Candidate Experience at IKEA | Johnny Campbell & Shannon Custard

Sam foreign. Hello and welcome to the Shortlist. I am your host, Johnny Campbell, CEO and co founder of Social Talent. And welcome to our weekly show where we interview talent leaders from around the world to what's happening in their world. What are they thinking about? What are the big themes affecting their business that hopefully inform what's happening in the general talent world? Talent acquisition, talent development and retention. Today's guest is come a good friend of mine over the last few years. She has just an amazing amount of experience working in talent acquisition for a whole host of particularly consumer oriented brands. And that's going to feed big time into our theme this week, which is on Candidate Experience. Before we get into that, quick reminder that the Shortlist is a weekly show. It's available live on LinkedIn and YouTube, but you can rewatch any of our live shows and you can also check out our podcast on Apple and Spotify and other sources by going to socialtalent.com theshortlist where you can also subscribe for future shows and make sure you get that podcast feed getting into your mobile device device so you can listen to us as you run, as you exercise, as you walk the dog or do whatever it is you do, but you're listening to your podcasts. So Candid Experience, Candidate Experience is a big theme that people have been talking about, you know, for as long as I can remember, right, since it was coined maybe about 10 years ago. And I remember five years ago talking a lot about Candid Experience and producing several decks about this and speaking at conferences and that kind of died off. But there was a massive resurgence in the last two years around this topic. It became a hot topic to talk about. And some people perhaps would have thought that come March and April and May this year as the pandemic spread and the recession kicked in, that maybe Candidate Experience wouldn't be such a focus. But you find, as you did last week with our guest Eunice from Lego, you find that organizations, many organizations are putting in even renewed and increased focus on Candidate Experience to talk about her own personal experience and that of our organization this week, our guest and joining me today is the fantastic, fantastic Shannon Custard. And Shannon is the Global Talent Acquisition Manager at INGAC Group, which is probably known more to you as Ikea, a brand that we're all too familiar with. But just in case there's somebody somewhere listening, Shannon, who doesn't know who IKEA is, perhaps you can give us a bit of a background on yourself and one of a company that is ikea.

Of course, thank you. So yeah, I'm Shannon and I'm excited to be here today. And I work for Ingka Group, also known as Ikea Retail and we are one of 12 companies that operate under the Ikea brand family for Ikea Retail. We operate in over 31 countries and we support over 160,000 co workers globally. And if you're not familiar with us, we are a global home furnishing company with a vision to create a better life for the many people in the world. And we do this through offering a wide range of well designed functionality home furnishing products at prices so low that anybody can afford it and make their house their home. And what I do for Ikea Retail is I lead the talent acquisition organization and we support all programs related to employer branding, recruiting, onboarding, offboarding and our staffing vendor framework. And we're quite a new organization so we're only a couple years old, so we are still actively learning and building our processes. So I'm excited to share a bit of what we're doing today and have a great chat.

And I should probably add, Shannon's joining us from Sweden from a place called Malmo. Is that the correct pronunciation? Malma? Yeah, Malma, which for those of you want to check out the map, I had the pleasure of visiting Shannon in Malmo and you fly into Copenhagen is the easiest way in Denmark and get a wonderful train across the bridge to Malmo. And it is just a beautiful, peaceful place so close to cosmopolitan city and IKEA is everywhere there. And Shannon and her team have been so gracious to welcome myself and my colleagues over the years in Malma. But I want to get into kind of maybe your thoughts on some of the more topical issues that are happening around talent acquisition at the moment, Shannon. And so that means it's time for our weekly news. So in the news this week, Shannon, our first comes from one of the staff writers at Yahoo. Finance. And Lydia Smith is talking about why employers are looking for purple squirrels. And so this article, for those of you who haven't read it, we'll share it out on LinkedIn in the chat or you can Google why employers are looking for Purple Squirrels by Lydia Smith. Lydia talks about a common practice, I think, or at least in my opinion, Shannon keen to hear what you think about recruiters who are looking for these really difficult to find skills. And she arguments, she argues that this is perhaps a futile effort. It's not very good for inclusiveness. It's also, you know, perhaps just impossible to do. I kind of, I know about you I read this when. Yep. I don't think this is a recruiter problem though. I think in the process of hiring, perhaps recruiters are actively trying to fight against this. We don't like looking for purple squirrels. What's your experience around this area and your thoughts on the article?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a well placed article and I agree. I think most recruiters have experienced being asked for kind of this very big list of requirements and experience that often becomes a bit unrealistic. And in my experience it's often not actually even reflective of the true need in the role. And I. You know what I think our role within talent acquisition is, is we really need to make sure that we're asking strong questions to our hiring leaders so that we understand why they feel they need all of these pieces. Because, you know, the article is kind of spot on. If you create too many requirements, you're really starting to limit the talent that you will ultimately find or that will ultimately be interested. And again, as I mentioned, we often find that it's not actually the need. And so some of what I've done in the past and what we've really been encouraging our recruiters here to do during the strategy meetings is how can you ask more questions? How can you really make sure that you're aligning on what is a need and what is a preference? And when you get kind of those big lists of, of preferences, which I kind of think all hiring managers do. I'm a hiring manager from time to time and sometimes I do it. I just think it's the natural behavior, unfortunately. But a lot of that can really be solved by using insight reports and showing your hiring leaders kind of what, what the market actually yields, what their requirements are doing. And my favorite thing to do in these instances is to speak with the hiring leader and ask them about, okay, well, tell me about the most successful person you've ever seen in this role. Tell me about their background. Tell me how long they were in the role. Because what you often find out is that we're limiting the profile to post, but the people that are highly successful in the role today don't even have this experience. And that that is often a way to kind of unlock this and loosen the requirements.

