MEETINGS CULTURE | 21
“We who work with administration at Ikea spend between 35 and 50 percent of our working hours in meetings. The total cost of holding all our meetings is well worth discussing. Good meetings are forums for business development and could make a difference in the bottom line of the Annual Financial Report.” So says Lotten Tegstam Welinder, Process Owner Meetings/Regional Manager, Group Meeting & Travel, when we meet at her workplace in the old sugar refinery in Helsingborg, where several of the top notch departments in the Group have been brought together. Meetings are going on everywhere and employees come from all corners of the earth to the southern Swedish city. She thinks that a good many business trips by international corporations could easily be replaced by phone, video and online conferencing, and that we can and should be more critical about choosing travel over other ways of meeting. But this requires a new approach in the company from the top down. “It all hinges on the attitude of top management. We can change if we want to. It needs management awareness, leadership, refinement and control. Change is a process, not a one-off thing. When we have to meet face to face we do everything we can
to make the meetings well worth the effort.” With 301 lifestyle stores in 44 countries and a workforce of 139,000, countless internal meetings are held every day with suppliers and partners. Purchasing and planning meetings, meetings between staff teams and offices are just a few examples of the kind of meetings that are held. “Travel is a consequence of the meeting, not vice versa. Travel is a way of getting to the face to face meeting. Internal surveys show that around half of our meetings use up more energy than they give. Therefore, the onus was placed firmly on creating a meetings culture with staff who are skilled at generating effective interactive meetings, meetings that reflect Ikea’s core values like simplicity and humility, which also create added value for business development.” Lotten Tegstam Welinder not only works with virtual meetings, she is also in charge of the meetings pro2013 No. 12 MEETINGS INTERNATIONAL