IKEA´s Job Shadow Day was a day full of smiles, great experiences and learnings!
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is at the heart of IKEA’s values and is explicit part of our mission to create a better everyday life for the many people. As an organization we want to reflect with our group of co-workers the diversity of Finnish society, we want to include minorities because we do believe that diversity is added value for each of us, for our co-workers, for our teams, for our customers and also for the organization.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is at the heart of IKEA’s values and is explicit part of our mission to create a better everyday life for the many people.
As an organization we want to reflect with our group of co-workers the diversity of Finnish society, we want to include minorities because we do believe that diversity is added value for each of us, for our co-workers, for our teams, for our customers and also for the organization.
IKEA had the opportunity to participate in Job Shadow Day for the first time.
We opened 13 positions to shadow, as well in our stores as in our service offices. We had the pleasure to welcome 6 candidates. We had more open positions than candidates, which surprised us a bit. Apparently, we are not yet perceived as an organization that would welcome people with disabilities as co-workers. We must change that perception. In IKEA Vantaa for example we have 3 permanent co-workers with disabilities working with us for 9 to 15 years. So, nothing new for us, but unknown.
This first Job Shadow Day was a day full of smiles, great experiences and learnings!
The day is very valuable for us as an employer: it allows us to learn more about how we can offer in the future even better employment opportunities to people with special needs.
We are looking forward to participating also next year. And we would love to see Job Shadowers applying for open vacancies at IKEA. Feel welcome!
Catharina Van Den Houwe
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Leader IKEA Finland