Yeah, I guess. An excellent point. By the way. I'm going to give a shout out to any of our live listeners or viewers to jump in on the comments or questions on LinkedIn or YouTube for Shannon, if any questions or comments or any. Our news items are our theme of canned experience and Any questions you want to put to Shannon, please jump into the chat. We'd love to hear them live and answer them. I remember a few years ago, Shannon reading an article that Josh Burson shared. And I can't remember the reference that he had, but it was a research study to do with a financial services firm in the us A bank, I'm going to say, right. Let's say they were hiring a whole load of folks who were in kind of the these, for want of a better word, sales roles. And the hiring team had a profile they hired to, but they'd gone in and done the science on what actually made someone successful in that role. And there was literally zero correlation between the top requirements and the actual performance. And like I think they, they uncovered that people who worked, for example, in secondhand car sales, there was a really strong correlation there. There was a correlation between, you know, an educational requirement that just was nothing to do with what was being asked for. But long story short, to your point, when they did the research and looked at what actually makes people work in this, it was different to the spec. And what really kind of got me, and I've been using this quote for several years and the article references it, just to bring it up, was a piece of research published in HBR a few years ago based on something that some, some study that he. Packard actually did, which demonstrated that in the study at least, the authors allege that when you look at the requirements for a role, the average man will apply to that job if he fulfills at least 60%, whereas the average woman needs at least 100%. And it was, you know, pointing out that, you know, the unintended consequences of big long lists of requirements and how you can, you know, you know, unintentionally dissuade a whole bunch of people from applying because, you know, you're not looking at the psyche of how people apply. And how do you. I know how I advise individuals to write SPECs, but in IKEA, has it been something you guys have implemented where you've looked at, you know, defining must haves between preferences, like actually making that distinction, as opposed to just a big laundry list of things we'd like to have? Yeah.

And you know, what I would say is sometimes it depends on the business or the role. Right. When we look at our store based roles, a lot of those positions, especially kind of in the entry points, there isn't a huge list of must haves. Right. We're looking for individuals who really want to work in our environments, work with customers and help impact people. And that's not necessarily something you get from a very specific experience. I do think in some roles we have been working with the organization to kind of finesse or reduce those requirements. But we have an understanding that by, by building kind of huge lists at the end of a job ad, you are going to dissuade some people, you are going to limit it. And so if anything, I would say our jobs are often a bit more open. And we have, as I mentioned before, because we're kind of on this journey and we're at the beginning, we know we even have work to do where we can be more clear, we can be more clear about what are the requirements of this role. And I think the benefit of having clarity and not having the long list is, is you want people to apply who are qualified. And there is a behavior out there where people apply even when they're not qualified or they don't apply if they're not fully qualified. And so you have to kind of, I want to say, bridge that gap. And then through other technologies or processes like pre screen questions or prep preferential questions in your application process, then you can really start to kind of narrow down that funnel of the people that have the experience versus not. Because that, that was another thing from the article, right. They were talking about when you have too many requirements, people might lie because they might feel like if I don't have that, I won't be considered. So you kind of back yourself into all these corners if you ask for too much.

