INNOVATIVE HRM PRACTICES AT IKEA

A REPORT BY:

ANUSHKA SHARMA 2K20/BBA/25

CHIRAG KATYAL 2K20/BBA/36
GAUTAM GUPTA 2K20/BBA/54
 CONTENTS

1. IKEA- AN INTRODUCTION
2. ATTRACTING TALENT
3. RECRUITMENT & SELECTION PROCESS
4. INCREASING EMPLOYEES’ KSA
5. MOTIVATION ENHANCING HRM PRACTICES
6. EMPOWERMENT ENHANCING HRM PRACTICES
7. IWAY PRACTICES
8. APPRAISAL METHOD
9. TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
10.CONCLUSION
 IKEA – AN INTRODUCTION

 IKEA is a Swedish-founded, Dutch-headquartered multinational

conglomerate that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture,
kitchen appliances and home accessories, among other goods and
home services. Started in Sweden in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar
Kamprad, IKEA has been the world's largest furniture retailer since
2008.
 The group is known for its modernist designs for various types of
appliances and furniture, and its interior design work is often
associated with an eco-friendly simplicity. In addition, the firm is
known for its attention to cost control, operational details, and
continuous product development that has allowed IKEA to lower
its prices by an average of two to three percent.
 Has branches in around 41 countries.
 Ranked in FORTUNE’S “100 Best Companies to Work For” list.
(four consecutive years)
 Ranked 20th in ‘The World’s Most Attractive Employers 2011’ in
the Universum Awards, an employer branding event.
 Ranked in Training magazine’s annual “Top 100” ranking of
companies that excel at human capital development. (Five
consecutive years)
 Ranked in Working Mother magazine’s annual list of the “100 Best
Companies for Working Mothers”. (Five consecutive years)
 ATTRACTING TALENT

Talent Sourcing Specialists at IKEA often hold a presentation about

IKEA´s values and aspects that are important for IKEA when it comes
to employee branding and recruiting new talent. The presentation is
mainly about IKEA´s Employer Value Proposition. Later, they
introduce workshop cases and ask students to come up with
recommendations for IKEA to improve its talent sourcing and ways of
attracting new competent people to apply for jobs within IKEA.
Some of the suggestions presented by the students were homepage
updates with storytelling, more clear role requirements, recruitment
events at IKEA´s stores and a life-at-IKEA Instagram account.
Another way was through designing a smart job description for a
team leader. Few important insights that can be drawn from the job
description are:
 By emphasizing co-worker, it is emphasizing equality in terms of
how one should treat fellow employees.
 About the job, “at the lowest cost” emphasizes the core DNA of
the organization i.e., creating value by incrementally reducing cost
points.
 “Quick decision making” and “Solving problem while on the go”
creates a vivid picture of dynamic work environment at IKEA.
 By highlighting “improving the productivity”, Task portion
reemphasizes that cost- consciousness is highly valued at IKEA.
 RECRUITMENT & SELECTION PROCESS

The IKEA hiring process is pretty straightforward. After all they are
straightforward people who like to keep things simple. Here’s what
you can expect.

1. Search & apply for a job: First, visit the Job portal and create your
profile. Don’t forget to upload your CV. A personal letter will also
give you the chance to present yourself and your motivation.
2. Pre-screening: IKEA recruiters will screen all incoming applications
and then, depending on the role you are applying for, might ask
you to complete a short assessment. You can expect a response
from us as soon as possible.
3. Getting to know you: IKEA knows that you are much more than
your resume, so they would like to get to know you. After all, they
recruit people, not CV’s. IKEA will reach out to you via a phone call
or on-demand video interview. This could be followed by an
online live interview with the recruiter or your potential future
manager.
4. Interview: IKEA works with several different types of interviews,
but you’ll typically meet your future manager in a personal job
interview at one of their working locations or online. You might
also have an interview with your manager’s manager. Use this
opportunity to share your motivation and ask anything about your
future job.
5. Offer: After clearing the interview, IKEA will contact you to
present their employment offer and discuss it with you. You will
also receive it in writing so you can read through it and make an
informed decision. When making an offer, IKEA is committed
to equal pay. They make sure that they pay fairly based on your
experience and qualifications. This means they might ask you
 about your salary expectations but won’t be asking you about
your previous salary. At this stage IKEA will do any background
and reference checks required.
6. Onboarding: Once you’ve given IKEA the thumbs up, you’ll be
given access to their pre-boarding portal to learn more about the
IKEA brand and business, your new team and other helpful
information. Everything you need to prepare for your first day as
an IKEA co-worker.

IKEA recruitment and selection processes are mainly:

 Value Driven:
- IKEA is a value driven company which espouses simplicity,
teamwork, communicative forthrightness and urgency.
- Core Values of IKEA are cost consciousness, dynamism,
flexibility and employee empowerment.
- IKEA designs advertising campaigns which emphasizes these
values.
- IKEA is also transparent in communicating these essential
values via its “Jobs at IKEA” webpage.

