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IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

fortune.com

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Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#161

Post by ranguna »

dredmorbius wrote: post #56
misterbwong wrote: post #6

OP's link should really include the full title: Ikea’s boss solved the Swedish retailer’s global ‘unhappy worker’ crisis by raising salaries, introducing flexible working and subsidizing childcare Cutting it off there just makes it seem like ikea thinks "more money = happy workers" when in reality it is more nuanced than that.

HN has an 80 character title max length. The full original title is 157 characters, nearly double that. The alternatives generally suggested are to shorten the original title, omitting needless descriptives or words (e.g., counts, emotives, etc.) if possible, or barring that, to substitute alternative text, preferably from a subtitle or passage from the article (both to avoid editorialising): dang comment: https://ne…

Salary raise, childcare, flexible hours fixes 'unhappy worker' crisis says IKEA

78 characters

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#162

Post by taskforcegemini »

defrost wrote: post #55
from-nibly wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because raising kids isn't contributing to society.

That's exactly why child care workers who look after packs of 15 to 20 kids at a time should be highly valued and paid a decent wage. It's how villages worked in the past, most adults did non child related work much of the time, some adults and some older children kept an eye on what the pooled group of kids were up to .. watching, sometimes educating, sometimes leading them in "work" building things, cooking, huntin…

raising wages doesn't equal better quality

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#163

Post by stephenr »

johnwalkr wrote: post #148
stephenr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest they are pretty clear about it in their packaging. If it says solid wood it's probably fine. If it says particle board or fibre board or something other than solid wood it's an "assemble it once and never move it again" piece at best, and a "keep it for a few years" piece at worst. It's not like it's a problem unique to ikea. Buying particle board or mdf furniture is always going to give you a much worse…

I've found even the cheap stuff to be long-lasting if you disassemble it before moving it. Carrying or pushing shelves in a way that turns them into a parallelogram is what damages them.

The problem with that approach is the cheap stuff is particle board, and repeatedly screwing into particle board isn't a fantastic idea.

The best result (in terms of a strong joint) from particle board furniture would be to add glue when screwing (i.e. in the hole with the screw) but that completely removes the option of disassembling it.

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#164

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #100
39896880 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contributing to the household income. It takes 2 incomes to live anywhere but BFE in the US.

Yeah but a big part of that is because both parents work. You can buy double the house with 2 incomes instead of 1.

[deleted]

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#165

Post by tored »

cess11 wrote: post #158
tored wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice that you try to smear Kamprad in order to set the tone in order to defend union take over of companies by force, a typical tactic of the radicals. IKEA was Kamprad's own creation, not the creation of some union bureaucrat. The Wikipedia article, both the Swedish and the English version, is fuzzy about the details how it worked, they took the company’s own money and use that to buy the company’s shares by for…

Why the lying? Kamprad was adjacent to Nysvenska rörelsen, a lifelong friend of it's founder Per Engdahl, who also supplied the initial funding for IKEA. It's insane to claim that Olof Palme caused a shift away from parliamentary reformism. And no, we've never had anyone pay "more than 100% in taxes". That's a myth, based on Astrid Lindgrens pretty weird propaganda story about it. The antagonism between labour and ca…

I have not lied, another smear from you.

It doesn't matter what Kamprad's political opinions was in his youth, using socialism to take over private companies as the Social democrats did is still wrong regardless. Are you going to call the family Rausing (creator of Tetra Pak) for fascist as well because the didn't want union bureaucrats to take over their creation?

In what way would union bureaucrats be better stewards than business owners? We had union bureaucrat recently who ran the country, Stefan Löfven, probably the worst prime minister in history.

Social democrats during the leadership of Olof Palme were definitely radicals. During this era they expanded the government and increased taxation massively, which led to a high currency devaluation, i.e made the Swedes poorer, typical socialism. As Olof Palme's successor Göran Persson said it, something like ~ Social democrats always puts democracy before socialism, Olof Palme did the opposite ~. Fitting end that Palme got murdered like something you hear about from 3rd World Marxist kleptocracies.

More than 100% in taxes is 100% true, here you can read all about it

https://timbro.se/smedjan/den-sanna-sagan-om-pomperipossa-i-...

That is why the Government reacted and made a change to the tax legislation within two months, why would they if it wasn't over 100%? Even the most radical couldn't defend this absurdity.

