‘Feels Like Family’

Although we have sales of over £2 billion and employ more than 20,000 people, our staff agree that working for Iceland feels like being part of a family.  We believe that the key to success in retailing is looking after our customers properly, and that starts with looking after each other.  While we naturally expect our employees to stand on their own two feet, they can also expect to be treated with respect by their colleagues, and to be part of a team where everyone is willing to roll up their sleeves and help out when support is required. 

Everyone at Iceland is on first name terms with each other, and we share a strong sense of pride and common purpose.  The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For survey in 2009, which ranked Iceland 14th in its big companies league table, found that 72% of our staff believed that managers really cared about employees.  In 2010, when Iceland climbed to 13th place, 70% of employees said that they felt a strong sense of family in their teams, 75% considered that their line managers talked with them honestly and openly, and 72% expressed confidence in the leadership skills of the senior management team.  In our most recent staff survey, 84% of our staff told us that they are proud to work for Iceland, 77% feel a strong sense of belonging in the company and 84% would recommend Iceland as a good place to work.

Keeping it Simple

The key to the revival in Iceland’s fortunes since 2005 has been simplification: refocusing on our traditional strengths in innovative, value-for-money frozen food and making life simple for our customers through round sum pricing.  The same principles have been applied to the way we work, ensuring a clear focus on the things that really matter like service and quality.  We give our employees clear objectives and expectations, with 94% of the respondents to our most recent staff survey telling us that they are clear about what they are expected to achieve in their jobs.  At the same time, we also allow more freedom for individual initiative than most other retailers, as we believe that it is ultimately this sort of personal touch that can make all the difference to our customers. 

Our 2009 staff survey showed that 93% of our retail staff believe that their stores are serious about service and 96% feel confident that they can deliver high standards of service to our customers.  We communicate with each other openly, honestly and directly, doing our utmost to avoid jargon and ‘management speak.  This was again reflected in our staff survey findings, with 81% of our employees rating their manager as a good communicator.

Speed, Energy and Enthusiasm

Iceland moves like a speedboat among the supertankers of UK food retailing.  We’re always keen to keep moving forward and to make the most of every opportunity.  That makes for a lively and fast-paced working environment, in an organisation that is open to new ideas and suggestions and willing to try them out.  Management are never afraid to take decisions, and keen to get things done.  Our stores are supported by a lean head office team that is totally focused on retailing and believes in action, not bureaucracy.

Something for Everyone

Iceland is a successful and growing business, and to maintain our momentum we want to help all our people to fulfil their ambitions and realise their potential.  We take pride in our training and development, and our 2009 staff survey showed that 87% of our employees considered that they had all the training they needed to do their job well.  In addition to paying close attention to the results of these regular surveys, we conduct individual performance reviews designed to identify strengths, ambition and potential, and are strongly committed to providing opportunities for those who wish to develop their careers within Iceland.  Over 60% of our store managers have attained their positions through internal promotion.

We spoke to some Iceland employees who have worked their way up through the business about their experience of the company...

Stacy Blackie joined Iceland in 1996, aged 16, as a Saturday girl working on the checkouts of her local store in Prestatyn.  She progressed to become a supervisor before taking a “gap year”, but returned to Iceland in 2007 and is now manager of the Flint store.

“Having become a chilled supervisor and then a customer service supervisor at Prestatyn I decided that I wanted a bit of “me time” to do something different so I took a year out as a holiday rep in Minorca.  I came back to Iceland in 2007, initially in a part-time role, but I was fast-tracked through the ranks very quickly.  I became a supervisor again within a couple of months, then passed the assessment for the assistant manager programme and went on that.  I was appointed assistant manager in Prestatyn in March 2008 and got my own store to manage in Flint in January 2009.

“It was striking how the attitude to people changed when Malcolm Walker came back into the business.  As a supervisor under the previous regime there were no courses to go on and no incentive to progress; the focus was on profit, not people, but of course they did not make much profit.  Under Malcolm profits are still important but he believes that you get results through people, by putting them first.

