Talent Acquisition strategy for 2018

In an exclusive interview with BW People Anna-Carin Månsson, Retail Country HR Manager, IKEA talks about the best HR practices at IKEA, her talent acquisition strategy and the corporate culture in her organisation. 

Edited Excerpts from her interview: 

Do tell us about the corporate culture of IKEA as an Insider and how it is different from other corporates? 

IKEA believes that every co-worker has something valuable to offer and co-workers get fair treatment and equal opportunities irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation or age. IKEA believes in gender diversity and a diverse workplace is good for co-workers and business as working with different co-workers help both an organization and individual to grow together. 

IKEA cares for its co-workers which is embedded in the IKEA vision and value and IKEA recognizes the effort of co-workers and acknowledges the job done by co-workers by giving rewards which helps to increase performance, loyalty, generate greater success and motivation. 

IKEA has identified ‘equal pay’ as one of the key factors to focus on in the coming years and is committed to having IKEA salaries being set independently of race, gender, age or other life situations. IKEA is planning to secure equal pay for jobs of equal value by 2020.  

What are your best HR Policies that you use to keep your employees motivated?

IKEA has some of the best HR policies for their co-workers to keep them motivated.

Ikea has a parental leave policy under which all co-workers, including men and women, will be eligible for six months of parental paid leave. IKEA also provides additional benefits to women co-workers like reduced work hours while they are nursing, an additional two weeks of leave with full pay in case of a tubectomy operation, leave with full pay and benefits for a maximum period of one month in case of illness arising out of pregnancy, delivery and premature birth of the child.

IKEA also provides flexible work hours to their co-workers especially to women co-workers in the different life situation and those who want to join back after a sabbatical so that women co-workers could balance their responsibilities at home and work. 

IKEA will provide day-care facilities to its co-workers both men and women inside the IKEA store in Hyderabad. This will help co-workers to be more productive with thinking about the child. This facility is more helpful for women co-workers who want to work and support their families. 

IKEA’s Tack Program which means “Thank You” in Swedish is a recognition program which aims to reward everyone who has been with IKEA for over five years with an annual contribution to their retirement plans. This recognition is given to both permanent and part-time employees. Permanent employees get the same amount, regardless of their department, their rank or salary whereas part-time workers get a proportional amount dependent on their hours.

IKEA also has the IKEA One Bonus Program which is a performance driven bonus system based on the individual salary level and the employees get a yearly bonus if local targets are met.

What are your plans for Talent Acquisition strategy for 2018?

When it comes to talent acquisition IKEAs approach is always to recruit for values. This means that we are very interested in what the person brings rather than diplomas. People understanding and aligning with the IKEA values will always have great opportunities within the company.

For the continuation of 2018, we focus on recruiting excellent co-workers to our stores. For IKEA Hyderabad opening we have employed over 800 fantastic talents and this work now continues for the opening of our Navi Mumbai store. We recruit people who have a passion for our customers, our products, and our people. We recruit people from all industries and all ages who sides with the many people of India and who wished to grow and develop for many years to come in IKEA. 

Other important focuses during the year will be to build up our digital competence. Here we see an excellent opportunity especially in India to really be at the forefront. 

What is the number of employees you want to hire by 2020 and what are the mediums you use to hire them?

IKEA currently has close to 1000 co-workers in India and plans to have 15,000 co-workers by 2025. IKEA has committed to hiring 50 percent women co-workers at all levels and job functions in India and has been implementing various initiatives to achieve that objective. The company will hire ca 800 co-workers for each of its four stores that will open in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi/NCR cities. 

IKEA has a unique hiring process where IKEA believe in value-based hiring and gives priority to individual’s values more than their experience and degrees.

What kind of employee engagement activity IKEA do?

IKEA invests in the development of co-workers by offering a variety of internal training programs –for those who want to learn something new and grow. IKEA also encourages co-workers to create a development plan and co-workers helps to set the goal for the coming year and the future with their managers.

Let’s give our readers a quick hack – Your cheat code- What are two quick tips to ace an interview?

For us, the most important thing is that we want to get to know the real you during the interview, not the person you are trying to be. We always recruit by values so our interviews are a little bit different focusing much more on you, your personality and who you are as a person. We want you to stay with us for many years, take on many roles, in many different locations in India and maybe even outside India. All this means that it is important for us to get to know you. 

Our interviews are also meant to be an opportunity for you to get to know us more. You are taking an important decision about which company to join and you have the right to know us, who we are and what we stand for. One way to prepare yourself is to read a lot about us before the interview. You can read up about the company’s culture, services, products, customers and competition as this will help in understanding the company’s requirements. This will not only help to show the dedication of potential employees but also how much effort potential employees have invested to know about the company. The more potential employees know about the company, the chance to stand out from other competitors are higher and potential employees are better prepared to answer questions and highlight what makes them desirable candidates.

It’s important for potential employees to list down strengths and should match them to the job description and discuss about what they are good at and how the strength would help the company to grown. The potential employees should show enthusiasm for the work and a willingness to take the difficult task. 

I have always heard most of the HRs complaining about millennials joining and a difficulty to cope with them. They have minor but very basic issues like not even getting an email body correct. So, what kind of talents do Indian companies need right now? 

Organizations should rightly focus on hiring employees with right skills and those who are ready to learn new skills, take the risk in new projects, have great levels of self-confidence and are willing to bet on their success. It is also important to hire employees with the right cultural values. 

Employees who can successfully evaluate problems and quickly suggest right solutions and can think out of the box and the employees who can keep the team members together in the time of crisis are the right fit to be hired by an organization.

Organizations need creative employees who can help to achieve goals of the organization.

Can you tell us about the latest trends in the HR industry? How are the recruiters enhancing the quality of recruitment?

Recruitment has evolved over the years from simply posting jobs, selecting resumes and then interviewing and hiring suitable candidates for specific roles. 

Below are the latest trends in the HR industry: 

Candidate experience: Organizations are focusing a lot on candidates’ experience and make sure that candidates don’t face any difficulties during an interview and try to ensure that candidates have a positive & engaging experience throughout the process.

Use of chatbot: Using a chatbot, employers and potential employees can save time from going through applications to make the right hire.  Chatbot helps employers to select the right candidates and decrease the chance of wasting money and time on the wrong selection. Chatbot can be connected with candidates on regular basis and can update candidates regarding where candidates are in the hiring process and keep them engaged. 

Analytics: Employers are using analytics to find right candidates faster from hundred and thousand applications that are available for a particular job position. 

Video Interviewing: Video interview becomes very common these days for hiring. 

Organizations are using video-based chat applications like Google Hangouts, Skype and even quick messenger apps with video call capabilities, like WhatsApp available on mobile phones, for interviewing to make authentic and right decisions.

Recruiters are using technology such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, chatbot and social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to hire right candidates. They run analytics on the number of resumes available in the market to make the right selection.