Pernille Hagild has been the Global Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Lead for the Ingka Group (of which IKEA is a part) since December 2021, previously holding various HR roles across the business.
She is part of the opening keynote panel for MAD World’s DE&I symposium on 17th October in London (if you haven’t got your ticket yet, you can register and see the jam-packed agenda here). In this Hagild will be joined by Dr Patrick Ismond, Head of EDI, RSPCA, and Michelle Okwudiafor, Associate Director -Communications, S&P Global, to discuss delivering a meaningful DE&I agenda.
We caught up with her, ahead of her appearance, to find out more…
You’ve done quite a few different roles at IKEA. Can you tell me about your move into DE&I?
Yes, I’ve worked for IKEA for 23 years and I came into this role two and a half years ago.
Regardless of which role I was in, from HR to L&D, what has always been important to me is the focus on making the working day better for our colleagues.
IKEA’s values are around bringing people together, unleashing potential and getting the best out of people, so these have always been my drivers in my working day. I believe we all have the right to have a good working life and be ourselves at work.
All my work so far has been about embracing people’s diversities, bringing equity and making a difference. Then, when the DE&I job came up, I realised: ‘At first I didn’t think I was a DE&I expert but this is actually what I’ve been working with for my whole career.’
What do you think it brings to this DE&I role that you have such deep HR experience?
I think what it brings is that I know how the business works. I’ve been in management teams. I know how our business managers work. I know the people and cultural agenda. Having that understanding, I can put the DE&I lens on all the different processes.
We’ve put a lot of focus on making the People and Culture function relevant to business, being true partners in helping deliver business results- I’m in a good position to influence and inspire business leaders that DE&I are imperative to business development.
Your panel at MAD World will discuss strategic challenges and achieving the benefits that increased diversity can bring. Is there anything you’ve learnt about demonstrating this to the rest of the business?
DE&I can’t sit outside the business agenda, like an addendum. We are part of the agenda.
It’s important that business managers understand that their business is all about people. If you don’t have the right talent, or you can’t attract the right talent, then you can’t unleash the full capabilities of your business, and all your people.
We spend a lot of time building the knowledge and capabilities of managers so they can really put this into practice, positively impacting their part of the business. For the last two years, we’ve run a four-hour senior management training programme, which started with a commitment from our CEO and group management team.
More than 1,400 senior managers have completed this training so far. Some countries have even invested in training for their managers for the whole day. We have a range of learning offers, such as unconscious bias training and other initiatives designed for co-workers and managers.
What’s been the impact of this training?
What we’ve seen is a shift in confidence. By the end of the training, they’re saying things like ‘Wow, I feel more confident in engaging in these topics. Across our countries, we now see many great examples of business managers creating or championing DE&I initiatives both for co-workers and for customers. By having examples to share they become amplifiers of the movement.
What’s the biggest challenge in your DE&I job?
In such a big organisation, one of the biggest challenges is reaching the many co-workers and making a difference in their working lives, from those working in senior and middle management, to those working on the shop floor.
Another challenge is making all co-workers know they have an opportunity to grow within IKEA and we are currently working very hard on removing any remaining various career progression barriers in some areas to achieve this.
I’ve heard that you are particularly strong on gender equality, and it’s an area you feel strongly about. Can you tell me a bit about that?
It started with our management team and CEO making a commitment around 20 years ago and now we have a 50/50 gender balance across the majority of our management teams across the 31 countries in which we operate.
There are a few management teams where we still have a job to do, not necessarily to recruit more women, but sometimes more men. We also have a female CEO in Japan and India, and we’ve had one in China, even though these local cultures can tend to recruit men to senior roles.
Gender balanced teams are said to be better in terms of innovation and results. Is that something that you are finding is being proved true? Is there any way to measure that?
We’ve had gender balance for some years now and we are successful. It’s hard to answer what would have happened if we hadn’t. As a company we believe by being more diverse we will reach more customers.
Take people with disabilities, for example. If we have employees that have a disability we can have a greater understanding of what it’s like to live with a disability and we can showcase that in our products and room settings. We know it is important that our business reflects the communities we operate in.
What advice can you give to other companies that are struggling to achieve gender equality?
First of all, I’d say set your goal and stick to the direction. That’s what we’ve done with all the goals we have set, not just gender, but also ethnicity and disability, and so on. You need to have good examples to share to show you are serious.
Then look at your processes. All our people processes are now gender equal. For example, we’ve neutralised a lot in our recruitment process. Then, to support gender equal pay, we no longer ask for salary data from a candidate. We work consciously on using less gendered-biased words in job ads and are introducing tools to support us with this.
The more women you have, the more you will attract, because your environment is more gender inclusive.
What do you think of awareness days that are meant to raise awareness of diversity issues, like International Women’s Day?
These days are opportunities to raise awareness and create calls to action in our company. But we’re also quite aware that whatever we communicate, we need to be proud of making a difference and inspiring others.
Is there anything else you are launching soon?
Yes, our new gender equality approach, in which we go beyond binary gender. We are currently prioritising intersectionality, ensuring we have a deeper understanding of our co-workers, and this community feel they can be themselves at work.
And it’s not just about women – we want to show we are equally there for everyone, regardless of gender identity, too.
For example, this approach includes andropause, as well as menopause because a lot of men find they have hormonal changes in midlife too. We want to raise awareness of this and acknowledge that men can have issues at this time in life too and we have workplace adjustments that can be made for them.
You have a DE&I strategy that sets out plans from 2024 – 2027. Can you tell me the highlights?
The topline focus is to create diverse teams reflecting the diversity of society and to create inclusion. But a new goal is what we’re calling ‘inclusive retailing’.
What is ‘inclusive retailing’?
It’s about being more conscious about how we actually create and present the range and room settings, inspired by the communities we operate in. This way we are ensuring we are showing up for our customers and really understanding their lived experience.
Ultimately, the result will be that DE&I is not separate but is integrated into the IKEA’s business plans. In future, I want every co-worker to ‘own’ DE&I, no matter where they work or what they do.
The DE&I Summit at MAD World is an event driving excellence in building equitable, inclusive, thriving workplaces. As well as IKEA’s Hagild, speakers include Ebay’s Estelle Jackson, Senior Manager, Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Dr Patrick Ismon, Head of EDI, RSPCA and Sharlene John, Head of DEI, Recruitment & Onboarding, Selfridges.
MAD World is on 17th October 2024, and will bring together speakers and attendees from across sectors and with a range of job titles for five tracks of leading-edge content that showcase best practice and provide insights and inspiration for all those looking to achieve maximum engagement with initiatives, optimise investment, stay one step ahead and really make a difference.
The stellar lineup of speakers includes: Professor Dame Carol Black GBE FRCP FMed Sci; Peter Cheese, CEO, CIPD, Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher, Chief Executive, The Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH), Dhavani Bishop, Head of Group Colleague Health & Wellbeing, Tesco, Kirstin Furber, People Director, Channel 4, Dr Clare Fernandes, Chief Medical Officer, BBC, Christian van Stolk, Executive Vice President, RAND Europe, Andrew Gibbons, Group Head of Wellbeing, Recognition and Hybrid Working, HSBC, Karen Brookes, Chief People Officer, Sir Robert McAlpine, Jaimy Fairclough, Wellbeing Specialist – People Division, Sainsbury’s, Dr Femi Oduneye, Vice President Health, Shell International B.V. and many more. You can find out more and register to attend here.
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