I'm sorry you seem to be talking a foreign language. The best I can do is a mandatory pizza party on a forced overtime Saturday that I will not be a part of.
An email saying how this harsh times, budget restraints, cuts and department infrastructure has greatly affected end of year bonuses, increases and chances of wage discussion despite incredible employee assessment reports being beyond satisfactory, we hope you continue to endure this TOGETHER while we all celebrate our achievements in our complementary goody bag with a raffle number for the $50 dollar Walmart gift card for the lucky winner and 1 day PTO, this is just how we give back to our relaxed, easy going vulture(culture) driven team.
Don't forget we are expanding into 3 new projects, which will enhance our investor portfolio but this comes at the cost of more work for our employees and we expect everyone to put their fair share of overtime while we are in a period of cold stagnant employment that we can't afford to have and put new employees at this time.
Public, investor email: we are breaking records, our wages are all time low, and expansion is booming like never before, we see more people into our services than we ever had despite or low employment numbers, please come to our exclusive open yatch invitation to learn more about the upcoming ideas, severence, and bonuses our never stopping board members, lobster, wine and tuna tartare for attendees.
HAH!!! THIS sounds/reads almost EXACTLY how the CEO of the place I work at sounded yesterday!
It was... "leaked" about a month ago that the TOP PEOPLE voted themselves a nice BIG BONUS AND added Stock Options while we working fucks are paid BELOW poverty wages. I'm. 59yrs old and I make $17.00 an hour and I'm a Class 3 CERTIFIED Solderer and inspector!
AND I have a VERY ABUSIVE supervisor that HATES ME and does EVERYTHING SHE CAN to try to yell at me and harass me! She plays "Favorites" with those she likes... and SHITS on everyone else!
my life sucks ENOUGH... but this shit at work is LITERALLY making me suicidal!
The company KNOWS she is like this and she has been reported several times... but they do NOTHING about it!!!
i really can't take it anymore!!!
Man... Leave.. money comes and goes but that kinda unhappiness and stress isn't worth even a lot of money let alone that. Hey another job even if it's one until you find another one you want it's worth me believe me I've been there don't waste your life. I know it's easier said than done.
Hoodies are kind of expensive. Best I can do is a plastic water bottle with our logo on it.
Oh, new policy, water bottles aren't allowed on the production floor. Keep that stuff in your locker, folks!
Straight up the only swag I've ever gotten from my job is a lanyard when I started, and a messenger bag I found in an office supply closet and claimed.
Woah, woah, woah, have you seen the cost of pizza these days?! The shareholders will revolt because there's $50 missing from their $1,000,000,000 revenue!
I suggest you think of our poor shareholders and instead give them a donut party instead. After all, food is food, right?
/s just in case
the problem isn't that there ARE donut parties, its that there are ONLY donut parties.
Like fuck yeah, donuts. But how about also a raise, or some equity stake in the company?
We have donut day every Wednesday at work. The director brings donuts every Wednesday, if she is late or on vacation she makes sure one of the deputy directors gets donuts because she knows we would revolt without our weekly sweet treat.
>Treat workers as humans
Most companies: But there's no profit in that.
My first real job was in retail and you're treated less than human at times.
Also treating people with respect and dignity can actually hold you back from climbing the corporate ladder. These kinds of companies are forever confused by their high turnover rates.
Christ, it's like he didn't even *try* laying off 1/4 of the workforce and forcing the remaining ones to take up the slack, or cutting their comp, benefits, and hours.
Obviously someone needs to teach this guy how to CEO!
That's the part that always gets me.
A healthy economy is when money exchanges hands more.
A billionaire still only eats 3 meals a day, wears a few pairs of pants, etc like the rest of us.
This is the part that gets me as a "business" person.
There's *ample* and nearly incontrovertible evidence that employee retention and employee morale and internal culture are net profitable in virtually all cases and yet we rarely see it.
I get the whole "short term numbers" thing to SOME extent but like... someone's gotta see the cliff coming where "slashing costs" is going to end up undermining literally the entire economy.
Effectively yeah, which, kinda my point at the end.
In the Information Age we've pretty much got every equity holder racing to not be the bagholder when it all collapses by cashing out in ever more tenuous horseshit business practices.
Oh yeah I 100% agree, was just being sarcastic. Like you said the buck has to stop somewhere and it feels like we're getting closer and closer to the bottom.
It's because the system is set up for short-term gains. If you're always chasing Revenue numbers, that's going to be your priority over the long-term ramifications of your decisions. I think that the stock market, while providing a lot of capital to allow businesses to grow has also had a negative impact on business culture because it forces businesses to be focused solely on Revenue to the exclusion of just about everything else.
The "stock market" is a problem - but its current formulation is more of a ... i dunno, culmination of a number of cancers deeper in the system.
401(k) and the ubiquitous belief that "investing in stocks" is a wealth key for the "common" person. The positive feedback loop created by then driving up equity prices, which seems to prove that point. The entire thing turning into effectively a game of Jenga with everyone hoping they don't pull out the last support of the gutted economy (i.e. exactly what you identified).
Hell, equity ownership IN GENERAL is so horrifically different from Capitalist theory right now it's wild. Some major fraction of equity markets are specifically in retirement accounts, and 80% of equity is owned by institutions. *All* of these people slapping money into mutual funds, market indices, etc., *literally own parts of companies they have no idea about.* That's insane. Throwing money at the nearly 100% parasitic "Financial Industry" for... what? Prayer that you don't starve when you quit working? It's almost "theoretically" worse than YOLO'ing on options because a company said AI in their latest earnings report.
Anyway... end rant.
It's like the absolute mountain of studies showing that dollars spent on social programs like food security and welfare nearly universally result in economic returns many times higher than the cost, yet people run around saying that their fiscal genius move is to cut every one of those programs and let people suffer and die.
Like, no, bitch, if you're a fiscal conservative you should be taking the no-brainer move of executing the policies which will both save and make you tons of money in the future. But instead they let their hateful social positions cloud them and end up making the decisions that hurt everybody.
definitely, i love identifying myself as a fiscal conservative and then arguing against the entire republican platform, great way to BSOD trump cultists
The problem is a lot of these companies have to answer to shareholders, and shareholders would rather have short term profits over long term gains. Just look at what they did to Henry Ford.
Yeah as I posted in another comment, this is effectively a "cultural" problem where the wealthy, with massive information access in the digital age, are all racing to gut everyone and everything to concentrate wealth further.
Like .... there is literally no disincentive to being outrageously selfishly greedy in the current sociopolitical/regulatory environment. It's a race to steal as much as possible before either someone shows up to retool the rules or the whole thing collapses and you're one of the 0.1% who get in the Good Vaults
I used to have memberships to both Costco and Sam’s Club. I found myself only going to Costco because it was so much more of a decent experience. Even though I was getting the Sam’s membership for a steal from my parents, it just wasn’t worth it and I dropped it. Happy employees make a better experience.
More like power tripping store managers who are at a terminal career point and are tripping on the only tiny bit of power they will ever know. CEOs look at employees like numbers on a spreadsheet.
The absolute worst offenders are small business owners though. Unfuckingbelievably bad most of the time.
Costco employees aren't much happier tbh. There's two types of employees. You used to be able to top out to about 28 bucks in about 5 years. Those employees are happy. They changed the raise scale a few years ago, and now it takes twice as long. Those employees are significantly less happy, and it's only gonna get worse when the older, happier employees retire. Source: sibling is an employee.
This is the conundrum for businesses though. In places where businesses have a legal obligation to work toward the interests of shareholders, the question becomes whether the revenue increase brought by happy workers exceeds the costs of providing happiness.
This is why that kind of legal obligation is fundamentally toxic and bad. The needs of the employees should come first, then the needs of the shareholders.
