- Compensation; compensation; compensation (there is a reason every review mentions it)! Unilever pays at or below median pay level below Director level and top quartile of the industry at Director level and above. Downgrading pay of roles to lower position with original higher workload is common. Don't exploit people's desire to do good with lower pay
- Too slow (absolute minimum 3 years) to get first promotion up to management level - even for exceptional talent. Categories which have higher levels of employees applying/demand are even slower to get promoted in
- Occasional dishonesty & goal post moving around promotion timings/pay
- Promotion process for grads coming off the scheme is unstructured and unintelligent: primarily driven by CV and interview performance (which studies show are not good indicators of performance) vs. years of manager & peer reviews (which studies show are good indicators of performance). Some "vacancies" are impossible to get as there are preferred candidates, meaning in reality no one else can get them and this is not transparent. Some vacancies at a certain work level only open to that existing work levels due to the workload of those roles (so impossible to get "promoted")
- Office location (Leatherhead) is a pure cost cutting measure for Unilever at employees' expense: both time & money. Commutes of 2-3 hours a day for employees common. In fairness to Unilever plan to move to Kingston will alleviate somewhat
- Next to no incentive to produce excellent work at a lower level: time based system for promotion on grad scheme (3 years) means performance has little impact on progression as long as you are "good enough" and difference in pay between being one of the best and worst both in fixed pay and bonus is negligible
- Asymmetrical cost cutting approach - miserly in some areas (pay & bonus) and needlessly extravagant in others (away days and summer party for CD)
- Different functions get different perks regardless of quality e.g. sales function get four quarterly away days a year, essentially four extra paid days of holiday, whilst no one else does
- Slow but constant erosion of benefits (sadly common in many companies) e.g. bonuses; ability work to abroad; massive pension cut (which was only leading part of Unilever remuneration package)
- So big you spend a lot of time learning Unilever, not necessarily skills or your function
- Lack of leadership training
- In reality, simply not enough manager (2A) positions for all the grads
- Not Unilever, nature of FMCG, but work itself often of low significance - though Unilever answers better than anyone with USLP
