Crorepati club at HUL adds more members in FY23

As many as 205 managers at Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) took home more than Rs 1 crore in annual salary in FY23, up 25% from 163 in FY22.

However, just a third of executives who drew eight-digit salaries were under 40 in FY23, reversing the decade-old trend when half the HUL crore club were people under that threshold. While salaries at HUL are partly linked to the company's performance in sales and profitability, experts said there's heightened competition from startups and direct-to-consumer firms for talent, especially from the country's biggest consumer goods firm.

"Companies like HUL are perpetual talent hunting grounds, not just for other FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) companies, but also for other adjacent industries such as consumer-facing D2C brands etc. They need to keep upping their game to retain top talent," said K Sudarshan, MD at executive search firm EMA Partners India.


'Offering right guidance'
HUL is always under pressure, especially in areas such as supply chain, marketing and branding among others, said Sudarshan.

"They need to keep incentivising talent," he said. "Also, as the scale of businesses they are operating in grows, compensation will continue its northward journey."

Managers in HUL - often referred to as a CEO factory - are sought after in the FMCG space.

Two years ago, Sudhir Sitapati, earlier executive director of foods and refreshments at HUL, joined Godrej Consumer Products as its managing director. Geetika Mehta joined Hershey India as its head after an 18-year stint at HUL. Last year, toothpaste giant Colgate Palmolive appointed Prabha Narasimhan, who was an executive director at HUL, as its India managing director.

"Along with attracting the best talent, we have continued to invest on retaining and ring-fencing our top talent with differentiated careers and rewards. In a resurgent talent market, our voluntary attrition continued to be well below the FMCG industry benchmarks," HUL said in its annual report. "Driven by the 'leaders build leaders' philosophy, we have sustained an environment where people are empowered with big responsibilities early in their career and are able to constantly experiment with the right guidance and support."

Employer brand strategy
HUL said it revamped its employer brand strategy to be more diverse, more digital and more data-led in its selection. It is also making conscious shifts in the talent it attracts by actively seeking entrepreneurial, digital and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills.

During the fiscal, HUL sales grew 16% to Rs 58,154 crore while net profit rose 13% to Rs 9,962 crore with over 80% of its portfolio gaining market share. The company had 6,697 permanent employees on March 31. The percentage increase in the median remuneration of employees for FY23 was 10.73%.

A year ago, HUL had 8,480 employees. The company clarified that last year's number included those working for HUL only while the FY22 number included those working with subsidiaries and group companies as well.