“I am really enjoying being a store manager.  It is still a challenge and still feels very new, but I am getting a lot of support and I have already had a review from my area manager asking me “What do you want to do next?”  Whatever I want to do, I know that the company will point me in the right direction.  They also manage me on how well I manage my people, which helps to keep you on your toes.  Iceland doesn’t want to waste any drop of talent in the business, and they are very good at helping you to spot talent in your store.

“I think the standards and service in Iceland stores these days are better than in the bigger food retailers, particularly the service on the checkout.  From an employee point of view, the staff are happy and we do anything we can to make them happy, for example through making flexible arrangements for working mums.  The staff benefits are good, too.

“We believe in having a good work-life balance.  At Iceland we work hard, but we also enjoy our time off.  Going to Florida in the autumn is an incredible bonus: I am still in shock about it, to be honest, and won’t believe it until I am on the plane.  Malcolm said at the last conference that if the results were OK the next one would be in London; if they were good it would be in Barcelona; and if they were great it would be Florida.  It is a true reflection of how well the business is doing that all the managers are going there and that Malcolm wants us to celebrate our success with him.  Really I could not love the company enough for what it is and what it has done for me.”

Richard Broadbent began working for Iceland in 1988, aged 18, in a part-time job in his local store while he was an A-level student.  He is now one of Iceland’s four Regional Managers, responsible for the company’s stores in London and East Anglia.

“I suppose I fell into working for Iceland, to be honest.  I started doing Saturday and occasional evening shifts in the Cleveleys store while I was at college doing my A-levels, and found that I really enjoyed it.  I got a buzz out of the work and thought that the people were really good.   When I left college, with no fixed idea as to what to do next, someone suggested that I should apply to become a trainee manager.  I looked at a few other companies, but I liked what I saw at Iceland and went for it. 

“As a trainee manager I worked in stores along the Fylde coast and in Cumbria, then became a store manager.  That took me around North Wales, Lancashire and Manchester.  About nine years ago I was promoted to become an area manager and worked in Yorkshire and Humberside and the North West.   Then I was asked to go to London on a six-month assignment, and I’ve been there ever since.  I was promoted to my current job as a regional manager after Malcolm came back into the business in 2005.

“I feel that I’ve been very lucky in my career.  Although I’ve been with the same company all my life, it’s been like working for several different businesses because my job has changed so often.  I’ve never done anything for long enough for there to be any danger of it becoming boring.

“On top of which, this is a hundred miles an hour business; it’s changing all the time and no two days are the same.  It’s a really exciting, fast-paced place to work and the fact that we are opening so many new stores creates lots of additional opportunities to progress.

“Obviously it’s hard for me to describe what makes Iceland different, given that I have never worked anywhere else, but from talking to people in other companies I think the key thing is that Iceland feels like one big family.  It’s got a very informal atmosphere where you really feel that anybody can say anything to anyone else, and that you do have the ability to make a difference because people will listen to your views.

“I was ambitious when I joined – I had my sights set on becoming an area manager – and I’ve been supported all the way by the people I worked with.  I firmly believe that anyone joining the business today can go as far as they want: there is simply bags of opportunity.  You don’t need to have high academic qualifications, just masses of common sense.  If you’re good with people and prepared to put the effort in and demonstrate enthusiasm and commitment, there is no reason why you couldn’t become an area manager within five or six years - or a Regional Manager 10 to 15 years down the line.”

Richard Love joined Iceland in 1999, aged 28, as a home delivery driver in the Caernarfon store, and is now a member of the refit support team working on the current major store opening programme:

“I applied for a job as a home delivery driver after being made redundant by my previous employer, because it sounded really interesting and different: no-one else was doing anything along those lines.  I did it for five or six years and absolutely loved every minute of it: I really enjoyed the interaction with the customers.  Particularly in a rural area like North Wales you get to know your customers really well, and there is an element of trust because they invite you into their homes.  It’s like being the postman or the milkman – you’re a well-known figure in the community, and I was proud to be a representative of the company. 

“To be honest, I only moved on from the job because I was worried about the future of home delivery after Malcolm left the company, when the focus moved elsewhere, and I thought I would be more secure working in a store.  So I took the opportunity to become a chilled supervisor and then a customer service supervisor, again in the Caernarfon store.  I was delighted when Malcolm came back and refocused on home delivery and made it as important as ever.  It’s a big part of what makes Iceland different.

