Ulrika Biesèrt oversees a lot of employees—over 170,000 globally.
She’s head of people and culture at IKEA Retail (also known as Ingka Group), which manages 390 of IKEA’s 464 retail stores worldwide, and generates 90% of IKEA’s revenue.
As the pandemic threw countless businesses into disarray, and confined millions of people worldwide to their homes, IKEA’s furniture and decor businesses boomed, and a third of sales moved swiftly online.
The changes meant hiring more staff, training them, and retraining vast numbers of current employees to do new things—like help customers with design ideas over the phone or internet.
IKEA prides itself on having a strong company culture. But with so many people to manage globally, many of them new hires, and a constantly evolving strategy, it’s easier said than done.
Just last week, for example, IKEA announced it will no longer pay full sick pay for unvaccinated UK workers who need to self-isolate due to Covid. In response to an inquiry from Quartz, Ingka Group said it “believes that the vaccine is an important step in the global effort to tackle COVID-19.” It clarified that unvaccinated UK workers with mitigating circumstances such as pregnancy or underlying health conditions would continue to get full sick pay if they had to isolate, but those with none would only receive the standard sick pay mandated under UK law.
Biesèrt spoke to Quartz about how she and her distributed team are doubling down on company culture to help whether the storm of the pandemic.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Quartz: What has been your approach to sustaining company culture for thousands of employees during a pandemic, when dealing with issues ranging from illness and caregiving to onboarding new hires?
Ulrika Biesért: Culture and values are at the core of who we are, and also who we want to be. That started with the founder [Ingvar Kamprad] a long, long time ago. We are also quite pragmatic. We’re…