Unilever reviews

4.0

80% would recommend to a friend

(11,371 total reviews)

Hein Schumacher

65% approve of CEO

64% positive business outlook

Unilever has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 11,371 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Unilever employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufactura industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

11K reviews
2.0
Jun 26, 2016

Beware all the glowing reviews...

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

...Because they're either from people outside the U.S. or are interns/"future leaders" - who get treated like royalty. I know of at least one intern who got a company car. Great company to work for if you're under 30 and happen to like New Jersey. Medical insurance benefits are pretty standard, and many managers allow flexibility such as working from home on occasion. Summer hours. [Disclaimer: although those are indeed perks, even the lowest level employees are expected to be available and checking emails at night and on weekends.]

Cons

If you're over 30 - forget it (and they probably wouldn't even look at your resume anyway). They re-org every 2-3 years and unless you want to live in New Jersey, you'll never be promoted. So many of the experienced people have been pushed out and replaced with kids fresh out of college who get promoted every year, so it's a revolving door of "trainees" that the rest of us are stuck trying to train. It is also a very cutthroat, competitive environment. If you're more of a team player and not an aggressive Type A, you'll get nowhere. The behavior of some managers is deplorable; I have witnessed and experienced it firsthand. And those are the kinds of people who get promoted.

avatar
Unilever Response
9y
Hi. Thank you very much for your review. We appreciate the feedback and will ensure this is passed on to the respective teams. We can assure you that over 85% of reviews come from outside of the Intern and UFLP team. We hope your current role is proving successful and wish you all the best.
3.0
Jan 9, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Very good healthcare benefits in comparison to sister companies - Great place to launch a technical or business career right out of college or business school - There is an emphasis on work/life balance and an agile work environment - Global footprint and international career opportunities for those interested

Cons

- Very political performance review process. It get's worse as you progress into management positions. It becomes all about "who knows you" as opposed to what you have accomplished. - In recent years Unilever has significantly decreased spending on employee training and development. This has resulted in fewer internal promotions and more recruitment of external candidates into management positions. - A very bureaucratic environment and a centralized organizational structure that slows down decision making. - In the last decade most of Unilever's growth has been through acquisitions. It lacks the entrepreneurial spirit to quickly launch new innovations and to grow organically.

avatar
Unilever Response
10y
Hi. Thank you very much for taking the time to leave a review on your current role with us. We appreciate all feedback - both positive and negative. It's pleasing to see that you mention Unilever is a great place to launch a career, and that the opportunities to progress internationally, as well as the work life balance were positives. Your comments around review processes and training and development are areas we take very seriously - have you spoken with your HR Business Partner? If not, we advise setting up a meeting to talk this through. We wish you continued success in your role and throughout 2016.
1.0
Apr 2, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Having other people do your work through delegation.

Cons

Leaders who hire & promote based off of nepotism or brown-nosing. If you excel at shameless brow-nosing & don’t do any work, but talk as if you do, then this is the perfect place to be promoted. Talented employees are not valued here. Expectations to get things done with the resources available (knowledge, tools, capacity, etc) is unrealistic to the degree you think that a child demanded it. Employees do not have the skills required to do their own job so mgrs delegate work to the one or two overworked & competent employees out of an entire team. If you deliver on unrealistic demands, then too often you delivered for nothing b/c the work got de-prioritized or ignored. You're better off not doing any of the work that's asked because there's a 50% chance it would’ve been for nothing, or pretend to be incompetent, and let the one person on your team do everything. You’ll work many hours b/c UL has an extreme amt of useless mtgs that suck time, energy, morale, & causes disengagement. You’ll get punished for not joining useless mtgs and labeled as “disengaged.” UL sends “anonymous” surveys encouraging honest feedback. These surveys aren’t anonymous. You’ll be fired for your honesty. UL wants sycophants & ego strokers. Surveys are used to target the hardworking & exploited disgruntled workers. Feedback is ignored. Such high turnover, the Leadership Team must be incentivized for it b/c they aren’t doing anything to stop it. Vacated roles don’t get backfilled. The team absorbs the work of 1 or 2 roles & employees double or triple hat with ZERO TRAINING. Now you can look forward to getting negative feedback/perf. review on work you weren’t expecting to do. If you’re successful during this mess then you become the go-to for everything! If you enjoy stress and 12 hr shifts, regardless of this pandemic (because these cons were RAMPANT since 2014), then this is the place for you. UL will have a huge vacuum of key talent that it's going to get worse.

Viewing 79 - 81 of 11,371 Reviews

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