Pros
Head Office is a friendly and professional environment to work in for the most part. Good communication between the different departments help to continually improve the support structure's for stores and makes for a less stressful environment in that regard. The working environment is very clean and professional in a modern stylish building. The Roxy is the stores canteen. Canteen is the wrong word really, it's more like a modern continental cafe with a Costa coffee bar, very nice. Directors, managers, office workers and cleaners all eat together. There's no airs and graces at lunch.
Cons
Money. Pays much less in some departments than industry standard. They have certainly issued at least one pay cut to a business critical department that I know of to bring into line with another less critical department rather than bringing that dept up a level. They then had a Xmas conference shortly after that informing the employees how much money Iceland was making; you can imagine how bitter that dept was and, I believe, still is. Although the company like to think they offer opportunities for career development and training, it seems very limited. I have found that because training is so limited or I should say 'not readily on offer to some' that people tend to stand still in the same job while expressing a desire to move upwards yet not knowing how to go about it; many in middle management seem just as clueless. With the country now entering a recession and certainly a huge hike in the cost of living the Directors, in what seems like a cynical attempt to appease the workers future demands for more money have offered all employees free Gold membership of a health club...and two portions of fruit per day, per person. It would be laughable if it wasn't so offensive.