Saltsjöbadsavtalet was not about parliamentary decision, it was about consensus between employers and employees, which led to the Golden years. A consensus that the Social democrats broke when they passed LAS in the seventies. (Also Social democrats is again abandoning the Swedish model by accepting that EU can pass minimal wage legislation)

Without Kamprad there would be no IKEA, thus nowhere for workers to work. That is the thing to understand, Kamprad was one in a billion, radicals exists in the thousands, useless of course because they don't create anything of value.

Why everything is tied up around the stock market is because of neoliberalism, a consequence of the right wing's radicalization as I described earlier, typical for neoliberalism and marxism is that they both believe in printing money out of thin air and then speculate with it. Who benefits? Not the poor of course, it is the receivers of that printed money, for neoliberalism that would be bankers and capitalists and in marxism that would be bureaucrats and politicians, as it was in the Soviet union.

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#166

Post by alt227 »

bhickey wrote: post #13
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #11

Can someone explain to me why corporate management seems unable to grasp the concept of properly paying and providing benefits for their employees to increase retention and have more successful hiring? Like...is it actual incompetence? Or do they know it's the answer, but just don't want to do it? I just can't grasp why a manager would refuse to provide proper pay and benefits and then get a Surprised Pikachu face wh…

This isn't a lack of understanding. It's the principal-agent problem. Non-founder executives are usually rewarded for short term results. They'll deliver on this even if it means laying off the entire Python language team in the midst of an AI boom. The market is bad at distinguishing these growth hacks for sustainable business, so they'll see 4% quarterly growth and pile on under the assumption that the hockey stick…

The same reason that nothing good ever gets done in governments. They only lead for short terms and so never make any long lasting policies that would actually create change over time.

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#167

Post by chongli »

lucumo wrote: post #72
yellow_postit wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a regressive view — a household that can only function on 2 incomes is more stressful than one that can operate on 1. Not saying earning potential needs to be the same — but claiming 1 is worse than 2 doesn’t hold water and is a pathological case. In the US it’s a shame we so under/de value child rearing as somehow “less than”

It is better for everyone, and it does not devalue child-rearing at all. It is better for the family: - it has more resources - it has more income diversification It is better for the father: - he doesn't have to carry the weight of income-gathering alone It is better for the mother: - she doesn't have to carry the weight of child-rearing alone - if things go sour, she can maintain herself and/or the family financial…

You haven’t addressed the elephant in the room: housing.

Housing costs have risen to match the switch to double income households. Now instead of 1, it takes 2 incomes just to be able to afford housing. This makes the family more brittle since if either parent loses their job both will lose the house.

And with the rise in housing costs people move further afield. Commuting times go way up and people waste more time in the car or on the train. Everybody ends up more stressed than ever before and further behind economically (compared to those whose wealth grows without working).

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#168

Post by pas »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #109
boxed wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has almost no forests anymore. We have tree plantations. That's a very different thing, and driving around Sweden is absolutely soul crushing for me who grew up running around in the forests during summers.

Then again, where all this wood go? Because it's not in IKEA's furniture.

Lot of it is export as roundwood ... but in general, housing (flooring, windows, decking), furniture, firewood/paper (pulp), etc.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-use-of-wood-from-the...

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#169

Post by pas »

nottorp wrote: post #127
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #11

Can someone explain to me why corporate management seems unable to grasp the concept of properly paying and providing benefits for their employees to increase retention and have more successful hiring? Like...is it actual incompetence? Or do they know it's the answer, but just don't want to do it? I just can't grasp why a manager would refuse to provide proper pay and benefits and then get a Surprised Pikachu face wh…

Because IKEA is not a publicly traded company. Don't know about the non profit part, but their management doesn't have to worry about growing the stock price every month at the least.

Paying CEOs in stock leads to CEOs caring about stock prices.

Also, as long as employees are grumbling, but still working, management doesn't care. (And since the extremely inefficient public programs of education and healthcare suck almost all the money out of welfare budgets the unemployment safety net is so weak no one really thinks of acting up.)

Re: IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries

#170

Post by Libcat99 »

defrost wrote: post #55
from-nibly wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because raising kids isn't contributing to society.

That's exactly why child care workers who look after packs of 15 to 20 kids at a time should be highly valued and paid a decent wage. It's how villages worked in the past, most adults did non child related work much of the time, some adults and some older children kept an eye on what the pooled group of kids were up to .. watching, sometimes educating, sometimes leading them in "work" building things, cooking, huntin…

All teachers should be well paid and well vetted. Teaching shouldn't be a self sacrifial social justice position, it should be an honored and well rewarded position.
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