I'm going to ask you a few minutes about perhaps process in Ikea and we have a question for one of our listeners around the same thing. But before I do, let me just maybe jump into our second article this week from Forbes. Niall, this is an interesting one. Now is not the time to drop the ball with candidate communication. Right? Jay Miller writes in this article that whilst there may be an impression that the market has returned to being one of a kind of call it a buyer's market being the hiring company's market, not so much a candidate's market, that, that is kind of counterintuitive and now is not the time to pull back from this. I really love to hear your thoughts on this because I know a lot of leaders, maybe listening who work in talent, talent acquisition might be feeling the pinch, you know. Well, I guess not every company is affected the same way. I know many, many leaders who are being asked to just, you know, tighten up their budgets and sometimes there's a misperception that you Know, if we have a 20% drop in volume of hiring in an organization that therefore we can just cut the budget by 20% and it forgets that things like candid experience. Candid experience, you'll just drop it by 20%. And you know, the flip on this article is pointing it out, I think quite a bit is that, you know, recruiting, your recruiting effort doesn't just go down because you've less recs, because we are most of us living in a world where there's more applications. And if you care about candidate communication, that's going to, you're going to have to put effort and resources into that candid communication. So, you know, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think that, you know, maybe just from a bigger perspective for the moment, for just generally within companies, what are your thoughts on that kind of dilemma whereby if a company is being asked to tighten up, you know, how do they balance that dilemma with the fact that candid experience is still going to be so important and it lasts so much longer than the short term?

Yeah, I mean, I think that the hope is that in advance of this, if you're lucky, that you are working within a process that is somewhat defined and that there's continuity within and that you have some of these automated communications set up within your systems and tools because that helps you. And they're referencing that even in the article. Right. Those things are helpful. I agree. I mean, I think communication, it's a key part of the recruiting process. And a lot of that article, or at least how I took it, and again, some, sometimes when we think about communication and recruiting, we really focus on communications through systems or transparency about where I am in a process. And in my experience, sometimes we don't take the time to kind of look beneath the surface because what I would say my experience throughout my entire career when it comes to communication is sometimes it's not about your written communications or how quickly you're getting back to the candidates. Sometimes it's about the verbal communications you're having with people and the unintended expectations or timelines or commitments that you're making in dialogues and conversations with people that you then don't meet or follow through with. And so when we think about just kind of communication in its totality, it is bigger than just, again, these digital communications. It is every time you're engaging with people. How are you ensuring that moment is creating click clarity and care? Because again, missing that moment can create a bigger ripple in a candidate's experience than an email.

You mentioned a word I'd like to explore with you a little more a few minutes ago, which is process and the importance of a good process. We have a question from Samaya, who's asking, how are you ensuring all the applicants in the ATS are being screened? Maybe I can ask you to think about that question, but maybe answer a bigger question which is more around what is the process? You know, is there first of all a process in the general hiring process in ikea? And if so, what does that look like and what do you think, you know, is there? Where can you leverage a good process to basically hit on those good moments? That experience piece you're talking about.

Yeah. And this again, in all transparency, this is where we're on a journey right now within IKEA retail. As I mentioned, we just kind of launched the recruiting organization a little over about 18 months ago. And so with that, we're just, we're early in our journey and what we're looking to build right now is a sense of continuity. But when you think about continuity across 30 different countries, across 30 different cultures, it becomes kind of compounded and complicated. Right. And so when we talk about recruiting a lot, we often talk about processing, consistency. And I. One thing that we're really trying to do within IKEA retail is be thoughtful, that maybe consistency and kind of the true form of that word is not what we want. Maybe we want continuity and predictability so that if you're applying within our processes, you have an understanding of where you are, what to expect and what the next steps are. And I, you know, I would say yes, we have, we are in the process of building, building a set process globally, but we are not perfect at it today. Right. So our expectation is that candidates that go through our experience have the ability to really experience IKEA as the brand and understand who we are, understand kind of how values based we are as a company and how we work and what it kind of looks and feels like. And that, that is a piece that is quite important to us. And again, we are still in the process of developing.

So, yeah, we had Eunice Clemens Tweedy from Lego on the show last week. I think he got to see her as well. And I think there's a lot of parallels there. We mentioned the concept of candidate experience as it relates to consumer brands there. And my guess is IKEA is not dissimilar in that a candidate isn't just a candidate. A candidate is most likely also a customer. Are the sister or brother or cousin or father or daughter of a, of a customer or future Customer. And perhaps that adds an extra obligation on you and your team and responsibility. Because it isn't just about the hiring experience. That candidate, that slash customer just sees Ikea as a, as an organization, as a brand, as an identity. And whether it's applying for a job or purchasing something in the store or ordering online, it's just, it's the one company. So, you know, how do you feel about that responsibility and what is your. You and your team's kind of reaction to that responsibility? That it's more than just the hiring brand that you have to be concerned about?

