Store Manager Review

My day to day job is the running of a Food Warehouse by Iceland store dealing with wages, coaching, sales, marketing, customers, legalities and so forth. In this role I have to lead a team of 30 people including home delivery drivers, online orders, general assistants cashiers and so forth

Through Lifetime I got a refresher into my old business study degree, remembering aspects that I can use towards my job and being guided well by my tutor to how this can help in my career. At Iceland the coaching is non existent, you don’t get taught anything about your job till after it’s gone wrong and you’re on the receiving end of a phone call.

I enjoyed the meetings with my tutor and talking through my educational experiences whilst linking them to my job and career in question. This has helped me to understand different aspects of my role that I was previously unaware of. The course in general was great and easy to navigate

The programme was very well organised, with dates set and enough time in advance to do your work. Throughout the meeting you are talking through an organised agenda with a clear pattern of learning. In terms of Iceland I had to make my own time, got no support at work and there was no structure from their end with the course. In the words of my area manager I had to ‘just do it’

No support whatsoever. My employer was disinterested in the course, and used it more as a tool to delay my promotion rather than give me one as I could be a ‘spare manager on the area’. I had no feedback regarding it, help, discussions or any interaction. Simply told to ‘just do it’

Lifetime were great. They arranged regular meetings and conversations whilst being really helpful throughout our interactions in helping me to understand what I needed to do. My trainer was only ever a phone call or text away and would help out of meeting times if I needed it. Due to this I have put more of my staff on the apprenticeship

I believe this qualification has helped me a great deal in my role as it has refreshed past academic learnings whilst being able to link them to the job I do due to being more mature and experienced then I was in my university days. I think anyone that has it carried out a business degree would find this training helpful

No, the only extra curricular activity at our work place is a Facebook page dedicated for employees. This page is a ‘must have’ even if you don’t use Facebook. You are also demanded to put posts on. Most posts on there do not show the true standards of the store or the true feelings on there. I would not carry out any sporting activities etc with my peers from other stores or line manager

No

At board level Iceland have great ethics. However this isn’t filtered down through their managers. There is no coaching in the business. No one is taught to succeed. It is very much ‘jobs for the boys’. Our rewards are terrible. Our higher management are generally huffy and unprofessional. I see my line manager once in a blue moon.

Not to. When reading about the company it seems great. It is constantly in the top 20 companies to work for, however they really push this with their employees and force them to fill out good reviews. If it was fairly operated they wouldn’t make it. I thought working as a manager in a top four store was bad as they’d lost their ethics. However Iceland are a lot worse