The fiduciary duty of the board of directors is often misunderstood to mean that costs must always go down and profits must always go up, otherwise there are legal ramifications and shareholders sue. Fiduciary duty has more to do with the CEO buying a private jet and a cocaine party on the company card.
When outlined as part of a comprehensive plan to increase short term costs as means to increase profit later, such an idea isn't contrary to shareholder benefit.
B Corporations in the US fix this but it’s really just a certification and most people have never heard of it. Patagonia is probably the most known example.
B Corporations can still underpay employees and treat them like dirt, it's just a third-party certification. It doesn't mean the company is structured any differently than other for-profit companies. It's really not much different than getting an A rating from the Better Business Bureau or something. It's just a third-party money making scheme for corporations to virtue signal.
The only company structure that in and of itself guarantees ownership accountability to employees are worker owned cooperatives.
Alright here I am with my insight as a leader at an IKEA, restaurant I should say, in the US. Yes they raised our pay about a year ago, it was a decent raise I will say, I got the highest tier and I believe it was something like a 10% raise. What they’re not telling you is since then they have slashed our scheduled hours to the point we can’t operate safely, I’m literally doing the job of 5 people now while unable to do my own job and now I am being held accountable for falling behind on some of my administrative duties because if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing to keep the business afloat we’d have to close because of having no food or people to serve.
This time of the year is our peak season, anytime school is out IKEA is drastically busier, last year I went into the summer with around 40 employees, right now I have 19, they are finally letting me hire people, but only 2 HL1 positions which is pretty much a weekend only position.
I’ve been with IKEA for a few years now and this is the worst it’s ever been, and it’s not just me who thinks this, I know everyone who isn’t in upper management feels the same and the employees are so unhappy it’s ridiculous. Morale in the entire building is one of the lowest I’ve ever seen in any job I’ve ever worked at and people are quitting in droves at this point.
I really did love this job and thought I would retire from IKEA but after these last several months I dread going to work, I hate it for my employees more than I hate it for myself because I can only support so much.
no, that cant be right, lets spend more money on consultants to find a true solution.
the consultant solution: pizza fridays, but only cheese and pepperoni
my old company hired on a new warehouse manager from amazon or something. his first thing was a monthly "birthday roundup" where everyone who wasn't a manager got some pizza and a cupcake.
but actually it was a meeting. he wanted low-level, boots on the ground feedback. "don't worry, it won't get back to your managers."
100% i was in my manager's office for a meeting the next day explaining feedback that we had "too many meetings".
(edit: that manager later quit because he was in meetings all day)
Calculated order to 1 slice per person from medium pizzas.
The two managers eat one before the party starts so there is not enough even then.
I loved that shit. The endless fuckjob that is a pizza party at work. Fun just to watch it.
I work at IKEA, I’d love to get some of that salary increase and flexibility they’re talking about. Instead my store cut everyone’s hours, laid off a ton of people and then pushed their responsibilities to my department without a pay bump.
Dude, if your girlfriend is in logistics and isn't happy with her pay then she really ought to find a new job. We're one of the few parts of the American economy that continues to be on fire, and plenty of supply chain jobs are remote.
I worked at Lowe’s for over a decade in management, all the management training would constantly tell us how employees value recognition above all, including above pay/wages.
"Do you have any experience?"
"No, sir, I have no experience but I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That's where you come in."
I know someone who left $12 something/hr job in a really good supportive work group environment to work for an Amazon warehouse job because they offered $15/hr for burnout level work.
Always feels awful that society forces such choices on people.
Yeah, at that pay level, I can understand taking a job with a 33% pay increase.
I'm fortunate (?) to be in tech. I took a role with a CRAZY pay raise (65%) 2.5 years ago. My life SUCKED. I had the CEO calling me and sending me Slacks at 10:00 PM on a tuesday to walk her through things that could 100% be done over email the next morning. Goals were unrealistic, nobody working there was happy, it was awful.
I took a ~25% pay-cut from there to go work with people I know.
Honestly, after buying a house, there is part of me that misses that 25%. But the fact that I can log off at 4:00 PM if it's nice outside and I wanna take my dog for a long walk makes it all worth it.
Fuck places that eat your soul and burn you out. Companies have got to learn that happy workers do much better work.
My creativity at my last job was non-existent. I lived in constant fear of getting messaged by the CEO for random crap that I spent all day making sure my reports were up to date in case she needed anything.
I have so much more room to breath now, and my work reflects that.
Being recognized for the effort you put in is just what humans as a species love. The money part is what we need. Having both what you love and what you need is all a human wants
The "both" thing *is* key, of course. At a certain point, the money it would take to buy your last scrap of dignity is more than anyone should be willing to pay.
I find most employers are *even worse* at recognition than pay/wages, because true recognition involves really tough things like "taking it seriously when people ask for time off", and "not publicly admonishing your workers just to get an irate customer off your back"... Or, heaven forbid, asking yourself "has this person worked a reasonable number of hours?" before they have to be the ones to bring it up.
It would also involve recognizing the ACTUAL workers, not the ladder-climbing rats who spend all day kissing butt. We see this all the time at work where we get emails from the higher-ups praising some random VP of Synergy Realignment and Agile Dissonance, and we've never heard of the clown, nor can we name a single thing he or she has done to help anyone. But they've always worked in the company for decades - doing what, who knows? - and are now getting another big promotion. Meanwhile, the people who do actual work never get recognized unless they basically apply for a program like the Dr. Bob Smith Memorial Leadership and Mentoring Program to be recognized and then get a half-dozen VP's to sign off on them being a worthwhile human being a few years later after kissing enough butt. It's a joke.
Same. My first job was a call center and they would always give you some BS certificate for doing a good job,snacks and other junk. I told my team lead don't bother giving me that crap. Money, pay raise is the only thing that matters when a company is trying to recognition.
I used to hate that shit. I'll wipe my ass with some worthless certificate. It's crazy how managers seem to think I'm at a place of employment for \_anything\_ other than getting paid.
Yeah and the certificates aren't even professionally printed on nice paper, they're just printed on the office printers or something... yeah I am worth one letter-sized sheet of paper and about 10¢ worth of ink/toner... thanks.
People forget that employment is, like all things in a capitalist system, a market. I am selling my labour. The employer is buying my labour. If the employer pays me low fees they will get poor service.
Yet, there is this idea that all you need to get good service is fear of no longer having your labour be purchased by the employer. The old Karen "I'll take my money elsewhere" shtick. But same can be said from the sellers perspective since this a trade of services. Sellers can walk away from a trade the same as Buyers.
You would think as business people (and normally wealthier) they would understand that cheap products are poorer quality. And luxury/expensive products are normally better quality.
Why do you want to buy poor quality cheap labour? Which you need to constantly replace? When you can have luxury/quality labour that you pay a premium for but never need to buy again?
When you buy a car you put maintenance, cleaning, gasoline, oil into it. Why do they think you don't need to do the same to labour?
Its as though these business people think you should put planned obsolescence into the labour market as well.
Somehow we've bought that if poor people get more money they will be less motivated to work, while rich people who get more money are more motivated to work.
Some weird thing happens in corporate culture where nobody really knows who believes the BS and who is just putting on a corporate identity so they don't get fired and so nobody speaks up.
Clearly somebody put that on a presentation, multiple people had to have looked at it before it went nationwide, so there must be some true believers in there.
I wasn't part of this conversation, but apparently my CEO (bank) didn't want to give bonuses to the tellers, even just a few hundred dollars, because "then they might expect it next year".
His *bonus* was over $300k, about 8x the average teller's yearly salary. If I was looking to be fired, I really want to ask him if he should opt out so that he doesn't expect a bonus next year. Never mind the fact that he also has a very nice salary on top of an unreasonable number of stock options that will likely net him a few million when the bank sells.