Yeah, I mean, it's. I would say it's a huge responsibility. It's not one that we take lightly. And because again, we are kind of building in so new. I think that the beauty of not having everything figured out is that when we unearth or we find something that is not perfect or that we can improve on, we really look at it as an opportunity of, okay, well, how can we improve this experience? How can we help this candidate or this group of candidates understand more about us? And I think this is. It is definitely in the consumer space, but I think it's quite unique to every company. Right. We all have our culture and our values and the ways of working within our organizations. And part of our responsibility as talent acquisition professionals is really to ensure that as people are going through our selection processes, they gain a better understanding of who we are. And, and again, you want that to be positive, right? By and large, you want that experience to be positive. You want people to feel like it was clear and fair and quick.

And.

Just like with customer service, just like with anything with service, sometimes you do a really brilliant job. And what we hope to learn from those is how do we repeat it? And sometimes, sometimes you have a mistake or something that you have to learn from. And this is where, again, IKEA is a brilliant company because we really believe in kind of test and try and learn. And how do we take these moments where things aren't perfect and just figure out, okay, well, what caused that? And how can we now go back and create a solution that. And, you know, to give other people better experiences in the future?

Two things have stood out to me so far that you've discussed, Shannon. One is obviously the importance of expectation settings. You know, set the expectations, make sure people understand. And second is that no process, no interaction can be perfect. Right. And you're going to make mistakes. You've used the word before with me, compassion, as it relates to canned experience. Can you talk me through what you Mean by compassion and why it's so important?

Yeah, I do. I talk quite a bit about kind of compassion and caring and empathy, and I think so I often talk about kind of, again, those words. And sometimes as a recruiter, it might feel a little strange, right? How am I supposed to be empathetic to a candidate that is in my selection process? Because these words are big, right? Compassion is. It's a big word. It's a big feeling. And what we want and again, what we're on a journey to do, but what I hope that everyone that I'm working with at some point kind of understands is sometimes showing compassion or empathy or care is in the really small things. It's in the subtle things. And that can be. Again, that can be through having really brilliant job ads that are super clear that you really stand behind. That can be by setting very clear expectations within the process that you actually meet. And sometimes it can be the parts of the process that maybe aren't the most fun for recruiters, like when we have to tell somebody we're not moving forward with them. I think in all of the moments that require compassion and empathy, it is that moment, because it is not a fun moment as a recruiter to tell somebody and give them that message. It is never. It is never the message that you want to give, but it is the reality, right? For every role, there is someone that gets the job, and there is potentially somebody that does not. And so in those conversations, I think that that's where, as recruiters, you can have kind of the biggest impact on someone. And what, for me, why it's so important? You know, I recruited for quite some time in the US and I was actively recruiting. And 2007, 2008, 2009, when we were going through quite a big recession there. And I remember distinctly prior to that moment, there was a substantial shift when I was calling to decline people that candidates were very gracious and thankful just that I had called to tell them that we weren't moving forward. And it was such a. It was a strange thing at first when it was happening. And it honestly, it took me a little bit to understand that oftentimes when we have these big rises in unemployment or uncertainty, that happens kind of in the world. What people are looking for is a sense of clarity. And if that clarity that we're offering is just that, unfortunately we're not moving forward, sometimes that is enough. And that is being compassionate and caring. Even if it's not the message I.

