Unilever outsources HR services to Accenture

In one of the largest-ever human resources (HR) outsourcing deals, Accenture has finalised terms to provide Unilever with a broad range of HR services "" from recruitment to pay-roll processing and performance management "" in 100 countries (including India) under a business process contract signed by both the companies.

While the financial details were not disclosed, the deal is estimated to be worth in excess of $1 billion. The seven-year agreement will come into operation this July.

"The outsourcing contract with Accenture applies for Unilever globally and not just Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL). The benefits, therefore, are to be seen from a global perspective. The contract is primarily to enable us to concentrate on transforming HR and help it to better support business growth and build depth in its business-partnering and expertise capabilities. There will, of course, also be cost savings as a result of this arrangement," said an HLL spokesperson.

Whatever the outcome of the HR Transformation programme in each country, Unilever would treat every employee as per its normal policies and practices, he added.

Unilever had reportedly been considering options, including outsourcing the work to either Accenture or IBM or keeping it in-house.

Unilever's HR services serve more than 200,000 of its 234,000 workers worldwide. HLL has 20,000 employees including 200 HR professionals.

So, will the outsourcing by Unilever lead to job cuts? "Across the 100 countries around the world where Unilever operates, we envisage the programme affecting around 40 per cent of the HR community. We will only know the exact number of jobs required in each country after a detailed country-by-country plan is completed," said the HLL spokesperson.

"However, we do not envisage any immediate role changes," he added.

The agreement is designed to transform Unilever's HR operations and functions through greater efficiency and effectiveness as part of the company's "One Unilever" programme.

Accenture will also provide Unilever with a range of learning services. The scope of the work will cover Unilever's three geographic regions "" Europe, Americas and Asia/AMET (Africa, Middle East and Turkey).

Accenture will provide services to nearly 200,000 employees in more than 20 languages from delivery centers in Bangalore, Manila, Dalian, Bucharest, Prague and Curitiba.

"This agreement will help support Unilever as it drives to transform its business and achieve increasingly higher levels of performance," said John Zealley, managing partner of Accenture's European Consumer Goods & Services Practice.

Under the HR portion of the contract, Accenture will provide recruitment, payroll administration, reward administration, performance management, workforce reporting and core HR administration.

In order to provide Unilever with these services, Accenture will deploy and manage critical HR software applications for the client.

Under the learning portion of the contract, Accenture will provide content sourcing and development, programme planning and delivery, learning system hosting, and management and administrative services.