Famous for producing some of the UK’s most recognisable brands, including Marmite, Persil, Colman’s, Hellmann’s, Dove and TRESemmé, Unilever is one of the largest fast-moving consumer goods companies in the world. Emma Chilton is currently doing a three-year logistics apprenticeship with the company. Based in Leeds, she works at Unilever’s deodorant manufacturing site where Sure, Impulse and Lynx are produced. We chatted to Emma about her experiences of the apprenticeship so far and her ambitions for the future…
I’d always seen a lot of Unilever’s products on the shelves in supermarkets and on TV, but I’d never realised what a broad spectrum of products they actually produced. I knew they produced Sure, but I didn’t know they made Dove; I knew they produced ice cream, but I didn’t know they made Wall’s.
I picked this apprenticeship programme in particular because the job description made it sound quite exciting. It sounded like it involved quite a diverse set of jobs within logistics, from supply planning and procurement to warehousing, transport and customer services.
I did consider going to university, but after I left college I didn’t really know what I wanted to be. I didn’t have a specific career in mind. I didn’t really want to go and do a degree just for the sake of it; I didn’t want to get myself into all the debt. When I finished college, we were in a recession. People were coming out of university not being able to find a job.
I just didn’t think that university was really for me. I had the qualifications to go, but after looking around, I realised that I could gain a degree by doing an apprenticeship, or at least other qualifications that would help me later in life. Also, the fact that I’d get paid at the same time meant that doing an apprenticeship was a better option for me all-round.
Yes. I studied business at college, so I’d always heard about apprenticeships for finance trainees and trainee accountants. But this logistics apprenticeship was the first of its kind in the UK.
Previously, everyone had sort of fallen into logistics. Rather than hiring engineers who would then fall into logistics, or moving people who were working on production lines into the logistics department, Unilever actually wanted someone who was going to come in and learn everything about logistics. They wanted someone specifically training and gaining qualifications in that area.
In my previous role, I’d always had bits to do with stock and deliveries, and meeting customer requirements, but it wasn’t until I’d read an advertisement in the local newspaper that I developed an interest in it.
I thought I wanted to be an accountant, but I went and worked at an accountant’s office and hated it. I actually came home from work one day and my Mum said: “I’ve seen this in the newspaper and I think it sounds like it would suit your personality.”
I read the job description and it sounded like it involved a lot of the things that I like, such as getting your hands dirty, instead of being sat pushing a pen all day. It also sounded like it involved doing something you could really be proud of. It didn’t sound like I’d ever get bored because there was so much stuff to learn, and I’d always be meeting new people from all over Europe.
I knew a little bit about logistics. I had a few friends who’d worked in logistics in the army, but it was completely different. Logistics in the army is more about warehousing and truck driving, whereas logistics within Unilever is a lot broader than that; it goes all the way from one end of the supply chain to the other, from actually ordering raw materials to delivering the finished product to the customer.
Everyone always thinks it’s a male-dominated industry and, before I applied for the job, I thought it was too. But it’s not at all. Where I work it’s about a 50/50 split.
After I’d found the advert in the Yorkshire Evening Post, I went on to the Unilever careers website to fill in a few details and upload my CV. I answered a short questionnaire on what my expectations were for working patterns and things like that.
After I got past that stage, I then had to do a telephone interview. After I’d passed my telephone interview, I had to come to Leeds and do an assessment centre, where I got to have a look around the site and meet some of the employees.
In my group interview, I was up against two others and we had to do a group task together. After that, I had a meeting with my future line manager and my college coordinator. Finally, I had a one-on-one interview with a logistics manager.
You need to be able to work under pressure in logistics. You also need to remain calm and work together in a team. They gave us a test where we had to direct a truck from one point to another. It had to reach the port by a certain time, and it had to reach its destination by another time. But there were only certain routes it could take.
Each of us had different bits of information; for instance, one of us knew how fast it took the truck to turn left and right, and another knew how long it took to lift a bridge up. We all had to gather the different pieces of information, communicate, and solve the problem together as a team.
Planning the truck routes isn’t actually something we do in our day-to-day job, but a lot of the time you will be working in a team, such as the customer care team, the operations team or the supply team.
You will know about all the different bits of your specific job, but you often need to get information from the other teams. I think that’s what they were trying to get at by giving us the exercise. You need to know where to get information, what bits you need to pick out, and where people’s different responsibilities lie.
The apprenticeship is split up into four six-month placements. You have six months in customer care, where you’re responsible for a few of our markets, such as Unilever Poland, Unilever Austria, Germany and the UK, and you have to make sure that they have the right amount of stock in the right place at the right time. Essentially, you’re handling customer orders.
