IKEA Australia is raising the progress flag above its stores for IDAHOT Day

May 2021 

The flag, designed by artist Daniel Quasar, is being flown as part of the IKEA “Progress is Made” IDAHOT campaign, which recognises that progress is difficult, and that it requires work, guts and imagination. The campaign also highlights the fact that, while we have come a long way already, more progress needs to be made. The campaign, which forms part of the wider Equality, Diversity and Inclusion focus for IKEA Australia, features actionable advice we can all adopt in order to become stronger allies for the LGBT+ community.

The advice includes the recommendation that we all share our personal pronouns on work email or social media. Starting with the CEO of IKEA Australia, Jan Gardberg, all IKEA co-workers have been educated on the importance of pronouns for the LGBT+ community and encouraged to update their own email and social signatures. 

Alice Young, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Leader for IKEA Australia says, “We are raising the Progress Flag as a way to recognise the need to be inclusive of the many identities within the LGBT+ community. To illustrate more inclusivity, the flag includes black and brown stripes to represent LGBT+ communities of colour, as well as pink, light blue and white to represent transgender pride.”

 “It’s important to realise that we cannot determine elements of a person’s identity, just by looking at them. That is why we are also educating our co-workers, including our CEO, about the importance of pronouns. Much like our individual names, pronouns articulate who we are and how the outside world should recognise and address us. Encouraging our co-workers to share their pronouns on their LinkedIn profile and email signature is a small gesture of inclusion to the LGBT+ community.”

How our customers can support this IDAHOT Day

• Customers can do their part to show support for a world where everyone can feel at home with the IKEA rainbow-coloured carrier bag and join the over 3.5 million proud bag carriers around the world. Since 2019, STORSTOMMA has been sold in over 26 countries.
• Customers can also get loud and proud with the new ENEBY speaker cover, inspired by an LGBT+ co-worker in IKEA Japan. He took two portable ENEBY speakers and pasted thin cloth stripes of different colours on them, giving the speakers beautiful rainbow fronts in support of pride. The rainbow front for ENEBY he fixed up in 2019 is now being sold in 33 IKEA markets, albeit with a difference. The new range of limited edition sleekly designed Bluetooth ENEBY speakers come with rainbow front panels for a limited period.

LGBT+ inclusion as an organisation

IKEA is committed to creating a fair and equal workplace for everyone regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, nationality or disability status. As a humanistic purpose-led company, we support our LGBT+ co-workers’ right to be themselves. And we want to contribute to a positive change in all areas of our business and society.

Gender neutral bathrooms – IKEA Australia introduced designated gender-neutral bathroom spaces in all our units to help our co-workers and customers feel safe, comfortable and accepted at IKEA.

Helping co-workers adopt progress – We offer training for our co-workers about inclusion, unconscious bias and LGBT+ issues to make sure they are allies too.  In addition, ahead of IDAHOT Day IKEA Australia are sharing actionable advice we can all adopt in order to become stronger allies for the LGBT+ community, including:

• speak out if you hear discriminatory language
• share your personal pronouns (she, they, him) on work email or on social media profiles to make discussions around gender identity more commonplace
• get involved to support local LGBT+ organisations

Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) - We invited our co-workers to participate in this year’s Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) survey, Australia’s definitive national benchmark on LGBT+ workplace inclusion as an opportunity for us to understand how inclusive we are and help us understand our areas of opportunity in LGBT+ workplace inclusion.