With over 4,500 CVs landing in their inbox each month, Lidl Slovakia has built a reputation that goes far beyond retail shelves. At the heart of its success lies a strong people-first approach led by Judit Dulin, Managing Director for Human Resources. In this exclusive Women in Action interview, we uncover how Lidl is navigating labour market shifts, driving inclusion, and creating pathways for growth—both for its employees and its future workforce.
What are the biggest challenges on the labour market and how is Lidl responding to them?
Slovakia has historically had the lowest unemployment, which means that it is increasingly difficult to find suitable candidates. However, we are doing well thanks to a supportive corporate culture, an attractive remuneration and benefits system, stability, and career growth opportunities. We receive an average of 4,500 CVs per month, which means that interest in working at Lidl is really high and the public perceives us as a great employer. This is also confirmed by numerous domestic and foreign awards.
Another challenge, or rather a set of challenges, are the priorities of the new generation on the labour market, which place greater emphasis on work-life balance, corporate culture, smart work, etc. We respond to these challenges by continuously upgrading our corporate culture, as well as introducing innovation, digitalization, optimizing processes, etc.
Are you planning further wage increases in 2025? If so, to what extent?
In the case of wages, we have already spent 43 million euros on salary increases over the past three years. This year, we have allocated another 14 million euros for this. We always try to put great emphasis on the fact that we are leaders in the retail market, not only as a retail chain for our customers, but also as an employer. We have reached a point where the lowest salaries of our salespeople and warehouse workers reach 150 percent of the legal minimum wage. Salespeople earn a minimum of 1,250 euros and warehouse workers earn 1,300 euros.
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Apart from salaries – what benefits do Lidl employees value the most?
At Lidl, we make no distinctions, and we have set this high standard for a long time in the area of benefits – everyone is entitled to the same. We have a portal where everyone can choose benefits according to their own preferences worth 250 euros per year, with more than 4,000 options to choose from. In addition, we provide employees with 40 euros in credit per month for purchases at Lidl, and after two years in the group, we contribute 200 euros per year to the third pension pillar.
You can also earn up to 900 euros through the referral program. A great benefit is the possibility of job rotation and rich opportunities for education and development. We provide leave beyond the statutory framework, time off on the child’s first day of school, gifts for birthdays, work anniversaries, Christmas and St. Nicholas Day, psychological and financial advice, and much more.
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What is the ratio of men and women among your employees?
I won’t surprise you when I say that the absolute majority of our employees – 70% – are women, as everywhere in retail. However, the number of men is growing, including in store positions. As for management positions, currently 55% of our managers are women, which we are very happy about. Within the management, it is exactly fifty-fifty, and we were even one of the first companies within our group to have a female CEO.
How do you promote diversity and inclusion in the Lidl workplace?
Judit Dulin, Managing Director for Human Resource Lidl Slovakia
DEB is an integral part of our corporate culture and, since 2021, we have created the position of Diversity Ambassador, whose role is to promote these topics and is also the primary contact person. Within DEB, we carry out various activities for our employees. There are regular Small Talks on various topics (organized by the Mental Health League), and we continuously communicate about DEB through our internal app – We Are Lidl (where we currently have more than 6,000 employees).
In this context, we also focus on manager trainings (various workshops, REX – Recruiting Excellence) or the topic of gender diversity and women in management. Every year, we also prepare a DEB Week for employees, during which they can participate in competitions or take part in Small Talks. Our employees always have access to confidants and a diversity ambassador. We recently conducted a survey on the topic of DEB – it showed that gender diversity, which we focused on the most, is also the most positively evaluated. Employees are interested in further focusing on wellbeing, psychological safety, or age diversity.
What experience do you have of employing workers from third countries?
As I mentioned, we receive an average of 4,500 – and sometimes even 6,000 – CVs per month, which is a very good number of candidates to choose from. However, we are open to employing people from other countries. We currently have 192 employees from 20 different countries. This is part of the company’s diversity culture.
We also like to cooperate with foreigners and take care of their integration. As a Hungarian, I can say that Slovak colleagues are very good at integrating and accepting foreigners. They cooperate well and help them.
We have very good examples – for instance, in Tvrdošín, one of our Ukrainian colleagues became a store manager after two years. From my point of view, Lidl is also exceptional in supporting workforce mobility – many colleagues from Slovakia work abroad, whether at the headquarters in Germany or in other countries. Even more have completed several-month or year-long stays in other countries where we operate and have returned with new experiences.
Does Lidl work with schools to train future employees?
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Of course. We are one of the largest employers in Slovakia, and we realize that if we want to continue to attract the best, the recruitment process often has to start with education. That is why we have been involved in dual education in secondary schools for a long time.
Since 2016, almost 160 students have participated in it, and in 2025 we expect more than 20 graduates. In this way, we support vocational education in Slovakia and enable students to gain practical knowledge on which they can later build their careers. We currently cooperate with twelve secondary vocational schools.
We are also active at universities, specifically through the Retail Academy program with almost 800 graduates. Retail Academy is a university program jointly run by the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra and the University of Economics in Bratislava.
The Retail Academy program includes lectures, complemented by excursions and workshops with experts in human resources, communications, administration, purchasing, sales, and central services. It also offers students practical experience and the opportunity to share best practices and proven professional experiences. More and more students or graduates of the Retail Academy actually work for us.
What are your plans for opening new stores in the next few years?
Thanks to the expansion, we are creating hundreds of new jobs annually. In 2025, we opened seven new stores. During February, these were stores in Stará Turá, Dunajská Lužná, Hlohovec, Prešov, and Hnúšťa. In March, a store was added in Nové Zámky, and in April in Martin. A new store in Teplička nad Váhom will be added soon.
At the beginning of the year, we also started construction in Kúty, in the Bory district of Bratislava, and construction of a rental building in Poltár, where we will have our store, has also begun. In addition, we plan to expand to other smaller towns and larger municipalities, where we would like to start construction this year.
We want to get even closer to our customers and offer them low prices every day. In addition to building new stores, we are also continuously modernizing our existing portfolio. The modernizations include changes focused on ecological, aesthetic, and technological improvements that make the shopping environment and overall quality of service more pleasant.
