Develop your career with new responsibilities

‘Choose Your Own Brick’ is JYSK’s opportunity to upskill the employees. With this programme, employees can choose their own career path by taking on new responsibilities in their existing roles. Soon, it will be implemented in all distribution centres as well.

‘Choose Your Own Brick’ is a tool for employees and managers to continuously develop and learn new things. The programme has been implemented in the stores over the last years and has already shown its value in a lot of cases. Therefore, it will also be implemented in all Distribution Centres within this financial year.

I have always enjoyed passing on my knowledge to help JYSK improve as a company.
- Patrick Riehle, Store Manager in Breisach, JYSK Germany

The ’bricks’ are different projects that employees can choose between, along with their immediate manager, to develop in their role.

“The purpose of ‘Choose Your Own Brick’ is not only to develop our employees vertically, but also to give them the opportunity to learn and develop through additional projects, tasks, and responsibilities. For example, a store employee can become Trainer in Sleep Academy or JYSK influencer. Or a Store Manager can take on the role as a mentor for Store Manager Trainees. We have a large number of projects to choose between,” says Kateryna Babenko, HR Director at JYSK.

A flexible programme

‘Choose Your Own Brick’ has a general framework for all JYSK countries, but some countries have developed the programme further to suit their work culture.

“The selection of ‘bricks’ can vary from country to country. For example, in some countries, there is a Furniture Academy where you can work as a trainer. What is important is that the employees and their immediate manager find the best fit, and here, MYDEVELOPMENT is a good opportunity to address the opportunities and which bricks would be suitable for the specific employees,” Kateryna explains.

Knowledge sharing for improving

Patrick Riehle is Store Manager in Breisach, JYSK Germany. He had a desire to develop his role and get more responsibility. So, he discussed his opportunities with his District Manager.

“Through MYDEVELOPMENT, my District Manager and I looked into the ‘Choose Your Own Brick’ programme. With support from our HR Business Partner, we agreed on the Store Manager Trainee Co-Trainer and the mentor projects. I have always enjoyed passing on my knowledge to help JYSK improve as a company. So, these two projects were a great fit,” Patrick says.

The training of the chosen projects is carried out through workshops, seminars, and best practice sharing.

“The trainings have brought me forward in my development. We have done best practice sharing in a group of 10 Store Managers, and we did role playing on how to handle critical situations. It was very valuable. I have trained Store Manager Trainees before, but now I can go much more in-depth with the training. I would do ‘Choose Your Own Brick’ again and can only recommend it,” says Patrick.