Ikea to hire 16,000 new employees by 2030

IKEA receives more than 20,000 job applications every year. Here’s what the furniture giant is looking for, according to its head of HR.

IKEA customers can expect to see fewer human beings at the check-outs in favour of a more “seamless” experience of touchscreens, online ordering and self-service.

With the Swedish furniture giant preparing to hire 16,000 new employees over the next 12 years as it rolls out new stores and store formats, Ikea says it is already hiring for jobs that “didn’t exist 10 years ago”.

In Australia, the company receives more than 20,000 job applications every year in areas including sales, sustainability, purchasing, customer relations, e-commerce, food, property, logistics, store management, transport and interior design.

“There really is no typical career path at Ikea,” said Richard Harries, head of HR for Ikea Australia. “I started in the food business, became a store manager, now I’m the country HR manager, and I can quite proudly say I don’t have a formal HR qualification.”

Mr Harries said his approach to hiring employees — Ikea refers to them as “co-workers” — was to “look for the talent in everyone”.

“If someone has something unique to offer, we have many roles in different areas and functions,” he said. “We want our co-workers to support us in building an inclusive, open and honest culture.

“Our approach has always been really clear. We hire based on our culture and values first, that’s our number one priority. The way I describe our approach is that we don’t hire resumes, we hire people.”

In addition to its 10 stores, Ikea has recently rolled out collection points in regional areas and online shopping in Tasmania, Canberra, the Northern Territory, Queensland and greater Sydney.

Last year, the company opened its new $150 million distribution centre in Sydney’s Marsden Park, underpinning its online shopping push.

According to research commissioned by the furniture giant, 70 per cent of Australians do not have a clear idea of what the future of work will look like in Australia, while 45 per cent do not believe their current workplace is adequately preparing them for the future.

Ikea will hire 16,000 Australians. Picture: Anders Wiklund/AFP/TT News Agency

The survey of 1000 people found the number one concern was the impact of automation and technology and potential job losses. “It’s not so much about jobs disappearing, for us it’s more about how the jobs are changing — we always need to be thinking ahead,” Mr Harries said.

“We farewelled our longest-serving co-worker of 36 years on Friday. She thinks back to the first part of her career journey, half of the jobs she had don’t exist today. Her first role was EDP, electronic data processing. We were still five years away from the internet when she started.

“A great example of how roles evolve, in our kitchens department a kitchen planner was a piece of paper — now it’s become digitalised, enhancing [the role] for our kitchens co-workers [who can] use their skills and experience, because the digital tool is helping them plan the kitchen more quickly.”

Mr Harries said Ikea looked for “the spirit of what we call ‘everyday entrepreneurialism’” in its employees. “We really encourage our co-workers to take charge of their own journey,” he said.

“What we have acknowledged is some tasks will be replaced by technology. What we are doing is using the technology to shape the workforce around the people.

“What we would consider to be future-transferable skills will become increasingly valuable as we move towards cross-functional working — humanistic, reactive, innovative, interpersonal.”

Currently 21 per cent of Ikea’s staff have been with the company for more than 10 years, while around 60 per cent have had up to three different roles.

Mr Harries said the goal was 80-90 per cent internal promotion, even in periods of expansion, with attempts to retrain and redeploy staff in other parts of the business wherever possible.

“Our approach has always been we put [our staff] in charge of their career journey,” he said. “We encourage them to try different roles, change functions. We also believe in giving assignments one size bigger to stretch their development.

“Our focus is on customer fulfilment. We know we have great possibilities to meet the needs of our customers. The technology we’re looking at is how we can make it as seamless as possible. We’re looking at digital screens for the Ikea food business, payment methods, all things to make it a seamless journey.”

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Originally published as Ikea to hire 16,000 new employees by 2030