Mary Grace Ante | Sales

I went to Dubai to visit my husband. At that time, I do not know anything about IKEA. My cousin told me that if I want to look for a job, I can drop off my resume to IKEA, and that was the first time I heard about the brand. So I did, I dropped off my resume, and after 2 days, I got a call for an interview, and the rest is history. I became a Retail Sales Associate for IKEA Dubai and was in charge of Home Decoration. I rotated in other departments and was given several trainings and projects and after three years, I was promoted to a Shopkeeper position.

My typical day in IKEA always starts with a question – what will happen today? – because every day on the shop floor is a new experience when I arrive in the store, first I need to check if all the areas on the floor are covered. Then, I check on all the members of the sales team, how they are. Then, I’ll go through the overview of the store – refilling, safety, and customer flow, among others. Then, when the store opens, that’s when I focus on the customer experience. There are some paperwork, but before I do my paperwork, I make sure I have someone replacing me on the floor because I need to make sure that customers will be attended to when needed. Here in the Philippines, we are currently preparing our new co-workers so they will be equipped with the needed IKEA information when we open our store.

The most inspiring task that I have right now is working on preparing for the store opening of IKEA Pasay City. Training and preparing our new co-workers is inspiring and exciting too, they all need to be ready to meet our customers when we open our store.

Togetherness is one of the best for me. You cannot finish your job alone, you need someone to help you and this is what we have in IKEA. You can only be successful in what you do if you have people supporting you along the way. At IKEA, we always work as a team.

If you want to enter the world of IKEA, you should be able to challenge yourself. At IKEA, there is a lot of room for professional and personal growth. When you are open to these challenges, you will eventually see the benefit of it all.