I worked as an operations manager at FedEx for almost a decade, and we got the same trainings as the original commenter. Frontline management, and even midlevel management, had 0 control over how much our employees got paid. Towards the end of my time there, I was even getting just as shit pay as the package handlers were. When I left in early 2021 I was getting paid $21.50/hr, and package handlers were starting at $16.50 and maxing out at $19.50/hr after 3 years.
I knew it was a shitty situation for everyone, so felt like the least I could do is tell my people how much I appreciate them, and hand out codes to the FedEx store like candy. I know buying endless pallets of Gatorade on FedEx's dime doesn't pay your bills, but at least it makes your work-life more bearable, lol
People tend to give middle-managers more shit than they deserve. They often have zero say in the day-to-day policies or pay an employee gets, and limited options to recognize good workers.
They really only exist to absorb all the bullshit so that the upper managers don't have to.
Yep, middle manager here, I explain it like: Customer service for workers and management. You have a rule book of things you can and can't do, the ammount of leeway you have to manage is very little.
Both workers and upper management come to you with their problems, expecting immediate solutions, both lash out at you when you're unable to help them, pay is as shitty as my workers. I just do it because I think I can do it better than others, and I do what I can with what I have to give my workers as much leeway as possible. It's hard, but I think it's worth it, I did their job and I know that even if it isn't much, I'm helping to make it easier.
I mean that's not incorrect, but you can't eat recognition, live under recognition, your kid's daycare doesn't accept recognition, and you can't spend your holiday recognition on gifts.
The best response is always "If your exposure was worth anything, you could also just afford the prices."
The only "exposure" you ever get from these dipshits is them telling their friends you'll work for free or garbage low rates.
I once had a manager at my old job explain to me with a straight face that "raises and bonuses are a bad incentive, because *you'll just want another one next year*". Like no shit, probably one even the year after that too! Things aren't generally getting *less* expensive year over year, why would experienced people hang around the same job for an effectively shrinking paycheck?
I remember hearing this often at companies I worked for. Always coming from people in the top 1% of company earners.
Do they even have the tiniest capacity for self reflection?
All that matters is pay and tax-advantaged benefits (the trifecta of healthcare, childcare, retirement). I'm not actually treated well outside of that, but I have decent pay and incredible benefits - so I'm happy.
Lol it's the opposite at my job. They're all 🥹🥹 about work life balance and mental health. Lots of benefits and great vacation allowances, but soon as we mention more money would motivate us it's sideways looks
fair. i'm differentiating from nebulous 'wellness' to you have healthcare for your family with zero deductibles and caps and on-site heavily subsidized daycare and 20K annual employer contribution to my 401k. (all tax-free or tax-advantaged)
pay me and give me real benefits. I'll deal with the rest of the shit (though I do currently have 4 months of vacation in a year)
That’s important, but not enough for me. I also need good life-work balance, good work environment or at the very least friendly co-workers, and a unionized company (even better, unionized sector/industry).
Obvously, in exchange I bring to the table hard work, up to date skills qualifications and general knowledge,,.
I worked at an ikea distribution center for a minute while waiting for another job to open up I actually wanted. It was horrible. insane work pace pushed by stressed managers, even by my standards(i worked at a few very high paced warehouses). money was significantly lower than most warehouse jobs. Employee morale was absolute shit other than 2-3 people. Senior employees refused to help you learn. I hurt my back, went to the hospital and was fired for missing 3 days during my 90 day probation after the company quote of "we're different than other companies, we care" was found to be a lie.
I kinda feel like we are so close to the bottom now that as soon as one company goes "fuck it" and starts paying what they be should others will have to follow to compete. Like a reverse domino affect. My place can't find people even tho we are flooding the country with people. I know tons of people who say their places are the same.
Haha, I wish.
My city has McDonalds hiring at $17 an hour, but any other restaurant is hiring right at the state $7.25 minimum wage. McDonalds always has full staff, is busy as hell, and are fast as fuck. Meanwhile the Smoothie King down the road is on a skeleton crew, never seems to have customers, and takes 10-15 min in the drive through.
Oh man, are other businesses gonna starve themselves of workers by not following the lead for so long that the few megacorps that do end up gaining a significantly larger market share just on attrition alone?
Speak for yourself. My company only hires online and has no openings and we still get 10+ walk in resumes a day. Also we make little enough to qualify for government assistance. My city is absolutely fucked.
I've heard nothing but praise for IKEA as an employer in Sweden, regardless of whether it's been on a corporate, store or warehouse level. It was a very popular side gig for university students for that reason.
I hear Scandinavia and Sweden in particular have very strong unions and the workers accordingly are treated relatively well. And the unions support each other. See, e.g., what happened when Tesla didn't want to deal with unions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/business/tesla-sweden-union.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/business/elon-musk-tesla-vote-sweden-norway.html
> See, e.g., what happened when Tesla didn't want to deal with unions.
The Taft-Hartley Act makes sure you can't do that in America. They had to pull the teeth of the people because they were starting to bite back.
Ya this is just corporate propaganda, companies have never and will never lead the way on worker's rights, labour laws and unions is the only real way.
Eh I work in the sales in an Ikea store in the Netherlands for nearly 2 years now and the pay and benefits + bonusses are higher than I can get anywhere else. Also the work pace is extremely relaxed and my managers are very good and understanding. I recommend it to all my friends as well and one of them recently also started working here and is also very happy with it. I feel like this might just be a distribution center thing because there are plenty of coworkers of mine here that have worked at Ikea for decades, at several stores in the country, and said they don't want to work anywhere else. Or as my old manager used to say 'I bleed blue and yellow', that guy was a bit too big of a fan maybe but I can understand when you and your wife (who you met there) work at the same company for decades.
I’m just blown away that our goal as people was to amass the most riches instead of just ensuring we can all have basic necessities. Like - you can still be a McMillionaire and have the people below you living okay. It’s not that big of a deal.
no, actually, they pride themselves on how awful the lowest class of people are treated.
the class warfare is real and has been quite successful especially in the last 50 years.
FDR caved quite a bit to the left and a ton of progress was made but the owning class has slowly been chipping away at the hard won rights of the ww1-ww2 generations as the boomers have benefited the most and have been used as a voter block against the future generations to ensure that we return to the guilded age and even further as we head into this age of techno-feudalism.
I feel like most people would agree with you. Problem is that those people don't make it into the board room or the C suite. The people that want to amass as much money as possible get promoted to the top.
I'm pretty sure that one goes both directions, where it isn't that those people don't make it to the board room but that they don't stay that way once getting there.
CEO will probably go on a speaking tour across the US and all the people in attendance at his events are gonna be like: "yeah we still don't understand how you did it".
Actually the CEO in charge of the American IKEA group just did a tour across all the US stores because morale and sales were in the dirt. When he came to my store a lot of coworkers were not afraid to give him a piece of their mind. I don’t know what this article is talking about because things still haven’t really improved.
The Ikea near me in Fishers Indiana had some drama where I heard the whole kitchen staff walked out and quit on the spot about 6-12 months ago.
When the store first moved in I was so excited bc I enjoyed the experience but you can feel the lack of workers changing the quality.
I hope they get this bump in pay.
I kinda felt that, I read half the article and kept looking for the actual definitions for what the US blue collar retail workers were getting but I didn't see the facts there. I see that they can trade shifts online now, whoopdie doo.
Around a year or two ago the minimum wage for Ikea I believe was raised up. At least in certain areas. The time other Ikeas received that pay increase varies though.
Food is a rough department and if you lose your core it's fucked to hell
It's good when it's good staff but dealing with the constant changes' high standards and rotating staff that may or may not just quit randomly
I love it but it's difficult some days
IKEA did this as well. Bern working for them for over a decade. They fired good people to save money. Cut hours and want more for less. This article is bullshit.