“In my current role I’m helping to support the huge roll-out of new stores this year.  We’re recruiting a lot of new people and they need support from an experienced team until they find their feet.  Naturally it’s a particular pleasure for me to support and coach the home delivery side.

“It’s a great job because I am getting to see a lot of new people, and every team I meet is full of enthusiasm to be going into a new store.  It’s brilliant to be able to help them hone their skills so that they can be fully independent.

“Iceland has been a really fantastic employer, and I simply could not conceive of working for anyone else now.   It feels like a family, not a corporation.  We work hard, we play hard and we have a lot of fun together – and that spirit is all down to Malcolm Walker, the guy who founded the business.  I am just so grateful we got him back.”

John  Mackie joined Bejam in 1985, aged 15, as a part-time stock lad in its Leamington  Spa  store.  Following the takeover of Bejam by Iceland in 1989 he  became  the  company’s  youngest store manager and is now based at head office in Deeside as Supply Chain Director.  

“I  knew  that  I  didn’t  want to go into further education so I went into Bejam straight from school and quickly became a stock supervisor.  I joined their management trainee scheme just before the Iceland takeover and became a  deputy manager in Reading in 1988, then worked on a number of new stores as  a  refit  and  training  manager before I became the company’s youngest store manager at Coalville in Leicestershire.  I was just shy of 21.

“As  a  manager,  I  moved  around a number of stores in Leicestershire and Derbyshire. Then in 1997, shortly after my daughter was born, I stopped and took  stock  of my career.  I had never known anything else but I knew that retailing  was  in my blood and that Iceland was a fantastic business which had  developed  and  supported  me  every  step  of  the way, so I took the decision to stay with them and move into head office.  Initially I became a Supply  Planner  as  part of a team leading the introduction of sales-based ordering,  initially  with  a  pilot  of just three stores.  By 2000 we had rolled it out across the whole company.

“After  that  I  became  a  Supply Manager, handling one product area, then after  18  months  I  was  promoted to Category Supply Manager in charge of grocery.   I did that job for two years then became Head of Product Supply, covering  frozen,  chilled and grocery, before I was promoted to my current job  as  Supply  Chain Director in 2006.  In this role I am accountable for the  flow  of  all  our  products  through  our  distribution  centres from suppliers  to  our  stores. Iceland’s distribution is handled   through   four   regional  distribution  centres  in  Warrington, Livingston, Swindon and Enfield, in partnership with DHL.   I lead the team of 45 people that  makes things happen.

“I  love  my  job.   I  am very much a perfectionist and I love the way the business  operates.   The executive board sets the direction – what we call Due  North  –  as  a trading board we then have the autonomy to deliver the results.   I  can’t  think of many other businesses where you could achieve the  sort of career progression I have done, from joining as a stock lad at 15 to being on the operating board by 36.  Yes, I have worked very hard but I  have been supported every step of the way.  I think that Iceland is very different  from  most  other  businesses,  and  that  is why it has been so successful.

“I  am  even  more  enthusiastic  now than when I started – I wake up every morning  eager  to come to work.  I am well rewarded, but I am not grafting for that.  It is simply a fantastic place to work.  Everyone in the company is  very  enthusiastic  and  we have a great top management team, which has taken  us  from  the  brink  of  bankruptcy to probably the most successful retailer  in Britain over the last four years.  I wouldn’t mind having a go at  running  the  whole  business  myself  one  day;  I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

The Bottom Line

At Iceland, we have built our success on giving more: better value to our customers, and better rewards to our staff.  Our store managers have seen their pay increase by 50% over the last three years, making them among the best paid in high street retailing, while store staff wages have also been significantly improved.  In the 2010 Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For survey, 65% of our staff said that they were happy with their pay and benefits – a score bettered by only one other company on their list.  Overall, we were ranked number one in the whole country for offering our staff a Fair Deal, with a 64% positive score. 

