Support for staff is the key ingredient at Unilever

When Noury Zeaiter graduated from university with a degree in anthropology, she didn’t anticipate that such a rarefied field of study would be a perfect match for a job with a consumer goods company — especially one that owns 400 brands sold in 190 countries, including Dove, Knorr, Hellmann’s, Liquid I.V. and Vaseline.

But after eight years with Unilever Canada, Inc., Zeaiter realizes that her degree dovetails perfectly with her job as a category and insights manager in the company’s foods business unit.

In that role, she works with retailers to create “planograms” for how the company’s products will be displayed in stores.

“It’s ironic because I’m watching and understanding consumer behaviour,” she says. “I really never thought that my degree would translate into this.

“It’s a lot of fun. You’re really trying to uncover insights and you’re trying to help businesses identify where there are future growth opportunities.”

And the job entails not only working with retailers, but with team members across various functions in the company, she says. “So, it makes the role really strategic and also highly collaborative.”

And there’s so much more that Zeaiter loves about working at Unilever. First is the potential to learn and grow.

Zeaiter started off in field sales, then worked in a support role in category and insights management for the personal wash division before moving into her current manager position.

She says there’s no end of growth opportunities in a company where she finds she simply raises her hand when she wants to work on new projects that will expand her knowledge and skills.

The result? Zeaiter is setting her sights on a “leadership role where I can help shape strategy and mentor others the way I’ve been supported throughout my career here.”

That’s music to the ears of Tanja Lauc, head of human resources at Unilever Canada, who creates the environment that successfully engages Unilever employees.

It starts with the company’s internship program, where Lauc ensures employees are given a chance “to do meaningful work on meaningful projects.”

“Your contributions are valued, and your opinions are welcomed,” she says.

No wonder 100 per cent of interns queried in the last feedback survey said they enjoyed the experience.

The company’s focus on employee engagement doesn’t end there. It conducts an annual engagement survey, and results tallied in October show Unilever employees saying business is conducted with integrity, the company has an inclusive working environment, Unilever is committed to safety, and they are proud to work at Unilever.

“These are the fundamentals you need to get right,” says Lauc.

It’s not just employees but managers like Lauc who remain loyal to the company because of the opportunities to grow and progress.

Lauc has been with the company for eight years, rising to her current position last year, and loves the fact that no year was “ever the same.”

“What has me staying is the abundance of opportunities that I’ve had through the years and my amazing colleagues,” she says. Now she is in a position that allows her to focus on attracting talent, engaging employees and really shaping the employee experience.

“That’s what I love to do.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Greater Toronto's Top Employers winners, published December 2, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Unilever’s special ingredient is employee engagement

When Tanvi Patel was studying at York University’s Schulich School of Business, she wasn’t sure what the future held for her. But when a friend told her he’d had a really positive experience interning at Unilever Canada, Inc., she thought she’d explore that company.

What she found — from her very first moment in a job interview until now, a year and a half (and two jobs) into her tenure there — was a company whose managers are highly supportive of employees’ interests and strengths.

Her hiring manager, for example, recommended projects in areas she was interested in learning more about.

“He was very supportive, basically a cheerleader, connecting me with people from departments that I was interested in learning more about,” she says.

Meanwhile, her key account manager sets aside office hours each week “for me to just talk to him about any questions I have and tell him what I was interested in and ask him about anything I wanted to learn from him.

“That really gave me the space to learn,” she says.

Another way she feels supported by managers is through the business resource groups at Unilever, such as the Asians at Unilever group that helped her share similar experiences and where she got to meet other managers “who made me feel seen,” she says.

“I think all of the managers really make me feel like I can grow.”

Patel — who started as a customer analytics associate working on the customer development team focused on Unilever’s Sobeys Inc. account — was recently promoted to associate category and insights manager for the entire skin cleansing category at Walmart.

Patel’s story isn’t unique at Unilever. Whether students come into the company through its four-month, highly competitive internship or straight out of university into a full-time job at the company, “you get the opportunity to work with great leaders and own the work you are doing and get the freedom and flexibility to shape your role,” says Tanja Lauc, head of human resources.

