IKEA fired me during maternity leave
Pros
The corporate culture is developed on a high level
Cons
I worked in IKEA for 12 years in its Russian branch INGKA Centers Russia. There are about fifteen legal entities registered in Russia which called group of companies that operates business in Russia. I am a mother of two infants and officially I have a status of a woman on maternity leave till the March 2021. But in February 2020 despite of my maternity status I was fired from IKEA due to the reason of liquidation of legal entity (1 out of 15). Of course there were no stops of any IKEA business in Russia and mentioned liquidation was just formal. When I was on maternity leave in 2019 I received a call from ikea HR and was informed about reorganization process and was recommended to come back to the work and apply for my position in the new structure. So I did. But during interview I was asked only questions about my nationality belonging, age of my kids and how often I take sick leaves with such a small kids. There were not even one question about my professional experience of competence capability. Then I was communicated that I was on maternity leave too long (8 months out of 12 years of working) and ikea is not ready to “keep” me further in a new organization. Then after this job interview I was approached by HR representative and was asked to sign the mutual agreement immediately otherwise promising a lot of problems and expressing dangers and abuses in humiliating manner. Dangers were expressed in following forms: “if you are not signing the mutual agreement right now then you’ll be kicked out with zero compensation, think about your kids”, “you will be blacklisted in all Russian and European job sites and we will make bad recommendation for other employers”etc. I’m very disappointed in the company where I faithfully spent so many years, it’s very frustrating. Probably not in all IKEAs in the world the situation like in Russia, but here management neglected all moral aspects and principles, the nepotism is thriving in career developing, no fair treatment or any compliance with business Ethics.
