Personnel Today - June 2006
Unilever may be facing criticism as a
corporation for being too conservative, but a change management
programme at its factory in Port Sunlight has made great strides
forward
Senior figures at Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch household goods
giant, must have a lot on their minds at the moment. The
multinational's latest set of financial results showed its sales
growth is way behind that of competitors such as Nestle and
L'Oreal, while investors have called for the company to be broken
up so that it can react to market forces in a more agile way. And
City analysts slammed the company for being too conservative,
complicated and bureaucratic.
But at its Northwest Liquids site in Port Sunlight, Cheshire,
the atmosphere is very different. In 2004, the site's HR manager,
Damian Hughes, masterminded a two-year training and culture change
initiative comprising talks by motivational speakers, personal
development coaching and technical skills training. Not only has
the programme seen cost efficiencies in the way the production
lines operate, but also a much higher level of engagement - and
therefore productivity - from staff on the factory floor.
Cloudy skies
When Hughes joined Northwest Liquids from another part of
Unilever in 2004, staff were disengaged, having undergone several
years of senior management changes and several rounds of
redundancies that had left a factory headcount of about 400,
compared with around 1,700 in the late 1980s.
"When I joined, the workers felt there was a dissonance between
what Unilever said and what it did," explains Hughes. According to
Jimmy Meadows, a trade union representative at the factory, staff
felt that the training that had been promised was not delivered in
the way they would have liked. "Before, I reckon we wasted 80% of
our training budget because we sent people on courses because we
felt it was necessary - but they got nothing out of it," he
says.
So, together with the site's training manager Dave Morgan,
Hughes put together an eight-page brochure of more than 250
training courses on everything from welding to creativity, and sent
it to workers' homes, rather than handing it out at work.
"That way it was more personal - a way of saying: 'This is your
personal development plan'," says Morgan. It was made clear that
the training was optional. "If people feel things are imposed from
above, they tend to resist what you're going to tell them," he
adds.
At the same time, Hughes was using up much of his spare time to
identify and book in motivational speakers to do talks at the
factory. Since the programme began, Northwest Liquids has played
host to the likes of Daley Thompson, Nick Leeson and legendary
cricket player Sir Garfield Sobers. "The idea was to get the
speakers in, generate interest in self-development, and then engage
people in the training," says Morgan.
Hughes also helped develop a series of 'positive thinking' courses
together with sports psychologist Gary Leboff, who has worked with
a number of Premier League football clubs. These courses are
pitched at people "who want to become a better dad or lose weight
or improve their golfing handicap" in the hope that this will help
them to perform better at work - rather than pitching it as a
course to improve their job skills. In addition, Hughes has been
running courses with Martin Perry, who has appeared as guest
psychologist on reality TV show Big Brother, on fostering
a 'can-do' attitude at work.
Brighter outlook
Offering motivational speakers and positive thinking courses is
nothing new, and often only creates a short-term boost in staff
morale. But Morgan insists that the way HR pitched the programme
has been critical to its success at Northwest Liquids.
"Through the speakers, we get the message out that people have
to take 100% responsibility for their own development. It's not
just about what the company does for you, but what you do for
yourself," he says.
The staff who are coming through the programme certainly feel it
has impacted not just on the way they behave at work, but also at
home. Rick Haney, who manages a production line of 24 people, says
the changes he has seen in himself have been "dramatic". "It's
shown me that everything we do is down to the choices we make -
whether that's at work or at home - and this is something I've
instilled in my two sons," he says.
The programme has also generated measurable benefits in terms of
efficiency. This is in great part down to something called the
Continuous Improvement Team - a group of 19 volunteers who were
invited to come up with ideas on how the business could be
improved, in return for a day's training off-site.