After that, I went on to work in operations planning, which involves covering customer demand, responding to promotional values and planning changes. You actually also get given responsibility for production lines within the factory.
I was responsible for the Sure 250ml line, which runs for the UK, the Impulse line for Europe, and the roll-on lines for Europe on some occasions. But it’s also about balancing what the customer wants with what you can actually make in terms of line capacities. It’s also about planning the lines in such a way that you’re minimising the amount of changeovers and maintaining the efficiency of the lines.
After that, I did a stint in supply planning, which involves ordering raw materials, such as empty aluminium cans, the perfumes, the gas that goes in them, the caps, the valves, the trays, and the shrink wrap. You need to get all the materials within the designated lead time to meet the production plans of your factory. We actually work on a ‘just in time’ delivery basis though, so we only ever hold two days’ worth of stock on site.
Pretty soon I’ll be moving into new product development, which involves delivering new innovations, such as new variants into the factory.
For your final year, you do a year ‘on project’. I’ve decided to split mine into two six month projects. I’ve just come off one project, ‘Improvements in Transportation’, which involves working with third party companies and looking at the utilisation of the vehicles: how often we use them, and how full the vehicles are. It’s also about reducing the carbon footprint. Unilever’s quite passionate about the environment, but it’s also important not to increase your timings because your customer needs stock. It’s all about trying to get the best of both worlds really.
For three and a half days of my five-day week, I do on-the-job learning, and the other one and a half days is spent doing my college courses. In my first year, I did an NVQ in Logistics and Operations Management. A lot of the NVQ is about consolidating what you know and proving that you can do what would be expected of an operations manager, such as changing plans and meeting customer requirements.
I’m also doing a Certificate in Logistics and Transport. I’ve done my Level 2 and I’m in the middle of my Level 3. As part of these qualifications, we actually learn theory and then apply it to our everyday work.
We also do a supply management qualification, which involves looking at how the systems that we use work, and how different parts of the supply chain affect other parts; for instance, how demand planning will influence production planning and supply planning. It’s a lot more in-depth and is probably the hardest out of all three qualifications.
I do. I really like the study aspect of it. Within four months of leaving college I started the apprenticeship, so I never really had a break from studying. If I’d gone to university, where it’s a bit more of a relaxed approach to learning, I would have found it harder.
Tough question. One of the best parts is being able to work with other companies. Since Unilever’s such a big company, you’re often required to work with a lot of third parties. You get to travel a lot too; for example, you might be sent to Germany or Greece for a couple of days.
However, I think the best part of the job is being able to walk into the likes of Asda, Morrisons and Tesco, seeing something that’s new, and thinking: I was part of that. That’s probably the most rewarding part of the job.
Nothing is that frustrating. You come across your little day-to-day problems, but you get over them pretty quickly. They’re easily resolved.
There’s no guaranteed job at the end of it, but I’ve already been told that I might be taken off my apprenticeship slightly early and put into a full-time role. Hopefully I’ll continue working for Unilever, preferably at this site, but there are chances to move to other sites around the country.
Hopefully, if I do stay with Unilever, I’d like to broaden my knowledge. I haven’t really delved into the production side of things. I know how the lines run, but I’d actually like to work on them, so that I can gather more knowledge of the factory. I think that might help me to move up into management territory.
Overall, I will have achieved an NVQ Level 3, a CPIM, which is a supply chain management qualification that’s pretty much equivalent to a degree, in that you get letters after your name for completing it, and I’ll have a Certificate in Logistics and Transport at Level 2 and 3.
I think I’ve got more of an advantage. Although a lot of people are coming out of university with a degree in logistics, supply chain management or procurement, they don’t actually have any work experience within the industry. A lot of the time, working in logistics is actually about being able to do the job rather than knowing the theory behind it.
It can be so diverse. The way ice cream is run in Gloucester is completely different to the way that deodorant is run in Leeds. When we do our college work, we look at how it should work and then we relate that back to our work on-site in Leeds.
I’d like to move up into management eventually. And I’d definitely like to stay with this company.
I’d probably say that an apprenticeship is the best way to go. It’s important to get as much work experience as possible from different sites, or in different types of jobs. And just really enjoy your job. Every day is different. You never come into work knowing what’s going to happen that day. A line could break down or a truck could break down; you always get lots of new challenges.
Unilever offers a range of apprenticeships for young people in the following three areas: Manufacturing/Engineering, Logistics, and Research & Development. To find out more, check out:
www.unilever.co.uk/careers/apprenticeships or www.facebook.com/UnileverUKApprentices
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