HUL does a lot of things right, and that is what catapults them to being one of the winners of the CII HR Excellence Awards 2009-10. Starting with the basics – hiring right, one-third through campus hiring, lateral hiring and promotions; building internal capabilities by putting people into the right jobs - a concept called ‘key jobs, key people’, and focussing on their leadership qualities – the company has indeed built an indomitable employer brand. These are reasons which ascribe as to why the top talent in the market vies for them.

The unique nine-box tool called the LDT – Leadership Differential Tool plots a person based on his performance leadership potential. Those who measure high on both potential and performance are called ‘hot people’. These employees are then not only rewarded disproportionately but also put on the most critical jobs in the business, thereby ensuring that the best talent is utilized most effectively.

HUL uses a 70-20-10 model for capability building – 70 percent of the person’s capability is built on the job, 20 percent is through formal coaching, which happens either with the boss or a skip level leader or by working with another person who is significantly senior in that role, and 10 percent of capability building happens through formal training programs.

Rigorous HR processes are used to identify and build the best talent. Senior leaders of the organization take charge of the processes – identification of key roles and revisiting it every year to ensure it is relevant to the business change.

One more unique practice at HUL is the Strategy into Action (SIA) Plan, which drives alignment and commonality of objective in the organization. The process has in-built processes aimed towards target setting, alignment, and reviews through Balanced Scorecards.

The four areas of SIA discipline are - think, plan, deliver, and review. There is a monthly review system in place where progress on each SIA is updated by the respective custodian. All SIAs are directly linked to the employee’s targets for the year. The degree of achievement of the target is a key determinant for the annual reward and career progression. Every personal target has to be linked to an SIA item to be fed into the performance management system. On a quarterly basis, the CEO engages with all the employees of the organization through a webcast on the SIA targets, progress against the same and key areas to focus on.

These practices and many more are what make HUL the employer brand it is today. They also make HUL a pioneer of best practices in HR in the industry.

Leena Nair is Executive Director - HR, HUL