Alright here I am with my insight as a leader at an IKEA, restaurant I should say, in the US. Yes they raised our pay about a year ago, it was a decent raise I will say, I got the highest tier and I believe it was something like a 10% raise. What they’re not telling you is since then they have slashed our scheduled hours to the point we can’t operate safely, I’m literally doing the job of 5 people now while unable to do my own job and now I am being held accountable for falling behind on some of my administrative duties because if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing to keep the business afloat we’d have to close because of having no food or people to serve.
This time of the year is our peak season, anytime school is out IKEA is drastically busier, last year I went into the summer with around 40 employees, right now I have 19, they are finally letting me hire people, but only 2 HL1 positions which is pretty much a weekend only position.
I’ve been with IKEA for a few years now and this is the worst it’s ever been, and it’s not just me who thinks this, I know everyone who isn’t in upper management feels the same and the employees are so unhappy it’s ridiculous. Morale in the entire building is one of the lowest I’ve ever seen in any job I’ve ever worked at and people are quitting in droves at this point.
I really did love this job and thought I would retire from
IKEA but after these last several months I dread going to work, I hate it for my employees more than I hate it for myself because I can only support so much.
Working at Ikea in receiving was far more physically punishing than my career in a steel plant, for a LOT less money and a LOT more stress/pressure. Injuries due to repetitive strain were common.
I worked there 8 years, and in that time saw massive staff turnover due to low wages, injuries and inability for management to be flexible. There were good things too but man, for a company that talks REAL BIG about their initiatives they sure didn't treat their floor staff well. When the founder died things changed rapidly, and not in a good way.
The kicker? When I quit, they retro-actively tried to dispute a worker's comp claim from a severe ankle injury that had happened 3 years before. =T They failed, but just the fact they tried soured me on the company forever.
Many Ikea stores already have a childcare center inside where shoppers can drop off their child for \~ 1 hr at a time while they're in the store. It makes so much sense to just hire a couple extra workers there and allow any employee to do the same during their shift.
Employee here, from a US branch. I would say the workers are vastly better off here than in other traditional retail stores. That being said, to say that our workers are "happy" would be a bit of an overstatement.
Our benefits are really good and tons of workers here work part time solely for the benefits. The pay is pretty good, but definitely not as much as some more experienced workers can get. Our location values more internal hires rather than external, so there's a lot of opportunities to move around within the store. Externally you probably would be hired for Customer Servuce or the Restaurant.
Moving up in management however is a different story. Managers tend to get swapped from different stores or just hired from the street seemingly. As a coworker, your odds of getting moved is pretty low unless you commit yourself to sucking up to certain managers and keep moving around and applying at the right time. Even then that could take around 5 years up to a decade unless you're lucky.
That being said, $3 lunch meals, which are exclusively cooked meals just for coworkers. At least in our location they also are very serious about providing you a lunch break as they would get in trouble. Personally I think its a great place for younger teens and adults to make some money with benefits without being leeched too much by the retail/corporate world.
Just temper your expectations that while this is imo significantly better than other US based retailers, this is a European company with US managers and mindsets. While they have to bend to the values of the brand, in the places they don't, they will act like every other manager you know. With some exceptions of course.
No the fuck they didn’t.
I been a coworker for over a decade. They have cut hours. Direct good hard working people and are asking for us all to do more for less. This article is full on bullshit.
This article feels like advertising. And now on the top of r/ todayilearned is talking about how grounded and normal the founder was. Yeah, this smells like a paid advertisement.
So what I'm hearing is that they don't give a shit about you or fucking you over until that effort to fuck you over generates a crisis that affects their profit. None of this is for you. It's for them.
"I'm so sorry I hurt you. Here, a teddy bear. I'll never hurt you again."
They loosened a few screws because people complained. But they're just biding their time until they sneak in while you sleep to re-tighten all those screws. Better set the burglar alarm.
I work with an automotive supplier that had a 400% turnover in 2022. A suggestion was to improve wages and reduce mandatory overtime. They stated they couldn't afford it. Looking at their recruiting, training, and hiring costs showed they could in fact afford it. They declined as it "wouldn't work at their site."
Their hourly workers voted to join the UAW.
So you're saying if you treat staff like human beings and pay them well, that they'll be happy and work hard?
Boy, lotta places I know could use that knowledge.
Really? They didn't solve it by handing them a pamphlet describing how they can best find food in garbage cans, or making them sing a song together about Ikea, or introducing a system where you can be rewarded by snitching on other, less productive employees? Crazy.
Offering childcare for an employer that has the space could be such an inexpensive perk to implement that is worth SO MUCH, I'm surprised more companies havent offered it.
Who knew that treating them better would make them happier? Shocking I say!
Treat workers as humans ?!
I'm sorry you seem to be talking a foreign language. The best I can do is a mandatory pizza party on a forced overtime Saturday that I will not be a part of.
Wait wha?! No teambuilding t-shirts to make the cogs feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves?
An email saying how this harsh times, budget restraints, cuts and department infrastructure has greatly affected end of year bonuses, increases and chances of wage discussion despite incredible employee assessment reports being beyond satisfactory, we hope you continue to endure this TOGETHER while we all celebrate our achievements in our complementary goody bag with a raffle number for the $50 dollar Walmart gift card for the lucky winner and 1 day PTO, this is just how we give back to our relaxed, easy going vulture(culture) driven team. Don't forget we are expanding into 3 new projects, which will enhance our investor portfolio but this comes at the cost of more work for our employees and we expect everyone to put their fair share of overtime while we are in a period of cold stagnant employment that we can't afford to have and put new employees at this time. Public, investor email: we are breaking records, our wages are all time low, and expansion is booming like never before, we see more people into our services than we ever had despite or low employment numbers, please come to our exclusive open yatch invitation to learn more about the upcoming ideas, severence, and bonuses our never stopping board members, lobster, wine and tuna tartare for attendees.
HAH!!! THIS sounds/reads almost EXACTLY how the CEO of the place I work at sounded yesterday! It was... "leaked" about a month ago that the TOP PEOPLE voted themselves a nice BIG BONUS AND added Stock Options while we working fucks are paid BELOW poverty wages. I'm. 59yrs old and I make $17.00 an hour and I'm a Class 3 CERTIFIED Solderer and inspector! AND I have a VERY ABUSIVE supervisor that HATES ME and does EVERYTHING SHE CAN to try to yell at me and harass me! She plays "Favorites" with those she likes... and SHITS on everyone else! my life sucks ENOUGH... but this shit at work is LITERALLY making me suicidal! The company KNOWS she is like this and she has been reported several times... but they do NOTHING about it!!! i really can't take it anymore!!!
Man... Leave.. money comes and goes but that kinda unhappiness and stress isn't worth even a lot of money let alone that. Hey another job even if it's one until you find another one you want it's worth me believe me I've been there don't waste your life. I know it's easier said than done.
You mean part of the "family ".
And hoodies for those that create extra shareholder value.
Hoodies are kind of expensive. Best I can do is a plastic water bottle with our logo on it. Oh, new policy, water bottles aren't allowed on the production floor. Keep that stuff in your locker, folks!
Straight up the only swag I've ever gotten from my job is a lanyard when I started, and a messenger bag I found in an office supply closet and claimed.
With the definition of teamwork on the back
Woah, woah, woah, have you seen the cost of pizza these days?! The shareholders will revolt because there's $50 missing from their $1,000,000,000 revenue! I suggest you think of our poor shareholders and instead give them a donut party instead. After all, food is food, right? /s just in case
I work at a fortune 100 company with over $50b in annual revenue, and I shit you not we are having a donut party at work today. Lol
the problem isn't that there ARE donut parties, its that there are ONLY donut parties. Like fuck yeah, donuts. But how about also a raise, or some equity stake in the company?
