Colgate-Palmolive Reviews

Pros

People are great - my peers really want me to succeed
Good benefits and mostly supportive management
Flexible work arrangements - not clock watchers

Cons

Cheap - very conservative and makes it difficult to invest in important ideas
Micromanagement from most Senior Levels
Promotions are often given to favorites or to those they want to make "examples" of
Tends to not plan well in advance

Pros

Strong compensation package
Good dental benefits (many places dont have these)
Decent vacation policy
Global opportunities (but expat benefits are no longer the same either)

Cons

Very slow decision making - has gone from a result oriented company to a consensus oriented company. Will follow through with something other than the best decision, if it meets with consensus and the safer route...vs. trying something that might be better but where not everyone is on board. This has led to a handful of people controlling all the decisions with most of middle management really playing the role that most fresh MBA graduates could handle straight out of school.

Mixed messages from management - poor overall direction, conservative, not open to any new or different ideas. Usually sticks to the same formula that's been tried and tested. But talks a big game about "open culture' and "fostering experimentation"

More driven by short term financial implications vs.considering the longer term view . Its living from one quarter to the next, while they talk about planning out 18 months - big joke !.

Completely fake HR - on the sales side (used to be great !). They don't really care about the employee's progression. HR serves more of an execution function vs. running a true HR dept. They have forgotten how to retain real talent...instead focusing on an arbiitarily chosen few - usually favorites of a few in management. Also does not follow through on promises made.

Advice to Senior Management

1.Listen more, talk less ! And walk the walk - if management only acted on what they preached, this place would have a chance to go back to when it truly was "the best place to work".

2. Be more open to other styles of thinking or management, not just the one you've always practised and comfortble with. Winning is about getting outside of the comfort zone and adapting to changes around you, includung the competition. Have more of a meritocracy culture, based on actual performance, not just what 1 person may think. May be time to adopt a new style of performance management and solicit feedback from peers, people managed and external vs. just a few people in management.

3. Need more difference makers/game changes/fresh thinking - time to retire some of the senior folks sitting around for extremely long periods on the sales side and adopt the marketing formula that seems to be working a little better.

Pros

Flexible work arrangements
Positive work environment
Good people.

Cons

Lack of direction.
Efforts going in too many directions.
Lack of communication amongst leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employees and follow through on what you promise. Earn the respect of employees by "walking the talk".

Pros

benefits, culture, salary, nice office, nice people

Cons

slowness, afraid of new ideas of new employess from outside

Advice to Senior Management

dont be afraid of outside experience, keep on learining

Pros

Great dental insurance
Decent medical insurance (great coverage but high premiums and co-pays)
Convenient location
Company Store
On-site cafeteria
Vacation Policy

Cons

Not all employees are treated equally -
management gets all the perks while
support staff gets nothing

Advice to Senior Management

If you're going to offer programs like Work Smart then have a policy where every employee is entitled to participate. Not fair that managers can arbitrarily decide on company policy - - be consistent so every employee is treated equally

Pros

-good pay
-flexible hours
-they pay for your education
-people do respect each other
-no pressure/stress on the job

Cons

-no career growth for people that are just starting out
-company is too conservative
-they have strict rules on people working from home only after a year
-managers aren't too technical
-ideas are welcome but they prefer to stick to their old ways

Advice to Senior Management

-take classes and become more technical
-management is full of 1st generation people that have not caught on to the latest technology
-it is OKAY to employ new people
-a good manager is one that is able to do all of the work on the team and knows how much time and effort each task may require
-relying on certain members of the team to figure out "what next???" shows inability to lead a team.

Pros

Diverse colleagues
Practical approach to marketing
Great products
Lots of exposure to senior executives
Global movement highly probable
Multifunctional teams allows for good sharing of best practices
Best in class for margin improvement without compromising quality of products
Great place for working mothers

Cons

Talks a lot about innovative problem solving and "out of the box" thinking but does not promote it or reward it among employees.
Too conservative...kills creativity
Like many corporations squeaky wheels get very far without Providing much results for the company
No risk taking
In Europe, vis a vis competition, colgate is more of a reactive company, not proactive in approach to their brands.
.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want employees to be innovative problem solvers, you need to do more than just print it on HR documents...it needs to be put into practice.
Colgate needs to dare a bit more, especially in mature markets to generate growth.
Working environment is much more agreeable in high growth markets than developed markets where morale sags miserably.

Pros

* Ability to gain significant global experience, Colgate is by-far the most truly global company I've worked at. At almost any CP office there will be many people of all nationalities and backgrounds. The NY office is probably the most diverse.
* Success is largely driven by your ability to build and maintain wide informal networks. Your relationships--more so than other companies I've worked at--largely determines your ability to get things done.
* Highly stable environment, relatively.

Cons

* Extremely conservative. If you're looking to break the mold in any way whatsoever, you're at the wrong company. While management gives innovation a lot of lip service, in reality, there is much too much inertia and 'failure is not an option' attitude for anything truly groundbreaking to take hold.
* A lot of 'dead wood' middle management . Yes, every company has it's share of managers who's stars have faded, but Colgate seems to have more than most. The sequence of 'Voluntary Early Retirement Programs' in recent years have cleared much of it out, but there are a few notable exceptions.
* High percentage of decisions made unnecessarily high in the organization. Most middle managers are unable to make any decisions of consequence.

Advice to Senior Management

* Continue cutting unnecessarily middle management, empower those left with the authority to make broader decisions.
* Make a more credible commitment to fostering innovation by loosening the reigns on some of the younger, up-and-coming, employees.

Pros

They truly believe and strive to be an ethical, fair and honest company.

Cons

The company is not authentic in it's communications to it's employees. It lacks or has lost it's focus on developing talent. It tolerates bad middle managers and it has lost it's focus on truly caring for it's people.

Advice to Senior Management

Realign focus on the Colgate people. Address (not simply promote) those managers who have a history of bad management characteristics.

Pros

It is a great place to work and since it is quite advanced in communication and data tools it is a great place to learn too.

Cons

If you do not work fisicaly in central office you usually don't get all of the benefits and support as an emploee.