Courtesy: https://www.voucherpages.ie/

In a move that is highly encouraging for women, the Swedish furniture giant, IKEA, has announced that it will open crèches in all its upcoming 25 Indian stores.

The decision comes at a time when the company has a plan to hire around 7,500 women employees by the end of 2025 and the availability of crèches right inside the office will only help make the job easier for women who have children.

Anna-Carin Månsson, country HR manager of IKEA said, “The idea is to hire 50% of women staffers, about 7,500, by 2025. Considering the social set-up here, it is necessary to open day-care centres for kids and babies in India.” Månsson also added that this will be the first time that they are doing something like this in any country.

IKEA’s internal survey conducted in several countries reveal that it is the woman who has the final say in buying of the furniture or any other home furnishing item. So, keeping that in mind, the company too wants to hire more women at strategic positions. Currently, IKEA’S 12-member top management team that handles all of its retail operations in India, has 6 women members.

The company is also being especially particular while drafting policies for its future Indian stores. Along with studying the policies of other companies stationed in India, they are working on policies related to women who came back from maternity leave and sabbaticals and policies on women safety.
“Here the requirements are different and we need policies to address those areas,” Månsson said.

However, these developments do not come with a promise of flexible work hours, as the company makes no such promises. It has already begun its hiring process for its Hyderabad and Mumbai stores with Bengaluru too in the pipeline.

Overall, it plans to hire around 15,000 people and invest around Rs 10,500 crore for all of its 25 stores, each of which will employ 500-600 workers and indirectly provide job opportunities to at least 1,500 people. These stores will be spread across nine Indian cities.