Fringe Benefits

All  Iceland  employees  benefit from access to Talking Rewards,  a  ‘no  catch’  money-saving  website  powered by Reward Gateway.  This  offers discounted  shopping  with  cashback  and discounted shopping vouchers  with  over  1,500  participating  retailers including some of the biggest  and  best-known names in the UK.  The scheme offers many exclusive deals and  provides opportunities for shopping online and by phone as well as on the high street, allowing our staff to make valuable savings on their insurance,  broadband,  mobiles, days out and holidays, as well as on their regular  food, clothing and household purchases.  The success of the scheme can be  judged  from  the fact that members of the Iceland team have spent over  £1  million  through  Talking  Rewards  since  it was set up in 2008.  Employees also enjoy a staff discount card, issued twice a year, offering a 10% saving on their purchases in Iceland.

Simply the Best Place to Eat

The 500-strong team at head office in Deeside benefits from one of the best staff restaurants anywhere: the Roxy, given a £400,000 makeover in 2005 and run by former top restaurant chef Mike Truelove.  It offers a mouth-watering daily selection of two different hot dishes and freshly griddled fish, plus well-stocked pasta and salad bars.  The prices, too, are truly exceptional, with lunch costing between £1.85 and £2.25 for a main course, including a wide choice of vegetables or salads to accompany it.  The Roxy also serves breakfast and has an all-day Costa Coffee bar.  Fresh fruit is provided free at the Roxy and staff who over-indulge in Mike’s excellent hand-cut chips can work off their excesses through free membership of a local gym.

Mike Truelove says “I’ve been at Iceland for three years.  When Malcolm came back I was running the Crabwall Manor Hotel near Chester and he rang me up and said ‘My staff restaurant needs sorting out.’  It had been outsourced to contract caterers who used the cheapest possible produce, and the staff hated it.  My brief from Malcolm was simple: ‘I want it to be the best staff restaurant in Britain, one that is worth a Michelin star.’  When I worked at the Box Tree in Ilkley I was the only English chef in the country to have two Michelin stars, so I knew how to go about it.

“I started by sourcing good quality ingredients and putting some skill back in the kitchen; there is no convenience food here.  That put some pride back in to people’s work.  I have the most brilliant team: I inherited them when I arrived and kept them all, and I’ve given them chances to broaden their skills so that they can all have a go at different things like cooking on the griddle or serving at the Costa as well as working on the till.  I multi-task, too.  I started my career in the kitchen and I still cook on the hotplate every day.

“My team are a fantastic bunch of people and they really love working here; we always come out on top in the Iceland staff satisfaction surveys.  One of the best things about Iceland is that it is structured to train and develop staff, which is not something I’d ever really come across in the catering trade.  Here we have one-to-ones and appraisals and there is no place to hide; it’s one of the really good things I have learnt here.

“As for the prices, you would be paying a minimum of three times as much to get food of the same quality anywhere else.  We just cover the cost of the ingredients and the company chips in for the wages and other overheads.  Malcolm started giving away free fruit as a perk after the head office conference in 2008, and it was costing us £300 – 400 a week.  So he came back to me after a year and told me to put even more out: he said ‘I want it be like a harvest festival’.  Now we’re spending nearly double that.  Those struggling to get through their five a day can always pick up a fruit smoothie at the Costa.
 
“From my own point of view I think Iceland really is a great place to work. The hours are civilised and the people are brilliant.   They are really grateful for what they have got. They treat you like part of the team and it’s so nice to be appreciated.  We serve around 350 lunches a day and I have had to deal with precisely two complaints in three years: one from someone who thought they had been overcharged for their salad, and one that our bananas were on the small side.  Other than that it’s all been positive feedback!”

View a sample menu from the Roxy.

The Best Conferences 

Iceland is a fun place to work, and we like our people to be able to get together, let their hair down and enjoy themselves as well as learning more about the business and their colleagues. 

Store Managers’ Conferences

2005 Iceland emerged from The Dark Ages with a store managers’ conference at the ICC, Birmingham.  Star of the show was Iceland’s founder and newly returned Chief Executive Malcolm Walker, who gave a candid sofa interview about the Iceland story from the day he opened the first store in 1970 to the point where he was thrown out of the company in 2001, and his vision for the future.  The evening’s entertainment took the form of a Bavarian Christmas dinner complete with pitchers of beer, an Oompah band, ice rink, carousel and Christmas village.

