Unilever Embracing change - Viewpoint - careers advice blog Viewpoint careers advice blog

Unilever â€" Embracing change - Viewpoint - careers advice blog The Hays Journal speaks to Doug Baillie, Chief HR Officer of Unilever, about how a career in line management prepared him for the top job in HR. How do you double a business’s turnover without increasing its impact on the environment? More to the point, how do you inspire 170,000 people to produce more, and better, services when the rest of the world thinks your plan is impossible? That’s the challenge facing Doug Baillie, the top HR executive at Unilever, which recently announced its bold new strategy. Getting the global giant’s staff on board with such a massive aim requires the very best business brain, combined with a deep understanding of HR issues. So it may be surprising that Unilever’s most senior HR representative has only two years’ experience in the function. Of course, Baillie is a very experienced businessman. In a career spanning 36 years, he has managed Unilever’s entire South African business, India’s Hindustan Unilever, and all of Unilever Western Europe. As a result, few individuals have as deep an understanding of Unilever and the global marketplace it exists within. Baillie’s career has included both direct management and consulting or advisory roles, often across borders and internal business units. He says such experiences taught him invaluable leadership skills that have helped him manage a changing business in an increasingly volatile world. Emerging markets are rising, middle classes are growing and the West has only just begun to emerge from a bruising recession. Overshadowing all of these changes are the realities of our unsustainable past. In fuel and other resources, in finance and in waste, recent years have seen the reality of a modern lifestyle take an increasingly heavy toll on the planet. The fact is, says Unilever’s top team, the only way for businesses to survive, let alone thrive, is to change their practices now. For Baillie, that means leading an efficient and lean HR team at the heart of a business with astonishingly ambitious aims. View the full article from issue 6 of our bi-annual publication the Hays Journal, providing global insights into the world of work. You can view the article in the Hays Journal online, via the Hays Journal iPad app or request a printed copy from haysjournal@hays.com //