How Unilever has created a culture of internal talent mobility
Digital HR Leaders Podcast hosted by David Green EP 57: Jeroen Wels, Unilever

How Unilever has created a culture of internal talent mobility

David Green ???? David Green ????

David Green ????

Co-Author of Excellence in People Analytics | People Analytics leader | Director, Insight222 & myHRfuture.com | Conference speaker | Host, Digital HR Leaders Podcast

发布日期: 2021年3月2日
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Talent marketplace is not about the technology, it is about the culture that we want to create

When the CEO cites the internal talent marketplace you’ve helped to create as a major contributor to revenue during the company’s quarterly earnings call, you know you’ve achieved something pretty special.

That’s what happened to my guest for this week’s episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. Jeroen Wels is the Executive Vice-President for HR at Unilever, and the architect of Flex Experiences.

Flex Experiences is Unilever’s thriving internal talent marketplace, which is currently used by 65,000 global employees who are able to share their skills and experience with people on other teams and in other countries.

During their quarterly earnings call for the first quarter of 2020, Unilever’s CEO, Alan Jope, highlighted how by using Flex Experiences, the company had been able to redeploy over 3,000 people from parts of the business with low demand to the areas that were seeing high demand due to the pandemic.

As you’ll hear from Jeroen in this episode, Flex is a stand-out example of a talent marketplace, and the impact – both to the business in terms of agility and unlocked hours, and employees in helping them discover their purpose and support their careers - is huge.

How can you resolve the friction of an internal talent marketplace with an external talent marketplace? And if we do that, I think we open up the real future of work.

You can listen by clicking on the image below or by visiting the podcast website here. 

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 In our conversation, Jeroen and I discuss:

  • The journey of talent marketplace at Unilever so far, and what is coming next ("We are now at a stage in creating a talent marketplace where the technology is working, people love the technology and give us positive feedback constantly. But more importantly, I think we are starting to really shift the culture.")
  • How Unilever's approach to talent mobility begins with purpose ("Start with purpose. Work through what kind of experiences you want to have. That is what you do through your skills because then the skills that you build up become the currency, with which you can invest behind your career experiences and therefore fulfil your purpose.")
  • How the events of 2020 cemented the business case for talent marketplace ("We were able to move more than 9,000 people in total from one job to another job in around eight to ten weeks.")
  • The 'friction' points Unilever is solving with talent marketplace ("Closing the skills gap and creating a more agile company. They are glued together. That is why I believe that a talent marketplace is going to be critical for every company.")
  • How Unilever uses Flex Experiences to support its Excavator initiative for small entrepreneurial companies ("We want to support smaller companies that have beautiful, but small brand ideas, to serve our consumers, particularly in the beauty space. People can step in for a couple of weeks, a couple of hours, couple of months, because they are excited about an opportunity, they want to have a new type of experience and on the back of that, learn a new skill.")
  • Unilever’s Horizon thinking approach to working with HR technology companies and start-ups ("What are the four or five areas that you really want to set yourself apart? At Unilever it is lifelong learning, talent and how to create agility as a new way of working.")

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested or involved in agile transformation, employee experience, learning and internal mobility so that’s business leaders, CHROs and anyone in a People Analytics, Learning or HR Business Partner role.

As a HR function, well actually as a company more importantly than the function itself, we need to stay relevant for our employees


LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

To listen to the Podcast and read the transcript of my discussion with Jeroen, head over to myHRfuture by clicking on this link: How Unilever has created a culture of internal talent mobility


WATCH THE VIDEOS

As well as the podcast, there will be a couple of videos available on the myHRfuture YouTube channel highlighting two of the topics Jeroen and I covered in our conversation. In the video below, Jeroen explains Unilever's innovative horizon approach to working with HR Tech startups.



GET INVOLVED

If you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast episode, I'd be grateful if you could take the following steps:

  1. Please subscribe to the Digital HR Leaders podcast and weekly newsletter to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
  2. Please take the time to rate the show on iTunes. We rely on your feedback and support to make the podcast, so this is very helpful!
  3. Who would you like to see me interview in future episodes? Let me know in the comments below.
  4. Lastly, don’t forget to share on social media with your friends and colleagues, your support is always greatly appreciated!


THANK YOU

A huge thank you to Jeroen for sharing his expertise and work at Unilever with our listeners. You can connect with Jeroen on LinkedIn. I also recommend reading the articles Jeroen has written below on talent marketplace, as well as other people initiatives at Unilever.

Additionally, Unilever is the first organisation we've featured twice on the Digital HR Leaders Podcast. This is testament to the pioneering work they are doing at the forefront of our field. If you enjoy this episode with Jeroen, I can promise you'll also enjoy listening to Unilever CHRO Leena Nair in how HR drives business value at Unilever.

Thanks to Danny Shteinberg, Ruslan Tovbulatov and the team at Gloat for sponsoring Series 12 of the podcast, and also Ian Bailie, Manpreet Randhawa, Caroline Styr and the myHRfuture team for creating the Digital HR Leaders podcast and video series.

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CATCH UP ON THE DIGITAL HR LEADERS PODCAST

If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, you can catch up now by clicking on the links below.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a globally respected writer, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As an Executive Director at Insight222, he helps global organisations create more cultural and economic value through the wise and ethical use of people data and analytics. Prior to joining Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David was the Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM Watson Talent. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations embark upon and accelerate their people analytics journeys. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast on myHRfuture.

SEE ME SPEAK AT THESE EVENTS

I’ll be chairing and/or speaking about how to drive business value and employee experience through people analytics as well as the Nine Dimensions for Excellence in People Analytics model at the following upcoming events:

Marc Steven Ramos

Learning Executive, CLO; 20 years' transforming L&D to enable companies attain their maximum potential | Google, Novartis, Microsoft/ Accenture, Oracle | Harvard Learning Fellow | Thought Leader, Advisor, Author, Dad

3 年

René. Markus.

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Jeroen de Boer

People&Tech lover on a journey to realize the next productivity multiplier

3 年

What a fantastic example of business impact driven by HR! Well done Jeroen Wels and thanks for sharing this with David Green

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Leena Nair

CHANEL Global CEO

3 年

David Green So wonderful to hear Jeroen Wels speak about something he's worked so tirelessly to build.

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