Want to give, I think it's even More important now, I think most of the world has a heightened state of anxiety right now. The pandemic has had this very unique effect. That anxiety's just risen. I've read lots of studies. Most studies show that everyone's more anxious, but particularly certain age groups, typically the 18 to 28 age group has been signaled out in several articles I've seen as being, or, sorry, actually even 14 to 18 as being particularly anxious. Maybe the kind of early, early stages of development of your kind of adulthood. But we are all more anxious about the economy, about our lives, about, you know, being able to see your friends and family. So many different things. I think it's important to your point to remember as a recruiter, you know, this phone call, which to you is, we're getting candidate 46 out of 80. It's a human interaction and you just don't know what's happened in that person's day, particularly at the moment. And, and it's just taking the time. And I think this is a pressure that some recruiters are under that we may be busier with the volume of applications, but actually maybe each individual candidate wants a bit more of our time because they want that compassion, the understanding. And I have found myself erring on a certain side of this argument that isn't necessarily popular, not popular with lawyers anyway, is honesty and compassion. Where, whereas, you know, you ask a lawyer about a process like, don't tell them anything about why they didn't get selected, just say this and you're given a boilerplate line and always concerns. Because my actual experience in 20 years doing this is that the more honest you are with somebody, because if you have run a good process, you can afford to be honest, they really appreciate all that feedback. Whereas when you give them a boilerplate and they go, that just doesn't add up, that are just not. It sounds generic. Like that's when somebody gets litigious. If that's when somebody starts to go, I'm going to get them and has it in for you, right? People who have a, you know, maybe a negative experience getting rejected right after several interviews, that can be positive. If someone's just honest and says, this just didn't work out, we, we've made a decision. I don't know, it's the right decision. We had to make a decision. We chose somebody else and not you, and maybe you are better, I don't know. But we had to objectively look at it and do the person got the job. But listen, you did nothing wrong and apply again. That's nice. You know, people kind of appreciate that kind of feedback, but, you know, it isn't. We do struggle, I think with, and the article earlier mentioned this, this, this balance and the role of technology. I'm interested to get your view on this, like, where can technology, you know, do some good in this process? I know that, you know, you perhaps at the advantageous position where you guys are building out your team, building what will be the kind of talent acquisition structure and process for ikea. Have you looked into technologies without naming necessarily any tech? Have you looked into any areas of the process you think that's good to put tech in or an experience like X is appropriate? What are your thoughts there?

Yeah, I mean, I would say I think technology is a huge role to play in what we do, especially in kind of reducing some of the less meaningful administration that's naturally part of our recruiting process. Right. And this was even in the article. So looking at scheduling technologies and those things are brilliant and help everybody. Right. I don't know many recruiters that work with a scheduling technology that are frustrated that they don't have to send five emails to get the same interview scheduled again from a part of the funnel that you're talking about or part of the process. I think technology can play a really big part at the beginning of your process because, you know, and maybe especially when we see kind of this increase, we want to ensure that everybody is getting a level of care, everybody is getting a level of review. And one of the ways to really enable that is through technology. It is through using the technology through your ATS to its full benefit. We also in many of our countries use interviewing like video interviewing technology. And again, this is something that we are testing and kind of trying right now and definitely got pushed into overdrive with everything that's happened in the nine months, last nine months. And one of the things that we are right now trying to kind of assess in the countries where we're using it is, well, how is it going? What do candidates think about it? And then even more so how can we make it? How can we make it better? How can we personalize it more? And so I would share in the technology that we use. You have the ability to, you can do many different things, but you have the ability to either just have a question appear on a screen and then have the candidate answer that question one way, or you can have a recruiter pre record themselves asking the question and then the person responding. And again, what we're testing right now is what is the difference in the Experience, Experience when you do those things. I think overall what we're beginning to understand and I think even from our recruiting teams, they feel it's a much more caring journey or engaging journey. If I'm asking you a question and maybe giving you a bit of context versus you just reading some text, but both again, from an efficiency perspective and effectiveness perspective have the same outcome. It's just how do you as an organization take a little bit more time to think about, okay, but how do we make this better? How do we personalize this more? How do we make it more indicative or reflective of our brand? And that'll be different based on your company, right? If your company is really focused on speed and tech, you're probably going to have a very different application and interview experience than you might with a store based role with Ikea. They look different and they should look different because it should really be based on what you need to understand as a candidate to join us.

I love that example. I've discussed this with several people where, you know, we rush to push technology in as the solution. And you know, it's too often we forget the technology has to be configured and set up. And it's how you do that that can give you the real advantage. To your point, you can put a process in place that's driven by technology, but the messaging, the language used in the automated messages, for example, the thought you put into whether you, to your point, record a human asking you the question versus the text, these are the differences that actually personalize it. So, you know, technology on its own, I don't think solves the problem. Technology plus a compassionate recruiter who understands her audience. I think that that is powerful. We've got some other examples here, just some call outs, some comments here. Chris Jennings, you know, saying candidates can in fact be your customers if they have a negative experience and in fact blur the image of the company from a consumer's perspective. And household names therefore have a bigger responsibility. I totally agree with you. Chris Dragon Misko. Hey Dragic, good to have you on the, on the show. Dragic basically pointing out some technology that he's seen used by Chros around surveys. I'll maybe ask you, but I think that's a good use. I know if you look at Jerry Crispin and Elaine Orler from the Candid Experience Awards, Jerry and Lane always talk about the consistent themes year after year that drive better canned experience. And one of those giving people the opportunity to give feedback, you know, and surveys to that, to that extent can do that. Have you Experience using surveys, whether it's on a hiring manager and can side and if so, what are your thoughts on it?

