Unilever 2004 Annual Report Download - page 18

Unilever Annual Report and Accounts 2004 15
About Unilever
(continued)
People
Number of employees
Year end in thousands 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000
Europe 52 55 60 71 80
North America 18 20 21 22 39
Africa, Middle East
and Turkey 51 52 52 49 48
Asia and Pacific 73 77 82 85 84
Latin America 29 30 32 38 44
Total 223 234 247 265 295
Our people’s creativity, energy and passion drive our business.
This is most evident during periods of change and under
challenging trading conditions. We are working hard to build
global teams equipped to deliver business growth.
Unilever is consistently ranked among the world’s most admired
employers and is known to be a company that puts its people
first. We strive to stay connected and carry out world-wide people
surveys and ‘pulse’ checks to gain valuable feedback and insight,
which we use to help shape our future direction. In 2004 our
biennial Global People Survey had an 86% participation rate.
We want our people to feel directly involved in the performance
of the business, so encourage participation in employee share
plans; our internal communication processes help ensure that
our people relate to the business.
One of our ongoing goals is to help our business leaders connect
to our people around the world and achieve a shared
understanding of our business achievements and future
challenges.
Unilever is one of the most diverse companies in the world, with
223 000 people in around 100 countries. We believe that as our
people grow, each in their own way, so our business grows.
In Unilever, diversity is about inclusion – embracing our
differences and creating an environment that inspires people to
contribute to our business. We continue to create a community
that encourages individuals to be themselves within a framework
of shared values and goals. This means giving full and fair
consideration to all applicants and continuing development
to all employees, regardless of gender, nationality, race, creed,
disability, style or sexuality.
In 2004, we launched an online toolkit that helps our managers
promote diversity. The toolkit asks managers to take part in a
three-step process to ‘engage, participate and believe’ and
provides resources to suit a range of different learning styles.
We have had some success. More than 30% of our managers
are women and our senior management team is made up of
32 nationalities.
We encourage our people to learn continuously, to pursue their
personal goals and develop professionally. To help achieve this we
have established a community of learning academies for
professional skills training in Finance, Human Resources,
Information Technology, Marketing, Supply Chain and Customer
Development. Increasingly our academies link up and share best
practice and learning across the business.
Our HR Academy, through its Business Partners Development
Programme, is leading the way in building the skills and
competencies of our HR managers who work closely with our
business leaders. In 2004, the academy trained 108 HR
managers, covering 48 nationalities based in more than 50
countries. A highlight of 2004 was the opening of our refurbished
international management training centre, Four Acres. The facility
exploits state-of-the-art technology, making it possible for
employees to access learning and business presentations from
their desktops wherever they are in the world.
A key enabler for our future success is to take our best people
and create global teams. We now have global brand teams, in
addition to global teams in finance, HR and supply management.
These teams are increasingly supported by regional ‘shared
services’ in support functions. This evolving organisation is
creating a streamlined structure that is able to focus more on
delivering growth.
In 2004 work started on redeveloping our Corporate Centre
building in London, following completion of that in Rotterdam.
The objective is to stimulate new ways of working together. This
has been done to shape our business for future growth and to
foster a sense of belonging to a truly international business.
Related party transactions
Transactions with related parties are conducted in accordance
with the transfer pricing policies described on page 98 and consist
primarily of sales to joint ventures and associates. Other than
those disclosed in this report, there were no related party
transactions that were material to the Group or to the related
parties concerned that are required to be reported in 2004 or
the preceding two years.
In approximately 40 countries, our associated company,
JohnsonDiversey Inc., acts as Unilever’s sole and exclusive sales
agent for professional channels, in respect of cleaning products,
in return for which it receives an agency fee. In 2004 Patrick
Cescau, the Chairman of Unilever PLC, purchased a house from
an NV group company. We confirm that the full Boards, acting on
the recommendation of the Remuneration Committee and
without the participation of Mr Cescau, gave their prior approvals
to the purchase, which was made at full market value based on
two independent valuations of the property.
Further information is given in note 31 on page 147. Information
concerning guarantees given by the Group is stated in note 25
on page 134 and under ’Mutual guarantee of borrowings’ on
page 53. Guarantees are also given within the Group by the
parent companies, as described on pages 170 and 173.