 “To Assemble your future”:

- Recruitment of around 300 people for one of IKEA’s Australia
units.
- They put in Ad “Assemble your future” leaflets in the furniture
boxes that they sold.
- A Very cost-effective campaign, which directly harnessed its
customer base.
- This campaign generated around 5000 responses and worked
out successfully for IKEA.
 INCREASING EMPLOYEES’ KSA (Knowledge,
Strengths and Abilities)

 Training: Co-workers who have mastered their current job are

encouraged to seek new challenges.
Job enlargement/enrichment, changing the Job scope/location.
Annual development talk to discuss and outline career paths.
On-the-job training complemented by traditional classroom
courses.
A wide range of web-based training activities for all aspects of
IKEA operations.
 Selection: Emphasis on value-fit as its selection criteria.
IKEA provides a co-worker as a mentor for new co-worker for
some time.
 Compensation: IKEA has developed global, mandatory guidelines
for compensation and benefits.
Each country must offer the same benefit structure for all co-
workers in thew country.
Benefits are to be based on core IKEA values as well as local
laws and market conditions.
MOTIVATION ENHANCING HRM PRACTICES AT
IKEA

 Internal Promotion: One year development adventure

programme that any co-worker with potential can apply for in the
beginning of their career.
The participants travel to two different countries for six months
each to work in different fields to what they are used to
These co-workers are absorbed to take leadership
responsibility, forming the pool of highly skilled IKEA managers
of the future.
 Incentive System: Line management takes a direct role in the
design and determination of reward policy in IKEA.
Emphasis on designing reward systems that best fits the local
context.
 Encouraging Diversity in the workplace: About 40% of the co-
workers are women with a great mix of nationalities.
IKEA’s purchasing and retail operations in 41 different countries
are led by country managers of 14 different nationalities.
 EMPOWERMENT ENHANCING HRM
PRACTICES AT IKEA

 Grievance procedure: “VOICE”: IKEA uses a company-wide survey

called “VOICE” to monitor how co-workers view various aspects of
their employment at IKEA.
The “IKEA leadership Index” quantifies how co-workers view their
managers.
 Flexi Time: One of the best work practices espoused at IKEA is
flexible timing as per co-workers need.
 Keeping Co-workers Informed: IKEA Intranet is complemented by
a variety of different channels such as regular meetings, easily
accessible notice boards, newsletters and closed-circuit radio
The global co-worker Magazine Readme which is distributed to all
co-workers is translated into 19 languages
IKEA has web-enabled services on the internet to better reach co-
workers with limited computers access at work and better access
outside work.
 Supporting Work-Life Balance: Co-workers of different ages are at
different stages of their lives and are delegated different activities
as per their convenience.
 IWAY STANDARD

It is a code of conduct that defines the guiding principles that governs

the organization.

 Prevention of corruption: The company has established the IKEA

Corruption Prevention Policy and The IKEA Rules on Prevention of
Corruption for its co-workers and external business partners.
 Dialogue with Unions: IKEA supports each co-worker’s right to
freedom of association and does not express any preference
within the institutional and recognized co-worker associations.
IKEA respects the rights of its co-workers to join, form or not to
join a co-worker association.
 Workers’ accident insurances: An accident insurance covering
medical treatment for work related accidents is available to all
workers.
 Safe and Healthy Work Environment: All co-workers within retail
and distribution undergo safety training before starting to work at
IKEA.
 APPRAISAL METHOD

At IKEA, the success of the organizational performance is based on

an effective appraisal system and compensation. Employee
performance appraisal is a natural and necessary part of
organizational life and forms the cornerstone to many basic human
resources management practices. Despite its central role in the HR
drama, the reviews of performance appraisals have been mixed, at
best. In particular, problems in rater accuracy and consistency,
negative impacts on employee commitment and motivation, poor
administrative choices for system design and operation, and faulty
rating scales all work to compromise the potential value that
appraisals can provide. The common assumption about performance
management and appraisal systems is that the system should help a
supervisor manage employee performance more effectively. The
ways by which this is accomplished include specifying desired
performances, monitoring performance, coaching and performance
feedback, and linking rewards to performance. However, this goal
may not always be achieved in practice.
 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

IKEA grows when its people grow. They constantly try to support
everybody’s talent and develop it within a given job description and
in the form of special smaller projects. In IKEA, you can easily grow
into a great sales manager from a warehouse worker or a cashier can
become a restaurant manager, for example. Former education is not
that important. What is more important is an effort to constantly
learn new things and to take responsibility for your own
development.

Learning in IKEA
IKEA has its own system of learning and trainings designed for a
specific job position. You will get introduction training as a new co-
worker where you will learn about how the company operates, the
safety and security rules, customer friendly principles and our
environmental approach. You will also get a mentor – a colleague
who answers all your questions, shows you your department and
introduces you to your colleagues. You will pass more trainings
according to your training plan then.

Growth and development in IKEA

Development possibilities in IKEA are as varied as the personalities of
their co-workers. They have a development talk at least once a year
which is a friendly meeting with your manager where you agree
together where you would like to go and how you’d like develop
yourself in the future.
IKEA also organizes Development centres where participants get to
know their potential, strengths and weaknesses and gain a
recommendation about which area is the most suitable for their
development. Besides that, they have a special development
program for future managers where they learn managerial skills and
focus on personal development. Every co-worker can join Talent
Week which runs once a year to find co-worker’s individual talents.

Possibility to work abroad

Working in IKEA abroad is easier than you can imagine. IKEA is
constantly growing and new job opportunities are coming together
with new stores. How you use these opportunities and how your
career will look like is in your hands. Many co-workers have worked
in several countries so they have plenty of experience with the
support of their co-workers abroad.
 CONCLUSION

 IKEA’s innovative human resource management practices has

helped build a strong and nurturing culture that promotes
diversity and creativity.
 In an industry characterized by high turnover, their employee
friendly policy has made IKEA a preferred employer in the retail
sector.
 Working in line with strategy, its HRM practices has helped in
sustaining IKEA’s growth.
 In many countries, IKEA is the “Employer of Choice” and
globally IKEA is listed as one of the top 50 most attractive
employers in 2019.
 IKEA has the distinction of being in FORTUNE’s “100 Best
Companies to Work For” list for many consecutive years.

THANK YOU