For example, the company also holds “speed mentoring sessions” where leaders from different areas of the business meet with junior talents and give a quick mentoring session over a chat.

And the Unilever Learning Team curates programming globally so employees can sign up for sessions in their time zone.

There’s also U-Connect, which was set up to “foster a sustainable culture of learning, networking and fun among early career professionals,” Lauc adds.

Events include intramural sports leagues, networking nights, cooking classes, guest speaker sessions and social mixers like wine and cheese nights and happy hours.

“You can broaden your whole experience within the company just by joining these groups. And that will give you an even richer experience,” she says.

Indeed, Unilever takes creating an enriching work experience so seriously that it surveys students at universities to find out what is most important to them in the workplace.

As a result, the company offers a flexible/hybrid work environment, good benefits, training programs and enriching experiences.

“I hope that that total spectrum hits the mark for what different individuals are looking for,” says Lauc.

It has for Patel. “There are so many opportunities to explore,” she says. “If I want to learn about a different type of work, then I can easily do that at Unilever.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top Employers for Young People winners, published January 20, 2026 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Unilever’s sustainability efforts have deep roots

Bruce Bugden is happy that Canada moved from plastic grocery bags to reusable ones — but now, he says with a laugh, everyone has more reusable bags than they can use. So, Bugden and other members of the Sustainable Living Team, an employee resource group (ERG) at Unilever Canada, came up with a creative solution: bins at the company store in Unilever’s Toronto head office now invite employees to take a bag if they need one or leave one if they don’t.

“It’s working really well,” says Bugden, who is a customer business development manager at Unilever. “You can get rid of some bags, and we don’t have to produce more bags for the store.”

The Sustainable Living Team, led by Bugden, is one of Unilever’s most active ERGs. Its members put on events and initiatives aimed at making a positive impact on the planet and educating colleagues about how they can do the same. Events have included lunch and learns on environmental topics with raffle giveaways of sustainable products, trash cleanups at parks and beaches, and clothes donation drives around the holidays. The group also made the Toronto office plastic cutlery-free.

“It’s rewarding, because you feel like you’re making an impact on others — even that little impact of thinking about, ‘should this go in the recycling bin or the garbage?’ or ‘maybe I won’t buy this product because of the wrapper it’s using.’”

Unilever itself has long been committed to sustainability and made it a core part of its business strategy and growth plans, says Catherine McVitty, sustainable business manager. The Canadian division of the multinational consumer packaged goods company has four major sustainability goals: to achieve net-zero emissions, create resilient and regenerative natural and agricultural ecosystems, end plastic pollution, and ensure a decent livelihood and living wage across its value chain. McVitty says she appreciates the company’s rigour in not only setting ambitious goals but mapping out realistic plans to achieve them.

“We have something called a climate transition action plan, of how we’re going to get to the net-zero target, with interim targets along the way, and it has looked at everything from sourcing raw materials to how we distribute them to how consumers use our products, and made sure we created a plan that’s achievable,” she says. “I’m proud of the level of science and research that goes into all of our sustainability goals.”

McVitty joined Unilever in 1992 in a role that involved working with local environmental organizations to get their input on the company’s sustainability strategy — leaving an early career in politics for a private-sector job that she hoped could positively impact the climate.

Today, her tasks are a mix of keeping employees up to date on the company’s strategy, working with external stakeholders and managing Unilever’s regulatory compliance with new federal and provincial rules around packaging and plastics.

She says the company’s unwavering commitment to sustainability has kept her there for the past three decades.

“I admire that regardless of what’s going on in terms of public sentiment, Unilever has stuck to its sustainability priorities, knowing that over the long term, it makes us a more resilient company,” McVitty says. “It helps us to manage our costs and our supply chains. It’s the reason why I stayed — regardless of sentiment, they’ve continued to push forward with ambitious environmental goals.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Greenest Employers winners, published April 22, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.