Cargill Reviews

Pros

Big company and hs economic strength, is able to be arrogant with the amrket and dictate how food chain operates, has an unassailable psoition to make significant profits.

Cons

Highly political, quick to find fault with individuals, highly demanding - travel, long hours. Has suffered enormous loss of long terms staff because of misguided strategies and promotion of low calibre individuals to highest positions. Little care for staff or loyalty. A sad change of leadership in recdent years.

Advice to Senior Management

Find your values again and live by them, understand that you can't ride rough shod over people and exepct them to stay. Failure to value dedicated staff burns value and make future performance hard to achieve.

Pros

Relatively good benefits
Friendly environment
City area
Work-life balance, which is being abused by certain employees.

Cons

No training whatsoever
Regional IT community is aging together with its technology, lacking industry experience, creativity and ability. Most capable people have left for good.
Decisions are often politically motivated compromising quality

Advice to Senior Management

Albeit the ongoing management rhetoric asking people not to be content with mediocrity, at least the regional IT organization has mediocrity written all over it. Keep good people and be serious about using IT as your business tool, commit to the cause, else no SAP or whatever ERP can bring its value to Cargill.

Pros

Opportunities to move within company, factory is busy so plenty of work to be done.

Cons

Random layoffs and moving staff around.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't hire people if you intend to lay them off only several months later despite good work performance.

Pros

The food industry is very dynamic, depending on where you are inside the company there are always new challenges: food safety, product development, etc
It is a huge company with 70+ businesses, so there are opportunities to move domestically and internationally

Cons

Very conservative company - things are done in a same way for a very long time and if " they are not broken no need to fix them " - new ideas are not very well received
It is a global company with a very limited view of the world, you can have several peers in different regions of the globe doing the same function, but you won't talk to them.
You're ability to move can be very limited, some businesses don't like when people leave and prevent you from interviewing for different jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

Innovation is not only about products and services, it is about how the company is managed; unfortunately that is a very conservative area of the company

Pros

Felt like part of a team, learned something new every day, co-workers felt like friends, great place to gain new skills

Cons

I was a contracted hire at this company, and due to financial and legal reasons, I was limited in what I could do as a worker there, and outside of my immediate group of co-workers, I was treated as "just a number." The only thing on the minds of upper management was "when will that contractor be let go so we can save money." They had the nerve to force me to leave during the holidays with little more than than a "Thanks and good luck."

Pros

Good Benefits
Values are highly regarded
Opportunities to learn

Cons

Long hours if salaried
Friendship with management is important to move up

Pros

Down to earth culture. Many internal opportunities. Large company with growth and long term success. Most employees are hard workers and not a lot of egos. Impressive leadership.

Cons

Pay is not great and salary increases are slow but steady. eed upper management to champion you into your next role. Navigating the politics can be tough.

Advice to Senior Management

Need more transparency around advancement opportunities. Senior leadership is strong. Middle management should spend more time developing their employees and less time on running the business.

Pros

Large organization; very longstanding presence. Global operations - so potential opportunity to experience work in various portions of the globe.

Cons

Tenure is valued FAR more than anything else. Many senior leaders have been in their roles for many, many years - a result of their having been promoted well beyond their capabilities. However, the Cargill culture is that "If you've been with the company 20+ years, you MUST be a good guy..." Conversely, if you've come from outside the company, your talents, efforts, actual results (should anyone bother to notice those) are discounted. After all, if you've not been there a couple of decades, you're simply assumed to be clueless.

I've worked for a number of multi-billion-dollar public companies - and Cargill, or at least the portion of it that I experienced, has by far the weakest, most insecure, least professional, and most inbred management team of all.

I cannot, in good conscience, recommend Cargill as an employer. Join at your own risk!

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to recognize, and to value, actual performance. Sycophants and long-tenured mediocrities are only going to take the organization so far. While recognition of actual capabilities and performance will require some insight, effort, and competence on your part, the organization will benefit.

You've suffered a significant talent flight in recent years.....ever wonder why that is?

Pros

Work space and shared cameraderie with other frustrated employees

Cons

Worse SAP implementation I have ever seen- IT managers have NO IT experience
MGMS team is a joke _ all customized and nothing gets tested

Advice to Senior Management

Hire IT managers with real world IT experience- test your solutions before go live. The emperor has no clothes- sad

Pros

interesting work and team environment in general.

Cons

salary is mediocre. Slow to respond to market opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management

you should not have sold a subsidiaries to weak companies such as refco.