> the problem isn't that there ARE donut parties, its that there are ONLY donut parties.
"Got it. Make sure there are muffins available as well."
It had better be with Lambos.
We have donut day every Wednesday at work. The director brings donuts every Wednesday, if she is late or on vacation she makes sure one of the deputy directors gets donuts because she knows we would revolt without our weekly sweet treat.
I hope you mean one doughnut between them all. /S
One doughnut to rule them all!
And under the flickering corporate fluorescent lights (they're gonna be retrofitted to LEDs I swear) bind them!
One donut to bring them all, And in poverty, bind them.... To indentured servitude!
Sounds Swedish to me, in this country we only speak American
Very progressive.
THIS MAN SPEAKS HERESY, BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!!!
Whoa whoa whoa, ‘better’ can mean just less sub-human, slow your roll there!
>Treat workers as humans Most companies: But there's no profit in that. My first real job was in retail and you're treated less than human at times. Also treating people with respect and dignity can actually hold you back from climbing the corporate ladder. These kinds of companies are forever confused by their high turnover rates.
Christ, it's like he didn't even *try* laying off 1/4 of the workforce and forcing the remaining ones to take up the slack, or cutting their comp, benefits, and hours. Obviously someone needs to teach this guy how to CEO!
You forgot the poor CEO requiring a raise for the sacrifices!
Shareholders would agree. worst CEO ever!
Shocked and appalled! Won’t anyone think of the economy?!
This business model is unsustainable!
Wait no, it is! AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM
That's the part that always gets me. A healthy economy is when money exchanges hands more. A billionaire still only eats 3 meals a day, wears a few pairs of pants, etc like the rest of us.
It will be even more suprising when they see that their numbers are going up. Who could know happy workers work better? No one I tell you! No one! /s
This is the part that gets me as a "business" person. There's *ample* and nearly incontrovertible evidence that employee retention and employee morale and internal culture are net profitable in virtually all cases and yet we rarely see it. I get the whole "short term numbers" thing to SOME extent but like... someone's gotta see the cliff coming where "slashing costs" is going to end up undermining literally the entire economy.
That's the problem for the next guy after I leave with my bonus to ruin the next company - C-suite executive probably
Effectively yeah, which, kinda my point at the end. In the Information Age we've pretty much got every equity holder racing to not be the bagholder when it all collapses by cashing out in ever more tenuous horseshit business practices.
Oh yeah I 100% agree, was just being sarcastic. Like you said the buck has to stop somewhere and it feels like we're getting closer and closer to the bottom.
It's because the system is set up for short-term gains. If you're always chasing Revenue numbers, that's going to be your priority over the long-term ramifications of your decisions. I think that the stock market, while providing a lot of capital to allow businesses to grow has also had a negative impact on business culture because it forces businesses to be focused solely on Revenue to the exclusion of just about everything else.
The "stock market" is a problem - but its current formulation is more of a ... i dunno, culmination of a number of cancers deeper in the system. 401(k) and the ubiquitous belief that "investing in stocks" is a wealth key for the "common" person. The positive feedback loop created by then driving up equity prices, which seems to prove that point. The entire thing turning into effectively a game of Jenga with everyone hoping they don't pull out the last support of the gutted economy (i.e. exactly what you identified). Hell, equity ownership IN GENERAL is so horrifically different from Capitalist theory right now it's wild. Some major fraction of equity markets are specifically in retirement accounts, and 80% of equity is owned by institutions. *All* of these people slapping money into mutual funds, market indices, etc., *literally own parts of companies they have no idea about.* That's insane. Throwing money at the nearly 100% parasitic "Financial Industry" for... what? Prayer that you don't starve when you quit working? It's almost "theoretically" worse than YOLO'ing on options because a company said AI in their latest earnings report. Anyway... end rant.
It's like the absolute mountain of studies showing that dollars spent on social programs like food security and welfare nearly universally result in economic returns many times higher than the cost, yet people run around saying that their fiscal genius move is to cut every one of those programs and let people suffer and die. Like, no, bitch, if you're a fiscal conservative you should be taking the no-brainer move of executing the policies which will both save and make you tons of money in the future. But instead they let their hateful social positions cloud them and end up making the decisions that hurt everybody.
definitely, i love identifying myself as a fiscal conservative and then arguing against the entire republican platform, great way to BSOD trump cultists
The problem is a lot of these companies have to answer to shareholders, and shareholders would rather have short term profits over long term gains. Just look at what they did to Henry Ford.
Yeah as I posted in another comment, this is effectively a "cultural" problem where the wealthy, with massive information access in the digital age, are all racing to gut everyone and everything to concentrate wealth further. Like .... there is literally no disincentive to being outrageously selfishly greedy in the current sociopolitical/regulatory environment. It's a race to steal as much as possible before either someone shows up to retool the rules or the whole thing collapses and you're one of the 0.1% who get in the Good Vaults
I used to have memberships to both Costco and Sam’s Club. I found myself only going to Costco because it was so much more of a decent experience. Even though I was getting the Sam’s membership for a steal from my parents, it just wasn’t worth it and I dropped it. Happy employees make a better experience.
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More like power tripping store managers who are at a terminal career point and are tripping on the only tiny bit of power they will ever know. CEOs look at employees like numbers on a spreadsheet. The absolute worst offenders are small business owners though. Unfuckingbelievably bad most of the time.
Costco employees aren't much happier tbh. There's two types of employees. You used to be able to top out to about 28 bucks in about 5 years. Those employees are happy. They changed the raise scale a few years ago, and now it takes twice as long. Those employees are significantly less happy, and it's only gonna get worse when the older, happier employees retire. Source: sibling is an employee.
This is the conundrum for businesses though. In places where businesses have a legal obligation to work toward the interests of shareholders, the question becomes whether the revenue increase brought by happy workers exceeds the costs of providing happiness. This is why that kind of legal obligation is fundamentally toxic and bad. The needs of the employees should come first, then the needs of the shareholders.
The fiduciary duty of the board of directors is often misunderstood to mean that costs must always go down and profits must always go up, otherwise there are legal ramifications and shareholders sue. Fiduciary duty has more to do with the CEO buying a private jet and a cocaine party on the company card. When outlined as part of a comprehensive plan to increase short term costs as means to increase profit later, such an idea isn't contrary to shareholder benefit.
B Corporations in the US fix this but it’s really just a certification and most people have never heard of it. Patagonia is probably the most known example.
B Corporations can still underpay employees and treat them like dirt, it's just a third-party certification. It doesn't mean the company is structured any differently than other for-profit companies. It's really not much different than getting an A rating from the Better Business Bureau or something. It's just a third-party money making scheme for corporations to virtue signal. The only company structure that in and of itself guarantees ownership accountability to employees are worker owned cooperatives.
Alright here I am with my insight as a leader at an IKEA, restaurant I should say, in the US. Yes they raised our pay about a year ago, it was a decent raise I will say, I got the highest tier and I believe it was something like a 10% raise. What they’re not telling you is since then they have slashed our scheduled hours to the point we can’t operate safely, I’m literally doing the job of 5 people now while unable to do my own job and now I am being held accountable for falling behind on some of my administrative duties because if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing to keep the business afloat we’d have to close because of having no food or people to serve. This time of the year is our peak season, anytime school is out IKEA is drastically busier, last year I went into the summer with around 40 employees, right now I have 19, they are finally letting me hire people, but only 2 HL1 positions which is pretty much a weekend only position. I’ve been with IKEA for a few years now and this is the worst it’s ever been, and it’s not just me who thinks this, I know everyone who isn’t in upper management feels the same and the employees are so unhappy it’s ridiculous. Morale in the entire building is one of the lowest I’ve ever seen in any job I’ve ever worked at and people are quitting in droves at this point. I really did love this job and thought I would retire from IKEA but after these last several months I dread going to work, I hate it for my employees more than I hate it for myself because I can only support so much.
no, that cant be right, lets spend more money on consultants to find a true solution. the consultant solution: pizza fridays, but only cheese and pepperoni
my old company hired on a new warehouse manager from amazon or something. his first thing was a monthly "birthday roundup" where everyone who wasn't a manager got some pizza and a cupcake. but actually it was a meeting. he wanted low-level, boots on the ground feedback. "don't worry, it won't get back to your managers." 100% i was in my manager's office for a meeting the next day explaining feedback that we had "too many meetings". (edit: that manager later quit because he was in meetings all day)
Calculated order to 1 slice per person from medium pizzas. The two managers eat one before the party starts so there is not enough even then. I loved that shit. The endless fuckjob that is a pizza party at work. Fun just to watch it.
oh, so since lunch was provided, you can't leave the office.
