How Nicky Sparshott And Unilever ANZ Are ‘Doubling Down’ On Purpose
Nicky Sparshott, CEO of Unilever Australia & New Zealand | UNILEVER
Written By Afdhel Aziz
Nicky Sparshott, CEO of Unilever Australia & New Zealand is a passionate champion of Purpose in business. As the recent recipient of The CEO Magazine’s 2022 CEO of the Year, she is on a mission to show that doing good can be good for business. I caught up with her recently to find out more about her philosophy of doubling down on profit and purpose, creating the right empowered culture internally and the role of love in business.
We started by discussing a misconception around Purpose-led businesses. “I think there is still this kind of a weird belief somehow that if you're purpose-led, you must not be a high-performing business. I think it's lazy to have to choose between being purpose-led or being profit rich. Working out how to do both? Well, that's what makes you an exceptional business, an exceptional brand, an exceptional leader,” shared Sparshott.
“I always have felt very privileged working for a company like Unilever, where values drive a lot of decision making in this purpose and profit space, but what I wanted us to do in ANZ was to take it further, to definitively prove you could do both. Of course, we want profitable growth, but we want to have a regenerative impact on the planet, and we want to contribute to a fairer and more socially inclusive world in a material way, and we do all those things holistically. Then what could we deliver? What would that do in terms of the results of the business? What would it do in terms of engagement with our teams? What would it do in attracting talent, in attracting interest for the organization? That's what we doubled down on,” she said.
Determined to not just talk the talk but walk the walk, Unilever ANZ made headlines when it became the first really sizeable multi-national subsidiary across multiple categories to attain B Corp Certification, a rigorous assessment that demonstrated verifiable positive impact across key areas like governance, workers, communities, customers, and the environment. “That was pretty audacious when we went out there and said, "Well, why not?” We got the certification in August, so it was two years in the making. But I think it talked to that compelling-yet-terrifying vision, that unlocking of change agents in the organization that come from all walks of life and that sheer bloody-minded commitment to demonstrate the possibility around this space.”
Sparshott acknowledged that big business could be an easy target, but big business done brilliantly well could also have an incredible impact at scale. For Unilever ANZ, that means reaching about 15 million Australians and Kiwis every day. =When the company made a choice in terms of how they do business, and consumers made a choice about the brands that they choose, then actually “small difference, big impact” was the potential that could be unleashed. “Unilever is a house of gorgeous brands, and the way we connect with the communities we serve is through those brands. So, for us, purpose shows up in two ways. It is about the community, but it's also about the environmental impact. So, we do the ‘and and’ of both,” she observed.
Dylan Alcott in the Rexona ‘Not Done Yet’ campaign | UNILEVER
She pointed to the recent work with Rexona (an antiperspirant deodorant brand), and Dylan Alcott, 2022 Australian of the Year, and a passionate disability advocate, around their ‘Not Done Yet’ campaign which focused on getting Australians to move more by challenging cultural and social barriers and stereotypes. “I think what's critical is finding a purpose that's relevant for your brand. So, you can do many things, but finding the nexus of where the product that we sell and the purpose that we stand for has relevancy and saliency. It’s about finding a sweet spot that then gives consumers a handle on which to understand why this brand delivers against the intention it was made for, and it’s positive contribution.” She also shared how that has helped Rexona from a commercial perspective. “We’ve seen the strongest market share, very strong growth, improvements in profitability, improvements in engagement, a team internally that's very motivated.” The campaign also was notable for championing disability inclusion both in front of and behind the camera, in partnership with Bus Stop Films and Bastion Creative.
Gemai Pau and her children using Orange Sky’s laundry service in Cairns | UNILEVER
Cleaning brand Omo is another brand where Unilever have championed a Purpose-driven approach. “It’s a very strong, high-performing brand, very anchored in its purpose of producing great products that don't cost the earth, literally. So, value for money for consumers, but that also have been produced in a way that have given care to the environment right through that value chain.” The brand partnered with Orange Sky, an innovative Australian not-for-profit that helps provide equitable access to laundry and shower facilities to underserved communities. The initiative focused on bringing confidence to Australian kids below the poverty line through the dignity of clean clothes. “It makes sense to us, it makes sense to somebody buying our product, and it allows us to double down on the things that matter most in that specific category. And again, that is a brand that is overperforming the brands that have less purpose, both in our own portfolio and outside it,” said Sparshott.
