Values and recruitment

We always recruit on values first

Values driven people creates a values driven IKEA

To attract and recruit people that share our values is one of the most important actions to help nurturing a strong and living IKEA culture.

The IKEA key values are more important than ever

In a more connected, complex and constantly changing world, the IKEA key values become ever more important to help us navigate, align our efforts and create a more efficient and humanistic IKEA business. The IKEA culture is our unique asset. It builds trust, inspires, challenges and empowers people to make a difference. This sets us apart. Therefore we always recruit on values first.

Who we are looking for

Humble, down-to-earth, informal, cost-conscious and caring. But also determined, courageous, straight-forward, curious and decisive. These are a few of the many ways to describe an IKEA person. We invite competent people with these qualities to join us and create a better everyday life for the many people.

How we recruit is values-based

• Togetherness: Recruitment is a collaborative process together with HR, other co-workers and the ‘grandparent’. The recruiting manager is responsible and highly committed to the recruitment. When recruiting from inside IKEA, we always strive for an open and honest dialogue between current and recruiting organisation to meet the co-worker’s and business needs in both organisations.

• Caring for people: It is not only IKEA who chooses the candidate,  the person and IKEA choose each other! We want an open and transparent recruitment process where the most suitable candidate gets the job. We respect the time and effort that candidates put into their applications. Therefore we offer every interviewed candidate meaningful feedback whether they get the job or not.

• Cost-consciousness & Simplicity: We are conscious about time and costs when recruiting. That can be to minimize the number of interviews or travels. Sometimes it can mean to invest wisely in various ways.

• Renew and improve: We strive to reach candidates whenever and wherever they want; we find new ways in our recruitment process to truly reflect who we are and what we stand for. And we ask for feedback to continuously improve the way we recruit.

• Different with a meaning: We recruit people from different backgrounds. People who think in unconventional ways. And people who have more and other competence than we have. People who can challenge us, our teams and IKEA.

• Give and take responsibility: It is a privilege and responsibility to recruit for IKEA. This means taking ownership, making plans together with the recruiting team and following through the recruitment process, and meeting candidates with respect.

• Lead by example: We act and stand up for the IKEA key values throughout the recruitment process. It begins with being aware of our own biases and behaviours when we meet and interact with candidates.

Using tools and our hearts

We use values based tools
The tools we use to assist us in assessing the candidates are based in the IKEA key values and gives us insights that in dialogue help us  evaluate how our values come to play in the candidates.

We use dialogue and our own hearts
We use these insights for well grounded values-based dialogues with the candidates. However, no tool can ever replace a professional recruiter’s own values-radar and common sense.

We train ourselves
To trust our own judgments, we seek dialogue and feedback from the recruitment team. We can also train ourselves by using below guide, exercises and the trainings and events arranged available from My learning.