Retail organisation Ikea UK has introduced an initiative to give all of its 10,400 retail staff at least one weekend off in every four.
The move, which is aimed at improving employees’ work-life balance, is part of the organisation’s Global Ikea Employment Standards strategy. This is designed to provide a holistic approach to employee benefits, and is focused around boosting overall employee satisfaction and providing fair and equal opportunities for all employees regardless of their department, team or seniority.
The initiative will join Ikea UK’s existing benefits provision, which includes a pension, an annual bonus and a commitment to pay all employees the voluntary living wage. Ikea UK also plans to introduce further benefits by the end of 2017 in response to employee feedback.
Pernille Hagild, country HR manager at Ikea UK and Ireland, said: “As a values-driven organisation, we put people at the heart of the Ikea business and we’re committed to making a positive contribution to their lives.
“Last year, we conducted an internal survey which highlighted work-life balance as a priority for our people. That’s why we’ve introduced this new benefit because we want everyone who works for us to spend quality time with their loved ones at the weekend, which is traditionally the busiest time in store.
“We want to ensure our [employees] feel valued and remain happy. By focusing on their basic needs, we can build a better experience for our customers.”
Did the IKEA statement mention this one weekend off in four weeks is actually worse than the current working arrangements of working every other weekend? And if an employee takes a weekend off as vacation, this is required to be made up at the next scheduled weekend off? This is in addition to recently buying colleagues out of their contracts which allowed double time/lieu time for working statutory holidays. These changes impact the longest serving colleagues, with an average age significantly older than the article implies. All of these conditions which make the work/life balance unfavourable are being marketed as a “happy coworker project”. These items would have been good to mention in a balanced, realistic article.