Kimberly-Clark Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Great benefits! Generous vacation offered with ability to purchase more. Immediate supervisor and team was fabulous to work with.

Cons

Upper management somewhat out of touch. Peer review process unwieldy and often irrelevant waste of time. Feedback often vague (canned and prompted responses) and therefore unuseful. 2009 Executive management announced a company-wide plan to improve office environment and then took many departments (I worked in creative department/marketing) discarded offices and shoved us in tiny 8' x 8' cubicles. Couple that with the fact that team leads were extremely reluctant to allow us to work remotely while claiming to care about gas consumption and touting itself as a "green" company. Atlanta traffic is notoriously bad and I often spent over an hour getting to work. I lived less than 20 miles away.

Advice to Senior Management

Resolve the disconnect between what your initiatives state in your company-wide meetings and announcements, and the reality of what is happening at individual department levels. There is often a large and largely unnoticed discrepancy.

Pros

Great People - Many people have been with the company for over 10-15 years and some for most of their career. This helps to build great relationships among co-workers and a fun place to work.
Stability - Overall, business does not suffer as much during a recession.

Cons

While many people have been with the company for their entire careers, this also makes the company very insular and slow to change.
Company tends to be overly cost focused on "little things" (ie office supplies and printer paper) while not realizing that the culture, systems and way of doing business wastes millions of dollars every year.

Advice to Senior Management

Realize that you are selling disposable products in a world where consumers are less and less willing to spend a premium for diapers, tissue and toilet paper. Retail brands are a significant threat and retailers view their brand equity the same way you do. Retail brands will continue to increase their value proposition and take away your market share. Hopefully you will wake up before it's too late.

Pros

The company appraises self-initiated projects and hard work and promotes quicker. Opportunity to lead and to influence multiple projects across divisions.

Cons

Long hours and average pay. It’s expected to start work at 6:30 a.m. and work until 5-6 p.m. every day. It’s also expected to work on the weekends. Leadership does do what says.

Advice to Senior Management

Life work balance needs to be changed. People are overloaded with multiple projects and priorities. Company lacks focus – every project is important and needs to be done.

Pros

K-C does a wonderful job of attracting great talents. It's a place where you can meet a lot of great people who genuinely care about you as a person.
The company gives one a lot of responsibility and opportunity to great professionally early in career.

Cons

Career options and advancements slows down when you pass the 10 year mark. It has a lot to do with the mature nature of the business and slow growth.
There are a few management favorates who get promoted all the time even if they are not ready nor capable. The management has special agenda when it comes to promotion: females have a definte edge.
One seldom gets approval from upper management for a job well done.

Pros

The people are great. The products are awesome. The values of the company are in line with my personal values.

Cons

Limited growth in new products. Highly exposed to commodity prices of pulp and polymer. Expansion in other regions difficult to realize.

Pros

pay is good, friendly people

Cons

everyone has been there for a long time

Advice to Senior Management

communicate changes better

Pros

They listen to ideas, If the idea is developed and tested, they are willing to move forward and us within their organization.

Cons

Some people are set in their ways, which may hinder different ideas and concepts to be introduced or considered.

Pros

Work Flexibiiity and really good co-workers on your teams. It's a great place to make friends. People work well together on teams.

Cons

-It is hard to advance if you were not recruited in from college
-Incompetence in management at many levels
-Culture of fear
-Many issues that do not get addressed
-Angry, upset, disgruntled employees at all levels
-Cannot hold on to top talent because they leave after short periods of time

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs training on how to be leaders. Many people in leadership are not true leaders. They do not know how to develop people and they do not value diversity of opinion. If KC had better management, this would be a great company to work for and KC. Employees currently are working to do the bare minimum to hold onto a job, not to really see the business grow and prosper. There is unethical behavior at many levels of leadership and no one is addressing it.

Pros

They offer many amenities such as yoga classes & an olympic sized swimming pool on site.

Cons

So much corporate politics & favoritism amongst managment & employees. Too manymeetings - cant complete your workload.

Advice to Senior Management

listen to your employees - ALL of them. You may realize the middle management isnt telling the truth.

Pros

Kimberly Clark has great health and dental benefits. The 401k and profit sharing within the 401k is very good. The compensation is very competitive if not better than most companies. If you like working at the same position with a low chance of being laid off then it is a great company to work for until retirement.

Cons

The compensation does not include any bonus unless you are a Director level. The growth potential in the company is limited. Many positions that are higher levels are usually selected from an external candidate or someone preselected in the company. Highly political company to get ahead.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at the talent within the company and learn to cultivate it so you can achieve the level of growth needed. Also, provide bonus at all levels that encourage people to take more risk. Create an environment based on honest discussion and debate. Many managers really don't listen to their team and the results can reduce morale. I would listen to the change agents more and spend the time to grow those employees or you will lose them.