Hind Lever's surplus managers for Unilever

Hindustan Lever Ltd, the country's largest fast-moving consumer goods company, will be sending dozens of managers to its Anglo-Dutch parent Unilever and to Unilever's subsidiaries around the globe. The objective is to make Hindustan Lever a leaner organisation with a manageable workforce. 
 
Hindustan Lever recently announced an organisational restructuring. As part of this exercise, the roles of managers are to be redefined and the surplus executives arising out of this exercise will be posted at the parent's other subsidiaries and operations around the world. As a result, overlapping of responsibilities within Hindustan Lever will be reduced as the company opts for a focused approach. 
 
At present, Hindustan Lever has over 1,400 managers, up from about 1,100 about four years ago, and a total workforce of over 30,000, including the employees of its plantation business. 
 
Hindustan Lever vice-chairman M K Sharma confirmed the decision to send managers overseas. "The organisational recast will apparently lead to surplus staff. But we do not want to introduce a voluntary retirement scheme to cut flab. In the new structure, people who have dual roles -- both in India as well as in the region -- will have to shed either of their roles," he said. 
 
Sharma said Hindustan Lever had a rich talent pool of managers who were well recognised within the Unilever fold. "People released from any of the roles will be absorbed within Unilever Asia or Unilever globally," Sharma pointed out. 
 
The transfer of managers overseas will bring down overheads at Hindustan Lever since the surplus staff will be on Unilever's payroll. Hindustan Lever executives refused to divulge how much money the company would save by doing this. In the first quarter of 2004 -- Hindustan Lever follows a calendar year -- its staff cost was Rs 163.49 crore (Rs 1.63 billion). In 2003, the staff cost was Rs 578.63 crore (Rs 5.79 billion). 
 
Hindustan

Lever recently restructured its businesses. Instead of the earlier five businesses, it has created just two separate divisions: home and personal care (HPC), and foods, each headed by a managing director. 
 
Also, for the past few years, Hindustan Lever has been trying to sort out the overlap of functions arising out of its spate of mergers and acquisitions. "This means, we have to streamline functions down the line as well. This is happening more on the brand management and sales streams," a senior Hindustan Lever manager said. 
 
The western region, for example, had a regional manager with five regional sales managers, each for ice-creams, beverages, foods, personal products and detergents. Each regional sales manager then had five area sales managers reporting to him. 
 
Now, according to Hindustan Lever's sales personnel, there will be just two regional sales managers, one each for foods and HPC. And with the integration of businesses, each regional sales manager will have only one area sales manager reporting to him. 
 
The HPC division integrates the soaps and detergents and personal products businesses while the foods division integrates the beverages, foods, ice-creams and confectionery businesses. Arun Adhikari is managing director of the HPC division, and S Ravindranath is managing director of the foods division. 
 
Both the managing directors and M K Sharma, vice-chairman, now report to Hindustan Lever chairman M S Banga who has been made non-executive chairman with additional responsibility as business group president of Unilever's home and personal care business in Asia from July 1. 
 
Sharma is also the chairman of a newly created national management structure to oversee Hindustan Lever's day-to-day functioning in Banga's absence.