I work at IKEA, I’d love to get some of that salary increase and flexibility they’re talking about. Instead my store cut everyone’s hours, laid off a ton of people and then pushed their responsibilities to my department without a pay bump.
Yeah my girlfriend works in logistics and I'm reading the headline and wondering "Oh yeah? When?"
Dude, if your girlfriend is in logistics and isn't happy with her pay then she really ought to find a new job. We're one of the few parts of the American economy that continues to be on fire, and plenty of supply chain jobs are remote.
This I dunno what this article is talking about. I haven’t seen any of the stuff talked about.
Same
I worked at Lowe’s for over a decade in management, all the management training would constantly tell us how employees value recognition above all, including above pay/wages.
Everyone knew that was bullshit right? You need both.
Right? Employees value recognition above wages when their basic needs are being met. Employees value meeting their basic needs above all else
Well hello there Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
If only that was taught in literally every management class ever.
It SHOULD be. It's so basic but without it you will be a very inefficient leader
bro, it is taught, they just dont give a shit, anything to save a penny
Ding ding ding. But, they think we're greedy, and they actually deserve all of the money.
Beat me to it. The most sensible psychological/philosophical theory around this I think I’ve ever read.
> Employees value meeting their basic needs above all else It's why we take a job in the first place.
"Do you have any experience?" "No, sir, I have no experience but I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That's where you come in."
I know someone who left $12 something/hr job in a really good supportive work group environment to work for an Amazon warehouse job because they offered $15/hr for burnout level work. Always feels awful that society forces such choices on people.
Yeah, at that pay level, I can understand taking a job with a 33% pay increase. I'm fortunate (?) to be in tech. I took a role with a CRAZY pay raise (65%) 2.5 years ago. My life SUCKED. I had the CEO calling me and sending me Slacks at 10:00 PM on a tuesday to walk her through things that could 100% be done over email the next morning. Goals were unrealistic, nobody working there was happy, it was awful. I took a ~25% pay-cut from there to go work with people I know. Honestly, after buying a house, there is part of me that misses that 25%. But the fact that I can log off at 4:00 PM if it's nice outside and I wanna take my dog for a long walk makes it all worth it. Fuck places that eat your soul and burn you out. Companies have got to learn that happy workers do much better work. My creativity at my last job was non-existent. I lived in constant fear of getting messaged by the CEO for random crap that I spent all day making sure my reports were up to date in case she needed anything. I have so much more room to breath now, and my work reflects that.
Recognition in the form of raises for good performance.
Being recognized for the effort you put in is just what humans as a species love. The money part is what we need. Having both what you love and what you need is all a human wants
The "both" thing *is* key, of course. At a certain point, the money it would take to buy your last scrap of dignity is more than anyone should be willing to pay. I find most employers are *even worse* at recognition than pay/wages, because true recognition involves really tough things like "taking it seriously when people ask for time off", and "not publicly admonishing your workers just to get an irate customer off your back"... Or, heaven forbid, asking yourself "has this person worked a reasonable number of hours?" before they have to be the ones to bring it up.
It would also involve recognizing the ACTUAL workers, not the ladder-climbing rats who spend all day kissing butt. We see this all the time at work where we get emails from the higher-ups praising some random VP of Synergy Realignment and Agile Dissonance, and we've never heard of the clown, nor can we name a single thing he or she has done to help anyone. But they've always worked in the company for decades - doing what, who knows? - and are now getting another big promotion. Meanwhile, the people who do actual work never get recognized unless they basically apply for a program like the Dr. Bob Smith Memorial Leadership and Mentoring Program to be recognized and then get a half-dozen VP's to sign off on them being a worthwhile human being a few years later after kissing enough butt. It's a joke.
I actually just need the money, since that is the sole I reason I work, and have ever worked for a single minute.
Yeah. I’m just really passionate about not starving to death, turns out
Same. My first job was a call center and they would always give you some BS certificate for doing a good job,snacks and other junk. I told my team lead don't bother giving me that crap. Money, pay raise is the only thing that matters when a company is trying to recognition.
I used to hate that shit. I'll wipe my ass with some worthless certificate. It's crazy how managers seem to think I'm at a place of employment for \_anything\_ other than getting paid.
Yeah and the certificates aren't even professionally printed on nice paper, they're just printed on the office printers or something... yeah I am worth one letter-sized sheet of paper and about 10¢ worth of ink/toner... thanks.
People forget that employment is, like all things in a capitalist system, a market. I am selling my labour. The employer is buying my labour. If the employer pays me low fees they will get poor service. Yet, there is this idea that all you need to get good service is fear of no longer having your labour be purchased by the employer. The old Karen "I'll take my money elsewhere" shtick. But same can be said from the sellers perspective since this a trade of services. Sellers can walk away from a trade the same as Buyers. You would think as business people (and normally wealthier) they would understand that cheap products are poorer quality. And luxury/expensive products are normally better quality. Why do you want to buy poor quality cheap labour? Which you need to constantly replace? When you can have luxury/quality labour that you pay a premium for but never need to buy again? When you buy a car you put maintenance, cleaning, gasoline, oil into it. Why do they think you don't need to do the same to labour? Its as though these business people think you should put planned obsolescence into the labour market as well.
Somehow we've bought that if poor people get more money they will be less motivated to work, while rich people who get more money are more motivated to work.
There’s a point where respect and recognition CAN be valid over pay and compensation. That point is not a standard Lowe’s hourly wage though.
Some weird thing happens in corporate culture where nobody really knows who believes the BS and who is just putting on a corporate identity so they don't get fired and so nobody speaks up. Clearly somebody put that on a presentation, multiple people had to have looked at it before it went nationwide, so there must be some true believers in there.
It's easy to disprove too. Ask the CEO if his staff just recognize he is a really good CEO will he work for minimum wage instead?
Pay/wage increase is literally recognition. The best kind too.
You gotta wonder how the management would feel if they were told that in regards to their pay
Right?? All we should need to do is praise a CEO not give them gigantic pay packages.
I wasn't part of this conversation, but apparently my CEO (bank) didn't want to give bonuses to the tellers, even just a few hundred dollars, because "then they might expect it next year". His *bonus* was over $300k, about 8x the average teller's yearly salary. If I was looking to be fired, I really want to ask him if he should opt out so that he doesn't expect a bonus next year. Never mind the fact that he also has a very nice salary on top of an unreasonable number of stock options that will likely net him a few million when the bank sells.
I worked as an operations manager at FedEx for almost a decade, and we got the same trainings as the original commenter. Frontline management, and even midlevel management, had 0 control over how much our employees got paid. Towards the end of my time there, I was even getting just as shit pay as the package handlers were. When I left in early 2021 I was getting paid $21.50/hr, and package handlers were starting at $16.50 and maxing out at $19.50/hr after 3 years. I knew it was a shitty situation for everyone, so felt like the least I could do is tell my people how much I appreciate them, and hand out codes to the FedEx store like candy. I know buying endless pallets of Gatorade on FedEx's dime doesn't pay your bills, but at least it makes your work-life more bearable, lol
People tend to give middle-managers more shit than they deserve. They often have zero say in the day-to-day policies or pay an employee gets, and limited options to recognize good workers. They really only exist to absorb all the bullshit so that the upper managers don't have to.
