I spotted this sign in the men’s room of our local IKEA:

For those (unfortunate few, I’m sure) of you who don’t read Danish, it says:

I assume there’s an exclusive restaurant
for managers only?

Erik Edelstein did not make it into IKEA’s
Management Potential Programme

Heh! So if you’re the kind of manager who believes it is your god-given right to eat your lunch in a special, exclusive restaurant seperate from the employees, then you’re not going to manage at IKEA.

Which makes excellent sense for three reasons:

1: Facetime is important for happiness at work

Managers must spend time with their employees and lunch may be the best time for it! How else are manager’s going to know what’s going on? And one thing that makes employees happy at work is a manager who has time for you and understands you.

2: Management applicants self-select

When IKEA promote their management programme in this gutsy way they are making sure that they weed out applicants with the wrong attitudes from the very beginning.

3: It matches IKEA’s brand

It also speaks to me as a loyal IKEA customer and it blends perfectly with the principles of democracy and equality that their brand of cheap but well-designed furniture stand for.

So: Management development, brand development and happiness at work all in one. Not bad, huh?

Previously: BMW brand themselves againt bureaucracy.

I’m adding “management-only restaurants” to my list of vampire ideas.