General Mills Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

People are respected and treated well
Good learning and development practices
Good fringe benefits (vacation, flexible working arrangements)
Fairly shallow management structure, and Director-VP level people are accessible

Cons

"Minnesota-nice" culture sometimes limits the candor of feedback
Technical functions do not have a lot of input on business teams
Lots of turnover on business teams, especially in Marketing
Overly focused on diversity for the sake of diversity

Advice to Senior Management

Respect the quality of your brands, and recognize that continual cost-cutting over time will erode that quality. Recognize that people will develop differently, and really pay attention to people when they put things on their development plans. If those plans don't match up with an individual's perceived performance or potential, have the courtesy to share that candidly.

Pros

Great company with strong moral fiber and leaders with good intentions/cares about employees...Management strongly supports employee development and flex work hours

Cons

weak on strategic vision and inability to prioritize causes poor work life balance...promotion track in marketing slow...and the "minnesotan nice" culture sometimes makes process/execution slow...while it makes the top ranking on diversity, the company (mainly through the marketing organization) is still run by very white male midwestern type guys...thus diversity of thinking and leaderships style is not appreciated as much, not because they don't want to, but because they don't have exposure to diverse thinking and don't understand how to leverage it

Advice to Senior Management

Prioritize, and get out and see the world more!

Pros

Twin Cities Location
Competitive salary
Schedule flexibility that allows for family matters
Good people with whom you can develop great friendships

Cons

Highly political organization, some executives are all about their careers without regard to actual results
How results are communicated up is more important than the actual result, if you are a great performer but not a great communicator you lose
A degree of nepotism

Advice to Senior Management

Become bolder on actions, times have changed... What took GMI here, will not take it there. Identify true performers and weed out low performers

Pros

General Mills has a best in class marketing program, they are great at innovation and having a consistent marketing planning, strategy and brand stewardship approach. The consumer insights uses best in class methods and approaches. This is a great place to learn marketing and research.
They know how to simplify things and focus on what is important. Top notch executive management focusing on Holistic Margin Management, Strategy (Plan to Win), and Brand Building programs.

Cons

Once you are an experienced CI manager there isn't much room for growth. The current VP and many of the older directors aren't good at managing people and expect people to stay motivated without any control over what positions employees are moved to in the organization. Unfortunately they aren't good at setting a vision for the organization or leading. While they can execute some best in class quantitative research the Senior CI directors don't' understand how to value the softer side of research or right brain thinkers. Their career model doesn't allow for much deviations there are a couple paths and if you don't fit into one of them it's harder and takes longer to get promoted.

The CI organization made an attempt to look at 'future skills' and what it takes to be a good Consumer Insights person in todays world. Many of the future skills were more right brained and the organization is setup to reward much more left brain skills. The intent was good and the folks who put together the program did a good job. But in the end hard many of the Sr. leaders don't have strengths in that area and are not able to coach or train folks in these skills.

The worst part about the culture their is the competitiveness. They don't have a win win attitude - it's always someone has to lose for another person to win - there are only a few Champions!. All their programs emphasis this Plan to Win, Champions awards, Company of Champions, etc.. While this is great when thinking about the external competition it doesn't foster team cooperation. It's really hard when you are up for promotion to the same level as your boss who hardly wants another person in his peer group to compete for a handful of director spots. A friend who is also a former mills employee put it best. "Mills has a way of making you feel like you are the worst of the best - once you leave you realize you've gotten a great grounding in strategy and best in class work that is valued outside of the Mills"

I left after 20 years because I couldn't imagine working for the VP her potential replacements when I got promoted. Plus I found a great job at another big CPG which allowed me more room for personal growth. While I miss the great strategic frameworks and innovation mindset, I don't miss the lack of appreciation for what I brought to the organization. Now everyday at work I know someone appreciates what I do!

Advice to Senior Management

I think the executive wing at Mills is great but they need to take a strong look at how their CI leadership is motivating and managing the careers of their people. You've got some top notch folks in CI middle management and you need CI Sr. Leadership that knows how to manage a diverse set of skills, personality types and approaches. You need a fresh new perspective on people management that understands that not all folks are willing or going to stay at one company for a long time if they aren't able to grow and develop in directions that motivate them.

Pros

Competitive pay and benefits
Great communication

Cons

ITQ lacks diversity- African Americans can't be promoted unless they are there for decades. Unless you are from the true midwest, you won't be treated equally.

Advice to Senior Management

Work harder with diveristy in areas where there are problems. Hold Senior leadership accountable for results. Make sure that there is a representative distribution of diversity talent at the manager level in ITQ.

Pros

Great people - highly energetic, fun to be around
Great benefits - on site fitness facilities, onsite vehicle maintenance, onsite salon
Great culture - focused on healthy food options, focused on giving back to the community
Growth - company keeps expanding in logical ways

Cons

Some bad departments - managers who do not care about the company or their employees and offer no support to get the job done
Communication lacking at times

Pros

It is a pretty fun job, you get to work with a bunch of intelligent individuals and you rotate jobs to gain a decent knowledge of the company as a whole. Dress is business casual, and summer Fridays are shorter hours.

Cons

Somewhat political, hard to get a promotion. It is a really big company.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer promotions based on credibility and merit rather than personal relationships.

Pros

Great people to work with, very talented people throughout the company, good training opportunities, they do care about work life balance, great facilities.

Cons

Promotion pool can get and stay full for a long time, strong performance reviews do not drive promotions, performance calibration system is demotivating.

Advice to Senior Management

Change the performance calibration system, reconsider how the constant push to network drives promotion decisions.

Pros

Company is committed to health
Company provides opportunity to make a real difference in what people eat
High ethical standards
Senior leaders listen to nutrition scientists
Company has improved healthfulness of many products
Pays more than any other job for dietitians

Cons

The Bell Institute is an "unusual" function at General Mills so many colleagues understand our role and may not appreciate the value we provide
We work harder than people in other jobs -- longer hours, higher quality work expected
Because there aren't many places for us to work in the company, we might not have as many promotion opportunities as product developers or marketers

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to value health and support initiatives to make the portfolio healthier

Pros

Workout facilities and health coaching and other services available. Good benefits, and in many cases flexible work arrangements are available. Many opportunities both domestic and international.

Cons

It is a large company, and it is easy to get bogged down in trying to keep tabs on all divisions/operations. There can sometimes be an overemphasis on classroom training.

Advice to Senior Management

Be flexible and agile. Try to take on new challenges at as fast a pace as possible. Now is a time when people are looking for information about the products they use, share it and bring the transparency to as many things in the company as possible.