Iceland’s Employee Engagement Specialist Talks to ULMS Students
Mairi Probin, employee engagement specialist for frozen food retailer, Iceland launched the University of Liverpool Management School guest speaker series for the new academic year.
Her presentation, “How did a frozen retailer become the best place to work… twice!” emphasised the importance of engaging employees in their job role in order to achieve overall success within a company.
Mairi, who previously worked in internal communication before moving into the employee engagement sector, discussed how Iceland has raised its credibility over recent years giving the retailer the title of best big business, twice.
With over 840 stores across the UK, Mairi attributes consistency, engagement, listening and leadership as a key for success within the business. She encouraged students to take this focus into any business highlighting the fact that “good leadership allows engagement to happen”.
The talk also emphasised the importance of communication with staff across the team, particularly using social media as a way to create discussion amongst all of Iceland’s 25,000 employees. She described the internet as a communication tool essential to business, explaining that Iceland’s bosses “speak the language of the staff and not the boardroom”.
She encouraged the students to have focus, simplicity, realistic expectations and most importantly, fun in their business careers, noting that “we take our job seriously but not ourselves”.