The team achieved its target of saving 100,000 during 2005, but
its greatest achievement has been in negotiating a deal with unions
to bring temporary recruitment firm Manpower on-site to hire
short-term contractors. Before the team was set up, the unions had
simply refused. Since January 2006, when Manpower entered the
factory, there has been a 2% to 3% increase in productivity, and
six members of the Continuous Improvement Team have been
promoted.
Storms ahead
There is still a long way to go in ensuring the positive changes
seep right through the site, however. The trade unions at Northwest
Liquids, for example, are suspicious about the programme.
"I don't feel the unions are totally on board because they feel
the positions of individual managers or stewards may be under
threat," says Meadows, a representative for Amicus on the site.
"People are getting promoted and the unions are trying to find a
hidden agenda. There are still a lot of people to convince."
But the HR function at Port Sunlight has as good a chance as any
of carrying through the changes the programme set out to make,
according to Lucia McCann, the works director (and most senior
manager) on the site. "HR is incredibly important in making this
factory tick," she says. "There are so many people that rumours can
get out of hand. HR tends to know about it before it's happened, as
they're living and breathing the operation."
And the site has history on its side. William Lever (son of the
founder of Lever Group, which became Unilever in 1929 after merging
with Dutch food manufacturer Unie) founded the first factory there
in 1889, pioneering not just new ways of mass producing household
goods, but also a means of offering accommodation and welfare
services for his employees. McCann believes that what is happening
at Port Sunlight today is a "modern interpretation" of Lever's
paternalistic values.
Elsewhere in the company, however, the various divisions are
struggling to move beyond the company's reputation for conservatism
- hence the calls from shareholders for the company to de-merge its
two key divisions, food and personal care. This makes it all the
more surprising that senior managers at Unilever have not jumped at
the chance to copy Hughes' change programme elsewhere in the
business, despite his best efforts to communicate its success.
"I would like to roll this out," says Hughes. "It could have an
ever greater impact in other parts of Unilever and beyond. It could
be applied to any organisation."
With the heat on from investors and the City, perhaps it's time
for the senior management at Unilever to sit up and take notice of
how just one project - led by HR - not only improved staff morale,
but also boosted productivity at this huge corporation steeped in
tradition.
Liquid Thinking
HR manager Damian Hughes, who used to work as a football coach
for Manchester United before joining the Unilever graduate scheme
in 2000, was so inspired by the programme at Port Sunlight that he
decided to write a book about its values.
But while many self-penned 'management' tomes go little further
than the author's own bookshelf, Hughes' book - Liquid
Thinking - includes an introduction by Richard Branson, a
foreword by Mohammed Ali's boxing trainer Angelo Dundee, and
endorsements from sporting heroes, such as world beaters Jonny
Wilkinson (rugby), Nobby Stiles (football) and Daley Thompson
(athletics).
Alongside the chapters on 'Achieving success' or 'Turning water
into wine', there are personal stories of workers at the Port
Sunlight factory, and how they have overcome challenges to succeed
in a particular area of their life - whether that's overcoming
cancer, or completing the London Marathon.
"I wanted to tell the stories about our own people, to show them
they are as comparable to Richard Branson or Jonny Wilkinson as
anyone else," says Hughes.
The book was distributed to all Northwest Liquids employees as a
Christmas present last year.
For more information on Liquid Thinking or to buy a
copy, visit www.liquid-thinker.com. All proceeds from the book
support the Collyhurst and Moston Lads Club, a youth club in
Manchester.
Port Sunlight: a history
Port Sunlight was founded in 1888 by William Hesketh Lever as a
community in which his soap factory staff could live and work.
These days, it survives as one of the best preserved model villages
in Britain, consisting of more than 900 Grade 2 listed buildings,
and home to the Lady Lever Art Gallery.
Although the majority of today's Unilever staff now live outside
the site, it remains a thriving community, and the company sponsors
a number of programmes to ensure the village retains its charm.
Over the years, Port Sunlight has produced hundreds of famous
household brands, including Sunlight Soap, Pears, Comfort and
Domestos.
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