Yeah, I've experienced both. So in my, in my past company at the time, we both candidate and hiring manager surveys. But within Ikea group now, we've launched a candidate survey in about half of our markets. So again it's, it's new and we're turning it on as we go. And we're really looking to understand both kind of overall satisfaction. But we also give candidates the ability to leave comments. And what's curious about that is what we can see are kind of trends happening globally, but then each country, because again, we have recruiting teams in almost every country that we operate in. Each country then is able to go and look at their very specific trends and make adjustments within their markets. And I believe I said this earlier, but one of our challenges is sometimes a trend is consistent across every country or across every market. We really look to measure how satisfied are you with the interview, with the application, with communication. And what we see by and large is we have an opportunity in communication, we can be doing that better. So we are digging into that. However, when we look at different markets, sometimes the feedback is, it's different. And this is what I mean by what I said earlier in the sense of we really need to push ourselves to go a little bit deeper into kind of the feedback or under the surface because it's easy to stop at, okay, communication. What other automated communication can we add? How can we add this level of transparency, but potentially by not asking the question or looking at the feedback and really assessing it, what we might miss is maybe what we find out is that in one store we have a manager or leader that tells every person they hire, oh my gosh, it was so great. I had a really great conversation. The recruiter will call you tomorrow. And the recruiter has no idea that that message is being delivered and they're calling the candidate three days later. Right. In that instance, you have both a communication issue and a follow through issue. And I, you know, I would say in my entire career. So not, not just here. I think one of our bigger challenges from a candidate experience perspective is follow up and follow through. We set expectations constantly through our processes and then we don't meet them. Whether it's an accident or we just, you know, things happen. I mean, I've done it. That to me is the biggest risk when we think about the candidate experience overall. And again, right now we're looking into all of the details within our markets.

As well, yeah, I think Samson here has asked a question that many people might ask, which is why is the candidates who are turned down or giving generic reasons instead of telling them specific reasons which could help them improve the chances of getting the next job. And you know, I think what's often forgotten is that no recruiter wakes up and tells, you know, and says to herself, I'm going to basically give a crappy candid experience to everyone I talked to today. It's, you know, I don't believe there's a single recruiter in the world who sets out to do that. But to your point is we're busy, right? And there's so much volume and you, you have to balance what you can achieve and you've got pressure to deliver on on hires. Esther Romero has commented here. It's a long comment, but I'm going to take the first part of it for sure. And she thinks what's important for her is to create a story mapping candidate journey where you have different key contact points with your candidate so you make sure that she is always aware. The next step is, I think that that that idea, like marketeers do this around consumer. What is the consumer journey and the touch points and you agree what touch points you're going to actually have in this process and who's going to be responsible, what our SLAs are all this kind of stuff. You know, what, you know, have you had that, done that exercise in any parts of the business or your teams or what are your thoughts around those kind of, you know, candidate journey mapping exercises?

Yeah. So again, when we, so we switched applicant tracking systems at the same time that we launched our new recruiting organization and you know, I think what we've identified is we would like to differentiate the candidate journeys more because right now a lot of the journeys that our candidates go through are similar. So there's work going on right now to do exactly what they were referencing. We want to kind of map what is the journey that somebody should have if they're applying to one of our stores versus one of our corporate offices versus maybe one of our digital hubs. What does that journey look like? What are those key and critical touch points? And you know, we talk a little bit about kind of what are those moments that matter. Right. Because that's what we really want to go and focus on is say, you know, if a moment that matters is that you apply and you're getting some level of response or understanding that your application's been received, received and that we're reviewing it, then we need to make sure that our systems and tools support that. And that's. And again we are, we are actively working on that. We, we do some parts of it quite well and we have other parts that we know we need to improve and that, that is just kind of where we are today and we have a lot of things planned in the next, in the coming months to kind of figure that out.

