Pros

Micron offers great careers for people wanting to work for a fortune 500 company in a city where family and community still mean something. Micron cares about its employees and layoffs are something done as an absolute last resort instead of what other companies are doing.

Micron is a place where I would recommend my kids working when they grow up and where I would be happy to retire if given the opportunity.

Cons

Micron is slow to adopt change. Working from home is discouraged and the management has poor leadership skills at a department level. For example, since a lot of the management has come up from production, many managers watch the clock for professionals on salary and they treat their people like production line employees.

Many of the Managers have also come up from technical positions, so their understanding of business is limited and their leadership skills are mediocre to poor. Micron tends to think that technical expertise is more important than business and/or leadership expertise so there isn't balance in the team skill sets. Once these individuals are promoted to these roles, many of them have an attitude that they are too busy or already know what they need. Many never pursue additional training and classes.

Micron still tends to have a manufacturing focused mindset. By this I mean "We will build what is most efficient for us and the customers can buy what we build".

Advice to Senior Management

There should be no "good ole boys" or "untouchables" that are allowed to continue in their positions despite their poor leadership and human resource skills. When you hear several complaints about a senior manager/director and their leadership skills, please take action.

Also, if they are poor leaders then fire them instead of moving them to a more neutral position. If you don't feel anyone is telling you who these Manager/Directors are, then look at where you have the most attrition and department transfers.

At an executive level, the recommendation would be to continue doing a great job. We are well positioned to survive the economic crisis, and when the expenses were out of line last year the executive team did everything possible to cut costs without going straight to head count reductions that other executives in other companies do.

Also, continue to keep the employees in the loop as well as you have always done.