General Mills – “General Mills - We Do More Than Cheerios... and We Do It WELL.”

Pros

General Mills is very good about getting its employees the training they need, both through classes and experience. There is a wealth of resources available to you in the form of talented coworkers who are more than willing to meet with you and share knowledge from their own personal career path. The rotational programs here give you a great chance to sample different positions in your role so you can find the right fit for you and gain different perspectives of the company. General Mills is also very keen to work-life balance and community involvement. People are generally very flexible with scheduling, and half-day Fridays in the summer are awesome!

Cons

On the whole, communication is excellent. There is a lot of push to be innovative and for everyone to share their two cents. The only thing I have personally found difficult is figuring out the lines of communication to actually get that innovation ball rolling, especially when it pertains to something outside of your function.

Advice to Senior Management

I love one-on-one meetings! It is so great that General Mills really encourages people to do them. I'd say it would help a lot more if some of the senior management could spin the clock back to when they were in a new set of shoes and try to show newer folks how to establish a baseline for their performance. General Mills is FULL of talented people, but talented in ever-so unique ways. It's hard sometimes to find where your own personal expectations of yourself meet with the company's subjective expectations of you because (and this is a good thing) General Mills is very employee-driven.