Monsanto Company Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Monsanto Company full-time for more than a year

Pros – Better than average benefits in St. Louis, which is a sub-standard city to live in. Cheap, but sub-standard.

Cons – Lots of boys clubs, promotions to those who've been there the longest, not who work the hardest. Oh yeah, and if you don't have a science degree prepared to be treated like your job is "not as cool". Be prepared to endure yearly recurring (and boring as hell) training materials that are obviously geared at lab people.

Advice to Senior Management – Please ask yourselves: How come if you manage to attract all the best talent around, why happened to make it become the greatest revolving door? Low retention, decreasing loyalties, people fleeing left and right.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Good benefits package - Vacation, medical, 401k, holidays. There's also a fitness center, a daycare, and some great walking trails on campus.

Cons – My director polices social networking to tell employees how their political views should be, how wrong they are if they aren't in alignment with him, and then uses this information during reviews. If you're political views align with him, you get a good review. If your views are different than his, you get a bad review.

Cuts corners on the work deliverable, delivers a shoddy product, then works to cover up the mistakes and problems instead of just taking a little more time and doing things right the first time.

Expects employees to work 60-80 hour work weeks while he leaves every day at 4:00PM.

Goes psycho when he finds out an employee might be looking for another job outside of the company.

Brags endlessly about his house, his car, his vacations, blah, blah, blah.

And don't get me started about his good buddy/manager above him. He follows her from department to department as she moves through positions in the company. I have to ask, how many different IT verticals will she get to ruin before senior leadership realizes how bad this is to work for?

Advice to Senior Management – Don't just listen to what your direct reports tell you. You're not getting the full truth on how things are really going. Get out into the rank and file. Do a random lunch invitation to the team leads and individual contributors and ask pointed questions about what's going on in the organization. It'll help you get the truth and then maybe you can turn things around.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company

Pros – its tough to find words that can describe positivity in the current state. Typically, this company is good for supporting and fostering new ideas and providing a trusting environment. With so many mixed messages coming through, its difficult to understand expectations in our own organization.

Cons – Depending on where you work, could be okay. My organization is struggling and you can tell its obvious that leadership struggles to compliment their workforce. The context for which they hire new leadership (completely replaced recently) is this place needs a complete shape up, which brings in managers who dont care about people or give credit to the expertise or capabilities. A TON of NON-value add work is exhausting. Sick of not having a work-life balance. I go home on weekends to catch up on sleep, just to redo it again the next week. Its physically and mentally exhausting. Nothing wrong with high expectations, but lose the negative attitude behind it and you will get better results through your people. Its really hard to keep up and network with others outside of your immediate organization because there is a lack of time and support. Either reduce workload and expectations, or hire more people.

A manager told me to get a hobby to balance work and life, so i did, but they dont want to roll their sleeves up and help with the workload issue. Then you get dirty looks and negative comments for for not delivering 80 hours worth of work in 45. I am not the person that is truly not happy. 50% of the department or more, is on anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications.

They have hired new leadership that clashes with the Monsanto culture. Not sure when the last time I heard a 'good job'.

Advice to Senior Management – stop adding layers and layers of leadership who provide no additional value. Say thanks once in a while. Overall, I do enjoy working at Monsanto, but for now its really hard to say anything positive in the current state. I dont really know whats happening in the broader company, as we are so focused on appeasing our own department leadership team, in which its completely authoritative, which is actually not feeling good. Humbleism and Humility go a long way.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company

Pros – The benefits package is decent.

Cons – Leadership has no vision for innovation.Within the company, the percentage of innovation and discovery is very low. Most of the planning managers lost touch with science. Everyone is evaluated as a 'cost'. A mediocre scientist who will go with the flow could be happy at Monsanto.

Advice to Senior Management – Monsanto's primary job is to make shareholders happy not to feed the world so be honest about what Monsanto is. Leadership is detached from the rest of the company. Listening and understanding your people will help shape the company future.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company

Pros – --Salary
--Benefits
--Friendships
--A really terrific severance package if you're able to tough it out
--The reign of terror once over IT Infrastructure has been moved back to Commercial
--The incompetent 'senior leader' and over opinionated 'soccer mom' both quit shortly after getting new leadership

Cons – --Reviews based upon how much your manager likes you, not what you are able to deliver
--Hiring based upon enthics/gender and not qualifications
--Interchangeable staff--'move every 3 years'
--No true work-life balance or fit
--Extreme dating scene! So many married, dating, or divorced couples
--Very short term focused. Does not look at the long term impact

Advice to Senior Management – Get real feedback, from your employees and your customers, not customed and tailored such that you only hear what you want to hear.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company

Pros – Good benifit (medical, pension)
Training opportunities

Cons – Medium pay, low raise
A place where networking is much more important than working
Can achieve work life balance if you don't care about performance review
Constantly changing organizational structure (every 6 months)
A lot of 'talkers' are promoted and people have to work for managers that lack of common sense about their jobs
Slackers can find a way to survive

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on working rather than networking.
Pay more respect to people who really add value to the company instead of those who is only good at saying things to please management

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Monsanto Company

Pros – Good benefits, company is doing well, nice people. The campus is nice. It's a global company.

Cons – Management keeps information very close. Management is backed by their seniors unconditionally, no matter how bad they screw up. Favorites are blatantly played. The smart people who should be promoted (no, I'm not thinking of myself) aren't because they don't go golfing with the CIO or go to happy hours after work.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop thinking exclusively about climbing the ladder and think a little about the people you manage. Communicate. Look for solutions that help everyone, instead of just covering your ass.
I know, it's like that everywhere--but that doesn't mean we should stop expecting it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company

Pros – Its a job . If you like making deals with the devil, join the Monsanto team.

Cons – Management is of the poorest quality. Atleast in Centralia, IL. If you could imagine if your employer ran your company in the same manner that high school hierachy and cliches are, then please apply at this place. There is SO much corrupt and morally wrong things going on here and that is why I was compelled to write this. My hope is that maybe people will think twice before joining this soul - erasing company. Seeing the previous posts , I can only assume that most are just bogus to make company look good, or they have a completely different atmosphere than the one here at Centralia,IL. I also have the feeling that this will be used against me at a later date.

Advice to Senior Management – wouldn't listen anyway

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Monsanto Company

Pros – Salary, perks, low work load, no accountability to results

Cons – Bad management, incompetent people, no strategy

Advice to Senior Management – Change the management. For a company that cannot manage it's public image or Stakeholder expectation the future looks bleak and crisis prone.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Monsanto Company

Pros – It pays well and i suppose it will weather the storm of most economic downturns, it is well positioned to be making money for a long time.

Cons – The company has so much money it seems to ignore incompetence and ignorance at a level thats hard to believe, also while making this money they have had numerous rounds of lay-offs.

Advice to Senior Management – The senior leadership seems to be very smart, but at lower levels of the organisation the turnover is so small that the same folks have rotated through the same positions for multiple years, Hugh Grant was very impressive, i wished more had been so.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend