1.6 Corporate culture

The basic principle in corporate culture of Nestle is “Good Food, Good Life” and the company considers nutrition, wellness and health to lie in the core of its business. The company is trying to create “Shared value” providing its customers healthy food and beverages and developing regions of presence. The company developed 10 principles of its operations, forming core of its culture.

1. Nutrition, health and wellness

2. Quality assurance and product safety

3. Consumer communication

4. Human rights in business activities

5. Leadership and personal responsibility

6. Safety and health at work

7. Supplier and customers communication

8. Agriculture and rural development

9. Environmental sustainability

10. Water.⁹

These principles are integrated in policies and practices. The company is trying to improve nutritional value of its products, establish equal standards in all countries, tries not to encourage overconsumption of products during marketing campaigns. Nestle doesn’t promote its products to children under 6-year age, and marketing to 6-12 year-old children is restricted. All subsidiaries of the company are obliged to follow local labour laws and international agreements signed by Nestle. The company has developed set of requirements for its suppliers and keeps rights to verify whether these policies hold.

The company insists that its success is based on people. It is trying to recruit competent, professional and motivated people that share the same values as the company does. Also, one of Nestle’s objectives is to provide equal opportunities for employees’ development. All employees are expected to follow the company’s Code of conduct. Mutual respect, trust and transparency, open communication and cooperation are the key values in corporate human resource management.

Actually, Nestle has a huge number of different policies ensuring implementation of these key principles. To ensure compliance of all subsidiaries with them, the company got systems of internal and external audit. Nevertheless, the company highlights that it is trying to keep local traditions and cultures in companies acquired, is present in impressive number of markets , so, and all in all it is quite questionable that all 10 principles and all policies are properly implemented and supervised in all subsidiaries (although some of policies like human rights are only about compliance with laws, not about additional responsibility).

2. Human resource Management at Nestle

2.1 Ihrm strategy and corporate culture

The basic principle of Human Resource Management in the company is that the greatest value is people. Managers call people a key asset. Moreover, not just people in general, but people of different nationalities, religions and ethnic backgrounds. The company has a strong corporate culture, adapted to an international environment. Since the company is global, the key to success is a “combination of different people in a single unifying corporate culture”.

Despite the fact that Nestle names itself a global company with a unified HR strategy and corporate culture, in some markets (usually in developing countries), it pursues strategy of multinational company. Nestlé’s business model is to establish strong national and regional companies. To follow this goal Nestle pays special attention to personnel development in each country. As they say: “One of the most important parts of our business strategy and culture is the development of human capacity in each country where we operate”¹⁰. The company provides a broad range of educational programs for all levels of employees: they offer education to farmers when building factories, provide courses for managers and technicians. The HR strategy is focused on establishing long-term relations with its employee, so the turnover rate is very stable at the level of less than 5% per year.

The company established policy called “The Nestle Human Resources Policy”. This policy encompasses the guidelines that constitute a basis for efficient and effective human resource management. In that document they state several main principles of interpersonal relations such as non-discrimination, the right of collective bargaining as well as the strict prohibition of any form of harassment. A big part of the document is dedicated to the process of recruitment and remuneration issues. This point is closely connected with the discrimination issue. The company operates in the markets of many countries, including emerging markets. Therefore, to the problem of discrimination there was given special attention. The company not only follows the principle of equivalence of all nationalities and genders, but also encourages diversification because it believes that it is one of the factors of success. Diversity is central to the nature of their business. The demand in all countries is very different, and company should follow it. This is only possible due to the diverse backgrounds and interests of employees and their firm commitment to embracing diversity at all levels. Nestle is often called the Female-Friendly Organization. Female employees and their employees' families know that Nestlé has a friendly and caring attitude. They recently set up a day-care centre, and have established a comprehensive Maternity Benefits Scheme for their female employees.

In “The Nestle Human Resources Policy” also there is the list of required characteristics for Nestle managers such as individual responsibility, strong leadership and a commitment to life-long learning. “Nestlé’s overarching principle is that each employee should have the opportunity to develop to the maximum of his or her potential”. By the way the desire for learning is one of the main competencies that every employee should have. It also plays an important role in the recruitment and selection of staff. To maintain it the Nestle provide a lot of opportunities to study and learn and even teach. There are thousands of educational programs that company runs every year.

Since the main point of the strategy is human development, the company invest huge amount of money in education: more than 65% of all employees received some form of training during that year¹¹. The managers are convinced that this investment pays off. According to the company, “This is all part of our strategy for maintaining our position as the world’s leading food and beverage company, through our basic business principle, which places priority on long-term business development over short-term temporary gain”.