2006 Back at the ICC we planned to base our conference around writing a story called “Winning: The Iceland Way”.  We had a 22-foot high mechanical book on stage along with a Ferrari intended as the prize for our best performing store manager.  But the night before the conference the set caught fire, causing some £500,000 worth of damage.  There could be no better illustration of the Iceland spirit of rolling our sleeves up and helping out than in the way we managed to salvage most of the set and wheel it round to the borrowed Birmingham Symphony Hall, where the conference went ahead as planned.  The evening concluded with entertainment inspired by Cirque du Soleil.

2007 We took 900 people to Disneyland Paris in two chartered planes, where our managers were entertained by Iceland’s directors performing a Christmas pantomime and set a team challenge to perform in the theme park (where their enterprising decision to wear fancy dress proved too much for the management’s Gallic sense of humour).  The evening was spent on the rides of another theme park and dancing to a band.

2008 We held our conference nearer to home in Liverpool, holding a fashion show of Christmas products with lots of razzmatazz provided by cheerleaders and acrobats.  We offered a BMW Convertible as the prize for our best performing store manager, along with a wide range of cash incentives for the best performing store in each region. The evening was a black tie awards gala dinner – The Iceland Oscars – hosted by Kate Thornton and supported by the Manchester Camerata Orchestra with entertainment including an opera singer, dancers and pyrotechnics, and concluding a live performance by Girls Aloud.

2009 At the end of his speech to the 2008 conference, Malcolm Walker told the managers that, if Christmas was good, the 2009 conference would be taking place in Florida.

So, in celebration of a fourth amazing year of double digit like-for-like sales growth, in September 2009 Iceland chartered jets to fly almost 800 store, regional and area managers across the Atlantic to spend five days at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.  The conference itself took no longer than usual, giving our managers ample free time to explore the Disney theme parks and other nearby attractions including Universal Studios, Sea World and the Kennedy Space Center.  Highlights of the visit included an exclusive performance of the Lion King, evening events offering private access to many of the theme park rides, and a spectacular fireworks display. 

Managers also enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour of the staff areas under the Disney theme parks to give them an insight into Disney’s remarkable staff culture, incredible attention to detail and total dedication to customer service.  Helping our managers to understand this world class approach was one reason for our £4 million investment in what was agreed by all to be our best conference ever; though our principal aim was simply to give our key people a great time in recognition of everything they have done to achieve the astonishing transformation of the business over the last four years.

For a fuller account of the 2009 store managers’ conference, click on this link to Retail Week.

Head Office Conferences

2007 We decided to hold our first head office conference in 2007, but the event planned for Chester Racecourse had to be relocated at short notice as a result of flooding.  So, in another fine example of the Iceland gift for pulling together and improvisation, we managed to turn the old grocery warehouse behind our head office into a venue suitable for 600 people, with a full rock and roll style stage.  The daytime conference was followed by a funfair in the head office car park and dancing to a live performance by the Sugababes.

2008 This year the grocery warehouse wasn’t available so a huge marquee was erected in the head office car park. The daytime conference included a game of Family Fortunes with all the directors, and the playback of video clips from a Big Brother-style video diary room which had been set up in the Roxy restaurant for the previous week.  In the evening a quiz night hosted by Gabby Logan and Phil Tufnell saw the head office departments competing with each other for free Christmas party tickets. 

2009 Some might have thought that Iceland was skimping on the head office conference when they saw the simple marquee erected in the car park for the afternoon presentations by Chief Executive Malcolm Walker and Managing Director Andy Pritchard.  But any such thoughts were blown away when the 550 guests reached their evening’s entertainment in the grounds of Malcolm Walker’s own house.  In fact, the conference budget was bigger than ever before.  Even this could not guarantee good weather and, in the finest tradition of English outdoor events, it rained.  But the head office team were still able to enjoy walking around the beautiful gardens to the music of a jazz band, keeping up their energy levels with refreshments from numerous bars and a barbecue.  Then it was into the warmth of a gigantic marquee for an evening of fine food, music and dancing, including a performance by Abba tribute singers the Fabba Girls, with the night rounded off by a fantastic musical firework display.

Interested in joining our winning team?

Click here to see the opportunities currently available on the Iceland careers website.