I love you mentioned that that concept of moments. One of the most inspirational books I've read in this area. It's not about canned experience, but I think it's very applicable to canned experience is one by Chip and Dan Heath called the Power of Power of Moments. I know you've read it Shannon, you haven't. I'm going to send it to you. It's. It's awesome right? And it talks about creating a moment and how you know, a strong consumer experience are driven by these wonderful moments. And that, that is kind of the key to, it's the secret sauce to so many businesses and how you create this fantastic moment or in your process give, give other others the opportunity to create moments. I think it's something that people should study if they're interested in candy experiences, what makes a great moment. So I think Astra's point around mapping the journey is really important. Mapping the journey, but then you still need to stop and look at the key moments. I think you have to be honest with your resources and say this is these are the resources we have or can give and therefore with these resources how do we create the best journey with the right amount of moments for the different journeys and set the expectations correctly. So again, I don't think giving amazing kind of experience is about throwing everything at it and throwing loads of money about it. I think it's a lot simpler. It's down to things like expectation setting. This is you won't get here from us for three days. Is that cool? Great. And then they hear from you in two and a half days and they go well thank you. Or maybe it's 14 days because you just can't give a three day response. I think people appreciate that and go well that's okay. I now know what to expect difficult on the scale I think you hire for. And that's I've got a two year old trying to beat down my door here to come in and say hello to his. Myself and Shannon started the show by talking about the COVID year of having children come in all the time. So please excuse any 2 year old jibber jabber. He's A good guy, he makes sense. No one can understand him. But you do have this kind of. There's, you know, it's not that difficult. You know, I've spoken about the fact that, you know, candid experience are just the accumulation of all the moments that the candidate experiences and they give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down as they go through the journey. And in their opinion, and it's did at the end of that, did you end up with overall thumbs up? Like that's what you're trying to do. But can you create moments there that, that will give people a, a, a, a, a a feeling that they'll remember. Right. For you. By the way, we've got Aaron Daniels just letting, he is listening and sending this message from his Hemnes desk. So another IKEA fan with IKEA furniture. Another recruiter with a recruiting leader with the IKEA furniture there. All right. Which is really, really important. If you don't mind, just throw one or two more comments for the audience and questions after Shannon, before we run out of time with you. Right. So Ulay Gonzalez is on YouTube and is asking, based on your experience, do you see any influence that employer brand has on candidate experience? It's an expectation thing. What do you think? Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

I think your employer brand has a huge impact on candidate experience because again, a dynamic of the candidate experience is allowing the candidate to get to know your company. And that is the entire goal of an employer brand is to help you understand what is awesome about working for Ikea, what are the quirky pieces about working for ikea. All of that is kind of one of the big intents and purposes of the employer brand overall. And we actually are in the process of launching a new employer brand across right now because some of the feedback that we have heard and seen is that maybe we have not been super clear about who we are as an employer and what it means to work for us. We really have. Most people understand who we are as a consumer or who we are from a retailer, but they don't necessarily understand all the fantastic parts of working for us. And so we are actively launching that. And they're, in my opinion, they're completely interconnected. Because whether or not you have kind of a standard employer brand or you have a campaign or a strategy around it, you are building an employer brand through your process. Right. However good, however opportunistic, it is impacting how people feel about not just your company as a consumer, but also how you are treated through the interview process. You assume that's how you will be treated as, as a coworker, as an employee. And that's the challenge, right? Especially when you have kind of these highs and lows is how do you really create again, continuity. So the majority of people going through your process not only have a true understanding of who we are as a company, have a great experience, and then feel at the end they can make an informed decision based on all of these pieces from their entire journey with us.

I think that point around how you know, a candidate will look at the experience of applying and relate that to what it would like, be like to work for you. It's so, it's, it's so, so important. I know so many tech companies who say that they are the leading providers of tech and they're innovating and then you go to apply for their jobs on their career site and this horrible tech and it's clunky and you're kind of going, really? You're all about tech and engineering. Whereas, you know, James Maley has had a comment that, you know, he sees one of Ikea's key values is simplicity. So I'm guessing that to answer kind of Ulay Gonzalez question, if you understand that is one of the values of the company, you're going to probably expect that in an interview process, in an apply process, and you're going to hopefully expect that in the workplace as well, that simplicity is valued and people live and breathe it. I guess it's the challenge of your team as you build it and build the processes to go, how can we incorporate these values into the organization? And Aaron Daniel is just coming in saying, for retailers especially your in store experience, service and engagement from employees can be your best recruiting tool. I know as an avid Ikea shopper, that's something that I think resonates with me that you would expect that kind of positive experience that does really help you have such great colleagues in store. That's going to really help you and your team when you're hiring. But I think also people forget, Shannon, you've made this point to me many times in the past. IKEA is more than the people that most people see in the stores. People forget that you guys run so many restaurants. You know, you've got such a big restaurant staff, you're a food retailer, you're an online business, an online e tailer and such a big distribution and warehousing teams as well. There's just so many colleagues who do things that people don't necessarily associate with Ikea and that's probably and challenge around the employer brand as well. I've run out of time with you. I'd love to keep picking your brain. Right. You've got children who are coming back from football. I have kids who burst down my door. So I was wondering maybe, Shannon, if you wouldn't mind closing with advice you might be able to share with our audience that is either advice you want to give or has been given to you over the years that you think we can add to our short list of tips and advice from leaders that we've spoken to.