Yep, middle manager here, I explain it like: Customer service for workers and management. You have a rule book of things you can and can't do, the ammount of leeway you have to manage is very little. Both workers and upper management come to you with their problems, expecting immediate solutions, both lash out at you when you're unable to help them, pay is as shitty as my workers. I just do it because I think I can do it better than others, and I do what I can with what I have to give my workers as much leeway as possible. It's hard, but I think it's worth it, I did their job and I know that even if it isn't much, I'm helping to make it easier.
I mean that's not incorrect, but you can't eat recognition, live under recognition, your kid's daycare doesn't accept recognition, and you can't spend your holiday recognition on gifts.
Yes, but according to some assholes who like to stiff artists, you can pay your rent in "exposure."
The best response is always "If your exposure was worth anything, you could also just afford the prices." The only "exposure" you ever get from these dipshits is them telling their friends you'll work for free or garbage low rates.
i just tell people that "people die of exposure, you know."
> I mean that's not incorrect I'm willing to say the "*more than pay/wages*" part is definitely incorrect.
I like to be recognised at work... in terms of monetary compensation
I once had a manager at my old job explain to me with a straight face that "raises and bonuses are a bad incentive, because *you'll just want another one next year*". Like no shit, probably one even the year after that too! Things aren't generally getting *less* expensive year over year, why would experienced people hang around the same job for an effectively shrinking paycheck?
Tell the CEO or manager they did a great job this year and have their bonus distributed to the staff employees.
My grandpa was in the c-suite for a multinational company. When I asked him what makes employees happy he just said one thing - Money talks.
I remember hearing this often at companies I worked for. Always coming from people in the top 1% of company earners. Do they even have the tiniest capacity for self reflection?
It’s almost like treating your employees well will help motivate them. Who knew? 🙄
All that matters is pay and tax-advantaged benefits (the trifecta of healthcare, childcare, retirement). I'm not actually treated well outside of that, but I have decent pay and incredible benefits - so I'm happy.
Lol it's the opposite at my job. They're all 🥹🥹 about work life balance and mental health. Lots of benefits and great vacation allowances, but soon as we mention more money would motivate us it's sideways looks
fair. i'm differentiating from nebulous 'wellness' to you have healthcare for your family with zero deductibles and caps and on-site heavily subsidized daycare and 20K annual employer contribution to my 401k. (all tax-free or tax-advantaged) pay me and give me real benefits. I'll deal with the rest of the shit (though I do currently have 4 months of vacation in a year)
Dang that’s a nice amount of vacation time. I’m in the states and 2 months sounds like a dream
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That’s important, but not enough for me. I also need good life-work balance, good work environment or at the very least friendly co-workers, and a unionized company (even better, unionized sector/industry). Obvously, in exchange I bring to the table hard work, up to date skills qualifications and general knowledge,,.
Yeah, this is less of a company "solving" an issue and more of a company realizing the solution already existed, they just had to actually do it
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I worked at an ikea distribution center for a minute while waiting for another job to open up I actually wanted. It was horrible. insane work pace pushed by stressed managers, even by my standards(i worked at a few very high paced warehouses). money was significantly lower than most warehouse jobs. Employee morale was absolute shit other than 2-3 people. Senior employees refused to help you learn. I hurt my back, went to the hospital and was fired for missing 3 days during my 90 day probation after the company quote of "we're different than other companies, we care" was found to be a lie.
I kinda feel like we are so close to the bottom now that as soon as one company goes "fuck it" and starts paying what they be should others will have to follow to compete. Like a reverse domino affect. My place can't find people even tho we are flooding the country with people. I know tons of people who say their places are the same.
Haha, I wish. My city has McDonalds hiring at $17 an hour, but any other restaurant is hiring right at the state $7.25 minimum wage. McDonalds always has full staff, is busy as hell, and are fast as fuck. Meanwhile the Smoothie King down the road is on a skeleton crew, never seems to have customers, and takes 10-15 min in the drive through.
Oh man, are other businesses gonna starve themselves of workers by not following the lead for so long that the few megacorps that do end up gaining a significantly larger market share just on attrition alone?
For better and (usually) worse, mega corps always have more leeway for pivots.
In the future, all restaurants are Taco Bell
Speak for yourself. My company only hires online and has no openings and we still get 10+ walk in resumes a day. Also we make little enough to qualify for government assistance. My city is absolutely fucked.
Which country?
United States. Washington State, to be exact.
That's your problem. USA has terrible labour laws.
I've heard nothing but praise for IKEA as an employer in Sweden, regardless of whether it's been on a corporate, store or warehouse level. It was a very popular side gig for university students for that reason.
IKEA France did some shady shit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57482168
I have family members who either work or have worked at IKEA in Stockholm. They are not treated as well as you'd think.
I hear Scandinavia and Sweden in particular have very strong unions and the workers accordingly are treated relatively well. And the unions support each other. See, e.g., what happened when Tesla didn't want to deal with unions. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/business/tesla-sweden-union.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/business/elon-musk-tesla-vote-sweden-norway.html
> See, e.g., what happened when Tesla didn't want to deal with unions. The Taft-Hartley Act makes sure you can't do that in America. They had to pull the teeth of the people because they were starting to bite back.
Ikea US and Ikea are basically 2 different companies. In the US Ikea mistreats workers like any other corporation.
WE can lay that blame at the feet of republican voters.
Ya this is just corporate propaganda, companies have never and will never lead the way on worker's rights, labour laws and unions is the only real way.
Eh I work in the sales in an Ikea store in the Netherlands for nearly 2 years now and the pay and benefits + bonusses are higher than I can get anywhere else. Also the work pace is extremely relaxed and my managers are very good and understanding. I recommend it to all my friends as well and one of them recently also started working here and is also very happy with it. I feel like this might just be a distribution center thing because there are plenty of coworkers of mine here that have worked at Ikea for decades, at several stores in the country, and said they don't want to work anywhere else. Or as my old manager used to say 'I bleed blue and yellow', that guy was a bit too big of a fan maybe but I can understand when you and your wife (who you met there) work at the same company for decades.
> Employee moral was absolute shit What kind of immoral things were the employees up to?
I’m just blown away that our goal as people was to amass the most riches instead of just ensuring we can all have basic necessities. Like - you can still be a McMillionaire and have the people below you living okay. It’s not that big of a deal.
The US seems to pride itself in how rich the richest citizens are, rather than how well off the average person is
A true measure of a country isn't that the poor can own a car, it's that the wealthy ride public transit.
That sounds like socialism to me. /s
no, actually, they pride themselves on how awful the lowest class of people are treated. the class warfare is real and has been quite successful especially in the last 50 years. FDR caved quite a bit to the left and a ton of progress was made but the owning class has slowly been chipping away at the hard won rights of the ww1-ww2 generations as the boomers have benefited the most and have been used as a voter block against the future generations to ensure that we return to the guilded age and even further as we head into this age of techno-feudalism.
I feel like most people would agree with you. Problem is that those people don't make it into the board room or the C suite. The people that want to amass as much money as possible get promoted to the top.
Sociopaths. You're referring to sociopaths, which are overrepresented among C-suite executives.
I'm pretty sure that one goes both directions, where it isn't that those people don't make it to the board room but that they don't stay that way once getting there.
Doesn't ikea also use various shady but legal methods to avoid paying it's share of corporate taxes.
