When our employees are happy at work and feel secure and safe at their workplace, we also thrive as a company. We can then achieve our goal of making every day a little easier for our customers.
Three prioritised areas for a good working environment:
- diversity
- health
- employee responsibility
Diversity
Diversity among our employees is something we value highly, and it has long been a conscious strategy that we prioritise. We want to reflect our customers. Experience shows that workplaces containing people with different backgrounds and skills are more dynamic and innovative than more homogeneous workplaces. We therefore work consciously to ensure that our workplaces are accessible to all. We are focusing on recruiting more people with disabilities under the banner “We can do more” (Vi kan mer) and on young people who are out of contact with the labour market in our project “ICA 2020”.
Health
Playing a part in ensuring that our employees are doing well, both inside and outside the workplace, is both an imperative and a priority for us at ICA Gruppen. Being able to inspire and make it easier for our employees to live a healthy life and find a good balance between their work and personal lives is therefore fundamental for us.
The “ICA Classic” is an example of activities taking place in Sweden where we encourage employees to be active and to exercise. Participants in the ICA Classic have six weeks to complete various elements that are part of the actual Swedish Classic Circuit. Many of our employees meet to train together at lunchtime and some register to take part in races and competitions supported by ICA.
Employee responsibility
We want ICA Gruppen to be perceived as a responsible corporate citizen. We operate our business with a focus on profitability and good ethics, and we emphasise diversity and development among our employees. Our goal is to behave ethically in all aspects of our business – from offering fair terms for our employees to fair terms for our suppliers. To succeed in this, it is essential for all employees to take personal responsibility and ensure that our sustainability work is a natural aspect of their day-to-day work.
One tool we have for this is ICA’s Good Business, which is what we call our approach and our sustainability work. All of the employees have gone through and all new employees are required to go through a course on ICA’s Good Business. This allows us to ensure that we are all familiar with and understand what types of responsibility we are expected to take as employees. It is up to every employee to take personal responsibility to contribute to ICA’s development.
ICA’s volunteer programme is aimed at our employees, giving them the opportunity to work with voluntary organisations as ICA volunteers during working hours. Having the chance to share their own experience and find out about the experiences of others is one way in which we grow together.