3M Reviews

Former Employee – worked at 3M as an intern

Pros – Best retention and outreach programs

Cons – Limited HQ locations for R&D

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at 3M full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Well ran and very healthy organization.

Cons – It is a big company and that can show at times. Many middle managers primarily look out for their guys.

Advice to Senior Management – You better do a better job taking care of your top talent. Otherwise, you will soon look up after the boomers start clearing out and realize that you are left with the people that either weren't ambitious enough or weren't in demand enough to go somewhere else. The race for talent already started, and I believe 3M has been sitting on its hands.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at 3M full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Very consistent and solid multi national company in diverse markets with great brand name recognition. Great Benefits and long-term security.

Cons – Some employees are dead weight that show-up, collect a paycheck, and don't care about the big picture and how their job impacts other departments.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't shuffle bad apples over to other departments. Deal with performance issues upfront versus recommending them to go to a different team.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at 3M full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The people are the best in the world. We continue to be a great company, not because of company loyalty, but because of personal commitments to great coworkers.

Cons – While delivering strong results to Wall Street, 3M is only able to achieve them by complete travel bans, hiring freezes and 2% salary increases. Executives continue to keep the company jets in the air, and when they have to fly commercial, always sit in first class. Their income keeps increasing, especially as they execute multimillion dollar stock options. They stay cloistered on their mahogany floors and don't see that the rest of the physical plant has deteriorated as the maintenance budgets are squeezed like everything else.

Advice to Senior Management – Give up the short term, month-to-month thinking. Your workforce is aging, its time to start hiring. The executives have to start leading by example and stop drinking the filtered cool aid. You have understand the complexity at individual project levels before you can manage an enterprise. Walk around unannounced and listen to people for more than two minutes.

Former Employee – worked at 3M full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Allow you to be indipendent and creative. The products are the best in the industry and fun to sell

Cons – Overcoming the price objection can be difficult. Management reluctant to meet competitive prices which can result in some major lost business

Advice to Senior Management – Be more flexable in dealing with copetitive situations

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at 3M full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Management will do what it takes to maintain profitability and viability of the company
Stronger than industry standard ethics, environmental and safety principles, and community engagement
Strong focus on new product development and research

Cons – Lower than industry standard IT and Supply Chain systems
Slow to add headcount and other resources in growth divisions and locations
Conservative short term decision making can sometimes stifle long term growth

Advice to Senior Management – Don't let short term thinking in the income statement prevent you from investing in the future of the company

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at 3M part-time for more than a year

Pros – Flexible hours, decent pay, helpful bosses, fun perks. Although tech aide positions aren't the greatest thing in the world, they are very good for soph.s or jr.s in college. They provide a basis of knowledge that will help you get a future entry level job or internship.

Cons – There aren't many cons working as a tech aide, at least for my job. The only thing that is a bit cumbersome is working while you are in school. However they don't force you to work during the academic year and many students only work summers or breaks.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at 3M full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Excellent development opportunities
Technical learning opportunities are endless
Open corporate culture

Cons – Slow advancement for high performers
Promotions and pay raises based more on time than performance

Advice to Senior Management – Implement a reward system for high performers.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at 3M full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great people, great products, great culture

Cons – Breadth & scale of business and level of centralised decision making can at times create a lack of autonomy

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at 3M as an intern for less than a year

Pros – I was part of the IT internship program and it was great. The intern team was given a meaningful project to work on and got to present it to the CIO. There were many networking events and there were many job openings for those that wanted to stay with the company. The culture was great.

Cons – Long hours if you were part of the the SAP implementation for full-time workers. Tons of construction around the campus which was annoying at times.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company