Case Study 7 om Unilever HPCE -— the self-assessment m journey . im Introduction This case study describes the Unilever business, Home and Personal Care ~ Europe (HPCE) self-assessment journey from when it was formed in 1996, when it set itself the aim of being ‘world class’ in the new millennium. In this case study we cover a six-year period up until 2001 and give some indication of Unilever’s plans from 2002 and beyond. Over 100 years ago, the founder, William Hesketh Lever, stated the following mission for his soap company: = To make cleanliness commonplace. = To lessen work for women. = To foster health and contribute to personal attractiveness, that life may be more enjoyable and rewarding for the people who use our products. Unilever’s mission today is not fundamentally different but better reflects the social and economic climate and the wider scope of its operations. ‘The HPCE Business Group was established in 1996 as one of the 12 Unilever Business Groups with its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. At that time HPCE comprised 15 local companies in 18 European countries, although these numbers have increased over recent years. Within Europe there are 18 factories and eight innovation centers. Unilever HPCE has 10000 employees, of whom 1600 are managers. HPCE’s first president was John Sharpe, who had been an active supporter of both total quality management and later business excellence in his previous senior roles in other Unilever companies in the UK ~ Birds Eye Wall’s (frozen foods) and Elida Fabergé (personal products). The latter was one of the two businesses that became part of HPCE, tro? P rofessionalUnilever HPCE ~ the self-assessment journey 409 Ml HPCE used self-assessment as it formed an integral part of the management framework. This leadership and management framework applies the well-known Deming Plan, Do, Check, ‘Act cycle. Implemented at the outset, it creates a learning and improvement ethos across the organization and has the objective of supporting sustainable profitable growth, Akey elementof the frameworks the use of annual self-assessment, which has the objective of reviewing the progress from the previous year, not just from a financial point of view but also ina holistic way. It reviews both the enablers and the results across a number of stakeholders. ‘The framework is applied in all the business units as well as at the HPCE board level. The other types of business units are: = Categories ~ which are the units that manage the various ranges of products across Europe. = Local companies ~ which are the representatives in each of the countries that HPCE trades in across Europe. = Processes ~ such as supply chain, product development, IT and HR management. ‘The way that the self-assessments have been conducted has evolved over the years, as has the way that the outputs from the self-assessments have been used. The purpose of this case study is to explore this evolution together with some of the support needs and cultural aspects. lH The start of self-assessment in HPCE HPCE started to use the EFQM Excellence Model from the end of 1995 and carried out the first round of self-assessment in 1996. The intention to conduct self-assessments was announced during the first annual OBJ!* to the top 150 managers. It was decided to carry out the assessments at country level, category level, factory level as well as at HPCE board level. Each unit nominated a facilitator and a first ‘Business Excellence Conference’ was held attended by the excellence manager from Texas Instru- ‘ments, award winner in 1995, The conference was organized with the support of the Birds Eye Wall’s business excellence manager, who was a highly experienced award assessor. During the conference, syndicate groups were used to select the key results at the country, category and factory levels. It was decided to use the simplified Unilever checklist developed three years before by representatives from three UK companies, Birds Eye Wall’s, Van Den Bergh Foods and Elida Fabergé. The simplified checklist provided a way for areas to commence self-assessment that ‘was easy for everyone to relate to, which was especially important for the top team in order to gain their commitment. Much of the management understanding of the longer-term self- assessment process was gained at this stage. Board members were not trained in the detail behind the EFOM Excellence Model, but only in the concepts of excellence and in the use of the Unilever checklist and process. The main * OB! is a Unilever wide annual communication event. OBJ! stands for ‘Oh be Joyful!” tro? P rofessional410. Total Quality Management idea behind this was to demonstrate that self-assessment was simple, not time consuming and that it is worth doing, John Sharpe insisted on the fact that the top team should perform the self-assessment ‘The shared understanding and commitment gained by the top team from doing the Self Assessment themselves is an essential ingredient for real understanding of the process and its benefits. The commitment gained from ‘doing it oneself’ greatly increases the chance of long term success. The simple checklist approach consists of a number of questions that have to be answered ‘Ten questions were identified for each enabler criterion part of the model. For each question there is a need to record some evidence. A typical question would be ‘Do the leaders act as role models? Give three examples’ Ascore out of ten points is given for each question and the total forall ten questions calculated. ‘A weighting is then applied to the total for all the questions to give the criterion score. For the results a list of measures is given together for each criterion with a simple scoring system. For each result listed, if there is no data, then the score will be 0. Ifa result shows a positive trend over a three-year period, plus a target and external comparison, then the score will be 10, For each result criterion the average scoreis calculated across the measures, and in a similar fashion to the enablers, a weighting is applied to arrive at the number of points. ‘As a simple scoring system is used there is only limited alignment between the self- assessment score achieved and that which would be obtained through an external assessment. In addition to the score, the self-assessment leads to lists of strengths and areas for improvement (AFls) being identified for each criterion part, plus the top three Strengths and AFls overall. An improvement plan is generated from the analysis. ‘The HPCE board assessment was conducted by consolidating the output from the unit assessments and agreeing a score, plus strengths and AFls. The first opportunities for improvement were quite major and included both enabler and results issues. On the enabler side the need for a policy deployment approach was identified and so ‘Strategy into Action’ was introduced. This was based on an approach used in Unilever Australia and the transfer of the approach to HPCE is an early example of ‘external’ learning, ‘At the same time, although not as a direct consequence of self-assessment, a new strategy formulation approach based on the ‘Hax methodology’ was introduced. The timely introduction of this approach enhanced the benefit from self-assessment over the following years, as it provided direction and reinforced the value of self-assessment. In 1996 Unilever already had many soundly based practices in place. Examples included the ‘Integrated Approach’, which combines objective setting, development planning and remuneration, and the approach to product development, which has been benchmarked on several occasions. However, many of the major strategic improvements for HPCE stemmed from the first self-assessment. Improvements were identified in the areas of communication, process management and goal deployment, which led to the ‘Strategy into Action’ approach being deployed. Self-assessment also identified gaps in the results areas such as employee tro? P rofessional