Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Unilever

We’re committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone working at Unilever, without exception, feels able to bring their complete and authentic self to work. We want all our employees to thrive every day irrespective of race, ability, sexual orientation, or gender.

To grow the best teams and future leaders, and to serve shoppers with the best products, we need to build brands and teams that reflect the diversity of the world we live in.

We believe building teams with a range of experiences and perspectives is key to growing a sustainable business. We want to achieve this by:

• Regularly reviewing our recruitment and progression policies to ensure they reflect the communities we serve and operate in
• Designing and adapting our places of work to be fully accessible
• Building employee support networks that meet the needs of our workforce and help to build awareness and understanding
• Ensuring our recruitment and leadership teams complete un-conscious bias training
• Working with external partners to ensure we are setting stretching goals and ambitions from our recruitment through to our advertising

We want to drive equal opportunity and inclusion not only within our workplaces but also within the communities and society we are part of. One way we can do this is by leveraging the voice and reach of our brands and our continued commitment to un-stereotype our campaigns.

Through our brands and advertising we want to help build a more inclusive world by representing and celebrating diversity and fighting harmful stereotypes on screen. Off screen, we are committed to working with diverse talent and creators and playing our role in promoting a more equitable society.

As a founding member of The Unstereotype Alliance, which was co-convened by UN Women and Unilever for the first time in Cannes in 2017, we want to use the power of advertising and brand led content to reflect realistic, non-biased portrayals of women and men. The Unstereotype Alliance has recently launched in the UK, supported by Unilever UK & Ireland and our brands, with a primary focus on fighting harmful stereotypes by addressing the representation of marginalised groups, initially focusing on the experience of women of colour.

Within our global business, our diversity and inclusion strategy is driven at the very highest level through our Global Diversity Board, which is chaired by our CEO, Alan Jope, and championed by Aline Santos, Unilever’s SVP Marketing and Global Head of Diversity. The board provides the overarching vision, governance and target setting for diversity and inclusion across the global business.

To find out more on what we’re doing to address diversity and create a fair workplace as a global business please click here.

As well as doing more to build a diverse business, we want to diversify our recruitment and the reach of our work experience and mentorship opportunities.

We recognise that people’s paths to work start long before they start looking for a job and that this path is much easier for those from privileged backgrounds. We are committed to boosting social mobility by giving people from less advantaged backgrounds a route into the workplace, and by showing young people the variety of careers open to them.

Jane Maciver and Shelagh Muir, VP R&D Oral Care, have been successfully job sharing for the past two years.

David Tregidgo, Human Resources Director, decided to take an eight-month shared paternal leave to focus on his family and support the birth of his daughter.