Help equip 10 million young people with essential skills by 2030
We expanded our partnership with UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited in 2022.
Our brands are working on a range of youth education and volunteering initiatives through the partnership.
Future of work
Jobs of all types are evolving at ever-increasing speeds, so we have a duty to help our people adapt. We look at the future of work through three different lenses: the work, the workplace and the workforce. We’re committed to providing our people with future-fit skills for roles inside Unilever or beyond. And we’re exploring ways to provide more flexible employment options, so that they can do their best work in a way that best suits them.
Pioneer new models to provide our employees with flexible employment options by 2030
We are exploring flexible employment options through a range of initiatives.
We engaged with our workforce in 2022 to understand their needs and expectations on flexibility and hybrid working.
Reskill or upskill our employees with future-fit skills by 2025
15% of employees were reskilled or upskilled with future-fit skills in 2022.
We launched upskilling and tailored learning opportunities for employees below senior management, with a specific focus on digital skills.
Help equip 10 million young people with essential skills by 2030
We expanded our partnership with UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited in 2022. Our brands are working on a range of youth education and volunteering initiatives through the partnership.
More and more young people leave education ill-prepared for the world of work, and those who find work are more likely to be in precarious employment than other age groups. We are working with partners and governments to create employment skills for people aged 15 to 24 years old.
In 2022, we expanded our partnership with UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited, a global multi-sector partnership created to meet the urgent need for expanded education, training and employment opportunities for young people. The partnership is helping us work towards our goal of equipping 10 million young people with essential work skills by 2030, such as through the UK government’s innovative Girls’ Education and Skills Partnership, which aims to boost access to education and employment for girls in developing countries.
Two of our brands – Dove and Dirt is Good (OMO, Persil) – also have multi-year partnerships in place with Generation Unlimited in numerous countries on youth education and volunteering initiatives. For instance, Dirt is Good is helping Generation Unlimited expand the Global Volunteering Initiative to young people in India and Brazil so they can build valuable and transferable soft skills.
We are engaging with our partners to put in place a reporting mechanism so we can report progress against this goal in 2023.
Pioneer new models to provide our employees with flexible employment options by 2030
We are exploring flexible employment options through a range of initiatives. We engaged with our workforce in 2022 to understand their needs and expectations on flexibility and hybrid working.
People’s expectations of how they work are changing. In response, we are exploring new ways of working to create a flexible environment that values openness and adaptability, builds resilience, and elevates skills and performance.
Our ‘U-Work’ initiative, for example, gives employees the freedom and flexibility associated with contract roles, and the security and benefits typically linked to permanent roles. As part of the U-Work programme, our employees have the option to work on different assignments with time off in between to focus on other aspects of their lives. This allows for work patterns to be designed flexibly and to suit individual needs. We offer participants a monthly retainer and a specifically designed range of benefits whether they are working on an assignment or not. We first piloted U-Work in the UK, and it is now live in a number of other countries.
We are also helping our people balance work and home life without compromising the value that in-office contact brings. In 2021, we introduced a set of global principles to guide how we make use of our office spaces while giving our people flexibility and choice, which includes spending at least 40% of our time in the office to collaborate and connect with each other. We continue to follow these principles. In 2022, we engaged with our workforce to understand their needs and expectations on flexibility and hybrid working. We are using this to inform future developments on flexible working practices.
Reskill or upskill our employees with future-fit skills by 2025
15% of employees were reskilled or upskilled with future-fit skills in 2022. We launched upskilling and tailored learning opportunities for employees below senior management, with a specific focus on digital skills.
We are committed to helping our people equip themselves with future-fit skills, to pursue their idea of meaningful work in an ever-changing world. We do this by enhancing skills for their current role (upskilling), training to move to a different role in Unilever (reskilling), or preparing for careers and opportunities beyond our business. 15% of employees were reskilled or upskilled with future-fit skills in 2022.
Digital skills are a priority, so we have launched our first company-wide Digital Upskilling Programme which includes a range of courses and external certifications on digital skills for our office-based employees. We have also developed a series of learning pathways tailored for people who work in our factories, warehouses and distribution centres to help them master the future technologies of manufacturing, including robotics and AI. In addition, we continued the roll-out of a tool which digitises production processes, helping our factory employees to learn digital skills on the job. The tool is now available at around 110 factories with more planned for 2023.
We will continue to expand our Digital Upskilling Programme in 2023, as well as implementing improvements from the learning pathways rolled out with a focus on factory employees.