She also talked about the importance of creating a culture of Purpose inside the company and how internal initiatives have helped foster that. Unilever globally, as well as locally, invests more than most others in terms of trying to find the synchronicity between someone's individual purpose, what gets them up every day, and how are they able to translate that into meaningful work that's rewarding and energizing. “Do you understand the daily actions that you make and how they contribute? 12 months down the track, it's been one of our single biggest measures that have moved in our culture survey, that clarity of company-wide purpose into, "How do I purposefully thrive by understanding myself and bringing my best self to work?" I'm really encouraged and excited by that. And yet, we still have much more to do, because it’s a continuous process. As new people come into the organization, we can't take for granted that they've grown up with this, so I think the job will never quite be done there,” she reflected.
Unilever | (C)TEZ M PHOTO INFO@TEZMPHOTO.COM
This has not only led to improved retention but also been a great talent magnet. “Our levels of attrition are far lower than the market average. I'm a believer that you do want some attrition because you do want that outside-in perspective. But we're also attracting some great talent from the external markets.” Sparshott re-characterizes ‘The Great Resignation’ as ‘The Great Realization’ to which she attributes a new perspective on meaning at work. “There’s this kind of realization that I'm wanting something more purposeful, more human, more rewarding, out of my job. I spend more time at work with my colleagues, by and large, than I do with my family. Every day, I want to get up and feel the energy, the effort that I'm expending in some small way can make a difference, but also fill my bucket personally.”
Part of this has been the confidence to give people the autonomy to work a four day week which the company rolled out recently. “It started from wanting to think about how we could drive a higher level of performance and productivity but with less time. Less time, more impact. I think the gift of time is the most precious commodity that you can give anybody, at this point in life, and it's also incredibly democratizing. Everybody has exactly the same amount of time. No one has more time or less time than someone else, but how you choose to use it can vary remarkably. We wanted to go in and give people the ‘gift of the fifth’.”
Unilever ANZ pays 100 percent of their salary and benefits for them to deliver 100 percent of business outcomes, at 80 percent of the time. “We only had two caveats, and that was one, that individually, as a team, as part of the organization, to find 20 percent of the trapped capacity that sits in an organization. So those wasted processes, projects, policies that just get in the way of doing the value-creating stuff. And the second caveat was that anybody that wasn’t doing the four-day work week (which is the majority of people that we engage with – our partners, retailers, suppliers, other stakeholders in the Unilever world), should feel no downside as a result of our different ways of working. We are in the service of delivering for our communities and our customers and our partners, and therefore, the choice we make as a business needs to be one that acknowledges the interdependent community that we are a part of.”
The outcomes have been positive, with the organization embracing this shared commitment and finding new ways to improve efficiency. “Let me give you a really tangible one. We removed three-and-a-half hours' worth of meetings per week in everyone's diary. It's 168 hours' worth of meetings, and more to come, right? That's just the starting point.” All meetings now have a default time of 25 minutes rather than a standard 60 minutes. “We've kicked off the experiment in Australia. I use the word "experiment" very deliberately because it's an opportunity to get time back. It's not an entitlement. So, for me, it is very correlated with a wellbeing platform that enhances productivity that drives excellence in performance.”
Sparshott goes even further in her recent TEDx talk entitled “Love – The New Corporate Currency Supercharging Results”. In it, she shares how in her decades of experience as a successful leader in business, she has seen how powerful love can be to drive success and stimulate innovation and transformation in the teams she leads. She asks the question, how do you begin to fear less and love more at work?
She observed “I do really believe you want to set the bar very high, but you also don't want to throw people under the bus, right? You're asking them to do something that, by nature, creates fear. How do you provide the antidote to that in the care and support that you give them?” She reflects on the unique culture in Australia that can help nurture this attitude. “I think there is a can-do attitude here. There is a spirit of mateship. I forgot how alive and kicking it was living in Asia for 10 years, and the UK prior to that. But that has been a real joy, actually, to be part of this sort of sense of, "I'm going to roll up my sleeves, and we're all in." "All in" as in, "Just give the best you possibly can of yourself," but also "We're all in it together," because then we're more likely to sort of create the change that we aspire to have.”
Finally, I asked her what she would say to her fellow Australian CEOs about embracing Purpose. She said, “I would say set the bar high. Better to fall short of a high bar than to lowball a target and high-five yourself when you get there. I don't know how to do all of the things that need to be done in this space. But I do know that every one of us in an organization, with our partners, with NGOs, with government, with the community, we all hold a piece of the puzzle. And if we can be a bit more egoless in bringing together those partners, then actually we can solve many of these challenges and, more excitingly, realize the many opportunities that comes with this space, as well. We're all in the same boat. Let's go big or go home.”
