. “HUL has taken proactive reward and career related measures to ensure our talent feels valued and maintain our competitiveness.”

Some of the country’s top executives have been part of the Lister programme, which was launched in the 1960s. They include Nitin Paranjpe, Gopal Vittal, Arun Adhikari, Leena Nair, Keki Dadiseth, Vindi Banga, Harish Manwani and Sanjiv Mehta, currently heading HUL.

The maker of consumer brands such as Surf, Dove, Lifebuoy and Kissan has been reworking its leadership programmes. A changed talent environment in a competitive market that offers multiple growth options across sectors in a digital world has led to youngsters rejecting recognition methods such as bell curve HR systems, insiders said.

Young star employees are hungry for top jobs that are easily available to them outside the Unilever universe, executives said.

HUL has traditionally valued IQ over EQ, according to one expert.

“Today, in a digital world, the role of IQ is not the only criterion. Soft skills are more relevant as companies get diversity inclusive and the ability to adapt and be pace setters for change becomes critical,” said RR Nair, former CHRO at HUL and now CEO coach and HR strategist. “Unilever has been consciously planning leadership development keeping these factors in view. It has democratised talent building right across talent levels while reimagining and reinventing talent development in this changed context. The transferability and portability of Unilever talent and skills continues to be high.”

Managers in HUL–often referred to as a ‘CEO factory’-are still sought after in the FMCG space. Sudhir Sitapati, earlier executive director of foods and refreshments at HUL, joined

as its managing director last year, while toothpaste giant appointed Prabha Narasimhan, who was an executive director at HUL, as its India managing director in September.

“Companies seek managers from HUL given their aggression in sales and marketing as well as understanding of the MNC system,” said Abneesh Roy, executive director at Nuvama Institutional Equities. “There is a genuine pressure to hire from HUL which has increased due to the ecommerce and startup culture. With high attrition across companies, it becomes difficult to plan long term and the Listers programme may not be relevant in today’s environment.”

India is Unilever’s second biggest market after the US and was one of the top performers in calendar 2021, posting a 13% rise in revenue to ₹5.6 billion, or about Rs 56,000 crore, from the year before.

Unilever has also restructured its businesses into five divisions, aiming to make the organisation model simpler and more category focused. With each division fully responsible and accountable for its strategy, growth and profit delivery globally, employees including those in India are now increasingly provided an opportunity to shift to other Unilever markets and work for the same division.