In a world where digital literacy, adaptability, and agility are the drivers of business salience, Unilever Nigeria is a shining example of what can be achieved when talent development is harnessed to drive business in the long term.
The company’s consistent performance in Nigeria’s challenging macroeconomic environment is not a coincidence, it is the tangible outcome of a strategic focus on empowering people, building capacity, and preparing the workforce for the evolving future of work.
The belief within Unilever Nigeria is clear: to win in the marketplace, you must first win with and through people. This is the guiding philosophy of the company’s human capital strategy, an approach centred on unlocking organisational capability, people potential, and building a cost-effective, agile, responsive, and digitally empowered workforce.
Unilever Nigeria’s recent succession of managing directors speaks to the company’s strong internal talent pipeline and leadership development forte. From Carl Raymond R. Cruz to Tim Kleinebenne and now Tobi Adeniyi, each MD brought deep experience within Unilever, progressing through the ranks and delivering consistent business performance across markets. Their appointments prove the company’s ability to produce global leaders capable of driving sustainable growth.
Adeniyi, the current MD started his career as a Unilever Future Leader in 2009. His emergence as MD underscores the success of leadership development at Unilever. His career path through strategic supply chain and commercial roles in West Africa and Asia to his current role as MD is a good example of how Unilever develops talent from within. This tradition of leadership continuity attests to Unilever Nigeria’s commitment to developing proficient executives from within.
Unilever Nigeria through the Future X Unilever Campus Ambassadors Programme (FUCAP) and its partnership with UNICEF Gen U set a target to reach and equip 700,000 Nigerian youths across Campuses in a circle of three years from 2023. More than 35,000 youths were engaged through offline university campus seminars, over 190,000 equipped with essential employability skills and over 100,0000 equipped with entrepreneurship skills.
As technological disruption and changing market forces precipitate a rapid transformation of the world of work, Unilever Nigeria is ahead of the curve. The company is actively investing in making its employees future-proof. At the heart of this, is the implementation of robust learning programmes and bespoke development initiatives that allow the individual to acquire the skills, mindset, and experience needed to perform in the current job and upcoming roles.
One remarkable idea is the Shape Your Own Adventure program. This groundbreaking new learning approach empowers employees to be in the driver’s seat of their development.
By having purpose, well-being, development areas, and key competencies embedded into personal learning plans, Unilever is both improving individual performance and preparing its pool of talent to succeed in the workplace of the future. This is part of a broader philosophy of developing an “owner’s mindset” and a “one-team” spirit across the organisation.
The newly launched Functional Academies further highlight this commitment. The academies are committed to building deep functional expertise through leader-led sessions and self-paced study, enabling employees to further hone their mastery in key business areas. This, along with on-the-job deliverables and experiential learning, augments classroom instruction, enabling real-time, hands-on application of acquired knowledge.
Unilever Nigeria’s culture is founded on integrity, diversity, and inclusion. The company understands that diversity is key to innovation and richer collaboration. So, from gender balance to disability inclusion, Unilever Nigeria is deliberate in making the workplace inclusive so that each employee feels valued, heard, and empowered.
The Super Moms Group is part of efforts to boost gender diversity. This is a community designed to support working mothers who juggle career and household duties. In addition, advances in the development of the in-company crèche and creche support allowance for field staff further demonstrated Unilever’s commitment to equity.
By 2024, women occupied 40.9 per cent of management roles at Unilever Nigeria, a huge step towards realising its goal to achieve gender parity. Periodic reporting to the Executive Committee and regional management helps ensure that performance is monitored and held accountable at the top.
Aside from gender, the company is also dedicated to neurodiversity and inclusion of disability. Special training sessions were instituted to raise awareness, reasonable adjustments were implemented to improve accessibility, and recruitment websites were actively used to bring in diverse talent. These represent a firm belief in equal opportunities for all.
Employee engagement remains a key pillar in Unilever Nigeria’s talent development strategy. With its hybrid work scheme where employees work from home and on site Unilever Nigeria ensures engagement is both inclusive and impactful.
The UNIVOICE survey, Unilever’s global employee feedback instrument, achieved an 86 per cent response rate in Nigeria, which is a sign of a highly engaged workforce. The survey findings are then translated into concrete plans by functional leaders, another evidence of the company’s commitment to continuous improvement.
The year-starting goal-setting clinics, the Customer Development Academy, and participation in the Top Employer survey are a few examples of how the company made sure its people were aligned, empowered, and valued. The recognition as a 2024 Top Employer by the Global Top Employers Institute, the eighth time in a row, speaks volumes about the strength of Unilever Nigeria’s people strategy and brand equity.
The company’s leadership understands that strong labour relations are built on mutual respect and trust. This has been evidenced by positive union engagements and the active participation of executives in forums like the Industrial Relations Conference at the national and local levels across states, regular engagements with the management team directly for feedback to keep improving the working conditions of its workforce.
In a business environment where organisations must balance growth with cost containment, Unilever Nigeria makes a compelling case for how building talent can achieve both. The company is not only safeguarding its near-term future but future-proofing its whole operations by equipping employees with future-proof skills, creating a sense of belonging and inclusion, and ensuring continuous engagement.
Talent development is more than a strategy at Unilever Nigeria; it is the heartbeat of its business model. It is how the company turns challenge into opportunity and ambition into success. The company remains committed to attracting top talent, championing youth employability initiatives that equip the youth, retaining big bet talents and ensuring recognition for best-in-class practices as an employer.
As the organisation advances, its vision to double the business is more than a declaration of intent. It is a people-supported promise, facilitated, motivated, and empowered to propel Unilever Nigeria into a future of growth, innovation, and purpose.
