Poor work life balance and management culture. - Manager IKEA Employee Review

1.0
27 Mar 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some great, friendly people working for the business. A few capable and talented co-workers. Bonus structure for co-workers in the store. Good pay for managers.

Cons

Poor work life balance. As a manager, the senior leadership team expects 12-14 hour days from you most days. Massive bureaucratic structure where everything is far more complicated than it needs to be, the company borders on socialism with whole teams employed to check the bureaucratic processes are being followed. People consolidate power within their cliques, anyone outside of that is treated poorly. Co-workers and managers are allowed to transfer from one department to another department despite having no experience in that field, this results in people doing jobs they are completely unqualified/incapable of doing. A large number of senior managers have psychopathic tendencies, they come across nice to everyone in public then attack people in private. I've never see people treated so badly by senior managers in a business before.

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5.0
25 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good place to work in

Cons

Sometimes on call and weekends and nights work

4.0
1 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I have a very empathetic and flexible manager. Although I do meet the requirement to be in office three days a week many others do not and don’t seem to suffer for it. My work can be challenging at times, but due to the slow pace of most things here I rarely feel overwhelmed.

Cons

This is, without equivocation, the most sclerotic organization I have ever been a part of. The management structure and reporting lines are inscrutable and even after 3 years I barely understand how my team fits into the larger picture. My job is a data role, and although getting access to data has improved somewhat, it is still one of my biggest blockers.

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