Abstract

The case ‘Unilever’s AI-powered Internal Talent Marketplace Unlocks Workforce Capacity’ describes Unilever’s initiative to implement a new AI-powered internal online talent marketplace, ‘FLEX Experiences’. The case focuses on how Unilever followed an entrepreneurial approach in developing FLEX by developing a ‘minimal viable product’ (MVP) and testing it on a small group of employees followed by a phased roll-out across the organization over two years to cover 100,000 employees. The case then touches upon how the AI platform benefited both the company and its employees in various ways. FLEX offered great support to Unilever when business agility became critical for business continuity during COVID-19. During the pandemic, Unilever quickly redeployed about 8,300 employees from businesses and markets that had slowed down to areas where its business was still growing. FLEX reduced internal hiring bias and increased networking that promoted diversity. Unilever employees were able to work on projects for a small or large proportion of time which helped them increase their expertise in a current skill or build new skills and experiences. The company’s overall productivity increased by 41% and there was a 20% increase in internal collaboration time. The case ends with the outlook for Unilever’s future plans to ensure that all employees are reskilled or up-skilled to work within or outside the company or transition to a new model of employment.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to ensure successful implementation of new HR systems using emerging technologies.
• Understand the benefits of creating an internal talent marketplace for employer and employees.
• Know about the relationship between re-skilling and up-skilling employees and becoming an agile organization.
• Examine the need to build breadth and depth of strategic talent pools across large organizations.
• Learn how organizations can use data-driven methodologies to future-proof their employees.

Keywords

Internal Talent Marketplace; Skill Development; Employee Engagement; HR Metrics; Competency Mapping; Human Resource Planning; Workforce Analytics; Diversity Management; Analytics Implementation