Yeah, yeah, I, you know, what I would say is I, I think that within talent acquisition and especially if you're actively recruiting, I would encourage you to remember kind of the beauty and what we do, we help people find their dream role, find their dream job, move into an organization for the first time and create their future career. And I think sometimes again, in these moments where maybe your admin is ticking up because of more people being interested in your company, or maybe you have more roles than you're used to having, it's really easy to kind of forget that and lose a bit of that passion. But I would just really encourage us to always kind of come back to that. That's the beauty in what we do. We find brilliant talent to bring into our organizations to make our organizations better and more successful. And for me, especially with working with Ikea retail, I want to bring people in that can have a full career. Right. Not just a job, but something that is much more than just one role or one job and that, I don't know if there's anything I can leave people with in general. Don't forget that piece because that, that is what is brilliant about what we do.

Yeah. I think it is a privilege having recruited for 20 odd years, it's a privilege to do this. And it isn't like selling something, like selling software or selling something else where you kind of go, somebody buys something and they move on. It has such an impact on people's lives. It's so important, so integral. The job somebody has, the career they have, the employer they work for can have such a direct correlation to their happiness, their family's happiness, their friends. I think it's, it's, you know, it's a privilege to be able to do this and, and I really appreciate that Tip. Shannon, thank you so much from joining us from Malmo. I think, you know, given another month, it'll be pitch black in Malmo this time of night and there's still some light outside, so I wish you well as you head into winter and into the darkness. But it's so amazing to have such a bright light of talent acquisition working away in Malma throughout this winter, building such a fantastic team and resource in the talent acquisition team. I hope you can come on again in a few months, maybe early next year, and give us an update on what the team have been doing and some of the initiatives you're implementing on this fantastic journey you're taking the business through. Thanks for joining us, Shannon.

Of course, thank you.

And don't forget, we're going to be back next week. I want to tell you, our guest next week we have the fantastic Barbara Lee, who's the SVB VP of Global Talent Acquisition with Nielsen, and she's going to be talking about how we overcome the challenges of hybrid offices. Obviously, we're going through such disruption in terms of what the office place actually looks like, what we mean by an office place. And Barbara somebody who early this year kind of gave me my first warning signal of what was coming to me in Europe and others in Europe when I was on a call with her in January and she was sharing with me her, her insights and what her team were sharing with her from China and elsewhere in Asia, as they were probably the first to kind of experience this and how different offices were shut, shutting down and families are being separated as they're being quarantined. And this was way back in kind of mid to early January that I first had a conversation like that with Barbara and I got a sense that things were coming. So Barbara is somebody who I think really is a global perspective on things and gives real insights from, from her role in Nielsen. She's also somebody, by the way, coincidentally, who lives down the road for me. And it's, it's great to have somebody so talented and inspirational with such insight so close to home. But I'll be bringing her through the shortlist live, hopefully into your phones, living rooms and home offices next week. That show is going to be October 7th and that is at the usual time of 4pm UK time at 11am in the east coast of the US and 8am on the west coast of the US and 11pm in Singapore and of course other parts of Asia. We will have all of these shows recorded and available for you to watch on Demand as you wish by going to socialtalent.com the shortlist and don't forget the shortlist is also available as a podcast format. This show will be out in a few hours time this evening in Europe, this afternoon in the US on Apple and Spotify and other good podcast mediums, but I really thank our audience as well our live audience for with their comments. Don't forget, if you want to get the most value, join us live on LinkedIn or YouTube each week and we'll answer your questions and give you insights directly from our guest speakers. Please do join us next week. Don't forget to check out our back catalog and we hope to hear from you soon.