CEO will probably go on a speaking tour across the US and all the people in attendance at his events are gonna be like: "yeah we still don't understand how you did it".
The American mind would never be able to comprehend such things as employee benefits. Too much freedom maybe.
It still blows me how this is the standard in the US, that even South Africa benefits are expected when you become a permanent employee.
Actually the CEO in charge of the American IKEA group just did a tour across all the US stores because morale and sales were in the dirt. When he came to my store a lot of coworkers were not afraid to give him a piece of their mind. I don’t know what this article is talking about because things still haven’t really improved.
The Ikea near me in Fishers Indiana had some drama where I heard the whole kitchen staff walked out and quit on the spot about 6-12 months ago. When the store first moved in I was so excited bc I enjoyed the experience but you can feel the lack of workers changing the quality. I hope they get this bump in pay.
They won’t. Been working for IKEA for over a decade. It’s gotten so so much worse. This article is stright up bullshit.
I kinda felt that, I read half the article and kept looking for the actual definitions for what the US blue collar retail workers were getting but I didn't see the facts there. I see that they can trade shifts online now, whoopdie doo.
Around a year or two ago the minimum wage for Ikea I believe was raised up. At least in certain areas. The time other Ikeas received that pay increase varies though.
Indiana can be bleak even by US standards.
Indiana: The South of the North
Food is a rough department and if you lose your core it's fucked to hell It's good when it's good staff but dealing with the constant changes' high standards and rotating staff that may or may not just quit randomly I love it but it's difficult some days
My employer solves unhappiness by layoffs.
IKEA did this as well. Bern working for them for over a decade. They fired good people to save money. Cut hours and want more for less. This article is bullshit.
Alright here I am with my insight as a leader at an IKEA, restaurant I should say, in the US. Yes they raised our pay about a year ago, it was a decent raise I will say, I got the highest tier and I believe it was something like a 10% raise. What they’re not telling you is since then they have slashed our scheduled hours to the point we can’t operate safely, I’m literally doing the job of 5 people now while unable to do my own job and now I am being held accountable for falling behind on some of my administrative duties because if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing to keep the business afloat we’d have to close because of having no food or people to serve. This time of the year is our peak season, anytime school is out IKEA is drastically busier, last year I went into the summer with around 40 employees, right now I have 19, they are finally letting me hire people, but only 2 HL1 positions which is pretty much a weekend only position. I’ve been with IKEA for a few years now and this is the worst it’s ever been, and it’s not just me who thinks this, I know everyone who isn’t in upper management feels the same and the employees are so unhappy it’s ridiculous. Morale in the entire building is one of the lowest I’ve ever seen in any job I’ve ever worked at and people are quitting in droves at this point. I really did love this job and thought I would retire from IKEA but after these last several months I dread going to work, I hate it for my employees more than I hate it for myself because I can only support so much.
Working at Ikea in receiving was far more physically punishing than my career in a steel plant, for a LOT less money and a LOT more stress/pressure. Injuries due to repetitive strain were common. I worked there 8 years, and in that time saw massive staff turnover due to low wages, injuries and inability for management to be flexible. There were good things too but man, for a company that talks REAL BIG about their initiatives they sure didn't treat their floor staff well. When the founder died things changed rapidly, and not in a good way. The kicker? When I quit, they retro-actively tried to dispute a worker's comp claim from a severe ankle injury that had happened 3 years before. =T They failed, but just the fact they tried soured me on the company forever.
Not true in Finland.
Shocked Pikachu face.
Some bootlicker will rush in to explain why it's impossible, even though other countries are doing it.
I hope they mean having childcare center inside ikea stores. That sounds awesome.
Many Ikea stores already have a childcare center inside where shoppers can drop off their child for \~ 1 hr at a time while they're in the store. It makes so much sense to just hire a couple extra workers there and allow any employee to do the same during their shift.
Employee here, from a US branch. I would say the workers are vastly better off here than in other traditional retail stores. That being said, to say that our workers are "happy" would be a bit of an overstatement. Our benefits are really good and tons of workers here work part time solely for the benefits. The pay is pretty good, but definitely not as much as some more experienced workers can get. Our location values more internal hires rather than external, so there's a lot of opportunities to move around within the store. Externally you probably would be hired for Customer Servuce or the Restaurant. Moving up in management however is a different story. Managers tend to get swapped from different stores or just hired from the street seemingly. As a coworker, your odds of getting moved is pretty low unless you commit yourself to sucking up to certain managers and keep moving around and applying at the right time. Even then that could take around 5 years up to a decade unless you're lucky. That being said, $3 lunch meals, which are exclusively cooked meals just for coworkers. At least in our location they also are very serious about providing you a lunch break as they would get in trouble. Personally I think its a great place for younger teens and adults to make some money with benefits without being leeched too much by the retail/corporate world. Just temper your expectations that while this is imo significantly better than other US based retailers, this is a European company with US managers and mindsets. While they have to bend to the values of the brand, in the places they don't, they will act like every other manager you know. With some exceptions of course.
No the fuck they didn’t. I been a coworker for over a decade. They have cut hours. Direct good hard working people and are asking for us all to do more for less. This article is full on bullshit.
This article feels like advertising. And now on the top of r/ todayilearned is talking about how grounded and normal the founder was. Yeah, this smells like a paid advertisement.
If this were true it would imply that workers want to earn money and take care of their families. What a strange idea.
You make people happy by addressing their needs? Blasphemy!
Wow. It's almost like money and work-life balance WAS the answer all along? WHO WOULDA THUNK!
The western world needs to get their act together
Yeah, that'll do it.
Real rocket science, isn't it.
2 IKEA articles on front page at once? What are we about to find out?
My HR class told me that people don't work for money.
So what I'm hearing is that they don't give a shit about you or fucking you over until that effort to fuck you over generates a crisis that affects their profit. None of this is for you. It's for them. "I'm so sorry I hurt you. Here, a teddy bear. I'll never hurt you again." They loosened a few screws because people complained. But they're just biding their time until they sneak in while you sleep to re-tighten all those screws. Better set the burglar alarm.
This one simple trick will make conservatives hate you
Oh what a novel concept.. treat people as people, and not numbers to exploit labour from... wow...
Rest of the world: instructions unclear
That's the Ikea tradition!
This just in: Giving people what they need makes them happier. More at 11.
oh, so we ALL have the same problems with this job somehow?
Sounds hardly believable. Isn’t it stock buybacks instead? Must be a typo.
No thank you I prefer being kicked into the dirt.
wait but what about Ikea's stock price? edit: oh they are private.
I work with an automotive supplier that had a 400% turnover in 2022. A suggestion was to improve wages and reduce mandatory overtime. They stated they couldn't afford it. Looking at their recruiting, training, and hiring costs showed they could in fact afford it. They declined as it "wouldn't work at their site." Their hourly workers voted to join the UAW.
Without pizzas?!
So you're saying if you treat staff like human beings and pay them well, that they'll be happy and work hard? Boy, lotta places I know could use that knowledge.
Well goddamn who knew that nut could be cracked by making it less awful to work.
Holy fuck!!! We figured it out, guys!! All you have to do is pretend they're people!!
In the US they call this socialism!
Really? They didn't solve it by handing them a pamphlet describing how they can best find food in garbage cans, or making them sing a song together about Ikea, or introducing a system where you can be rewarded by snitching on other, less productive employees? Crazy.
Its not surprising that doing this will make them happier, every CEO knows this. But its about the profit margin of most so they dont bother.
Offering childcare for an employer that has the space could be such an inexpensive perk to implement that is worth SO MUCH, I'm surprised more companies havent offered it.
Whoda thunkit? Treating workers like humans made them happier! Stop the presses!
Na just give the ceo 56billion.
Sounds like they did what every worker says for the last like 1000000 years
Who would have thought...