Mars Incorporated Reviews

Pros

You can make your work what you want to be. You will continually be challeneged by your peers. Managmenet is very strong and they will listen to your ideas. Very balanced male/female management (50% of managers are female). A great place to be developed. The five principles give associates a lot of freedom in makin decsision and having autonomy

Cons

The IT systems are truly poor; although some progress is being made. It can be about who you know and how you can leverage your networks. A more informal promotion process even though it is shrouded in formality

Advice to Senior Management

Develope the organisational and IT process to remove waste. The current progression formalities do not fit with the culture of the organistation, change one but leave the culture alone.

Pros

Open office atmosphere and amazing brands makes Mars a unique and compelling place to work. The travel opportunities abroad and throughout the US network allow an associate to be exposed to different ways of making and selling chocolate.

Cons

The acquisition of Wrigley has put a lot of short term pressures on Mars to cut costs and return a certain bottomline at all costs. This would often mean senseless hiring freezes and travel bans when all logic and economic conditions in the marketplace would tell you otherwise. The company is extremely short term focused.

Pros

Family Oriented
Good locations to work throughout the area

Cons

Some Management needs training in learning how to speak with employees

Advice to Senior Management

Take more management training courses in communication with employees.

Pros

Large scope/responsibilities, talented people, pay & benefits, ability to take on as much as you are able to. Strong growth and brands.

Cons

Lean workforce, senior mgt out of touch, politics and some people spending more time managing up than doing what's right.

Advice to Senior Management

Get under the covers and find time to see/hear firsthand what is really going on at the lower management levels, not just 'lip service' from direct reports. Make sure the bottom line ($) does not sacrifice the 5 Principles set forth by the Mars founding family.

Pros

Good bonus' IF the store is making target
Can wear casual attire
Free hot beverages in the staff room
Opportunity to work more than contracted hours IF the store is making target

Cons

Supervisors are trouble makers mainly because they are often left to do as they please by managers.
Managers hire and fire at will with very little explanation or genuine cause.
Unnecessary amounts of pressure is put on staff who are expected to be happy 100% of the time despite increasingly tense working environments.
Managers regularly b*tch and gossip about the personal lives of colleagues and often try to control, manipulate and dictate how staff members live their lives and deal with issues outside of the work environment.
When I first started working there the core principles> Mutuality, Freedom, Efficiency, Quality and Responsibility were thrown about heavily and we were encouraged to think of them and enforce them in our daily activities - towards the end we were told that mutuality was a lie and freedom certainly did not exist in that place.
I do wonder how the Mars family would feel if they truly saw how M&M's World is being run.

Advice to Senior Management

So many people have written reviews about the injustices in this company and the blatent violation of the 5 principles which were designed to protect their employees.
I think the treatment of the staff in M&M's World is satisfactory at best, the benefits are great until they stop making money. I think they should employ less staff, train them to a higher standard as well as introducing managers who are actually competent and coherent not Starbucks coffee managers. Also employing so many young people is not a wise move as it creates tension and jealousy. The design layout of the store is pretty bad too but I guess there's not much that can be done about that.
First things first - go back to the 5 principles and don't just say them but genuinely live by them and all will be well.

Pros

Decent benefits
Stable job
The lower ranking production workers and office people are a great bunch to work with.
Free chocolate

Cons

Annual bonus is based upon opinion of managers with no set guide lines for rating.
Job descriptions and reality don't match.
Promotion and evaluation are not based upon competence and ability but on politics.
Company propaganda is misleading.
The old boys network controls everything to protect themselves at all costs.
The few do the work of the many.
Training is virtually non-existent and very hard to get.
Everything is geared towards office people with little regard towards production workers.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit expecting the low level employees to do all the work while continually increasing the workload and allowing the pay to dwindle. Go and talk to the workers not their managers. Make sure what you think is happening in the work place matches reality. The management seems completely out of touch.

Pros

Great culture
Many opportunities to develop and make a difference to people and the planet through performance
Great associates and family feel
Mars, Incorporated is a family owned business. We are very much decentralized and we use our Five Principles: Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom to guide our decisions. While you may find many of these Principles in other companies, Mutuality and Freedom are much more unique. A mutual benefit is a shared benefit and a shared benefit will endure. We apply this Principle to all our interactions internally and externally with our suppliers, customers and consumers. Freedom is also unique as we can make decisions free from market influence about how we can grow our company and how we can benefit people and the planet as well as Mars.
Mars is the ultimate great place to work.

Cons

Watching a competitor be first to market when we could have been first by executing better. We need to watch for signs of complacency.

Advice to Senior Management

Maintain continuous improvement mindset

Pros

Pay, company car, benefits, candy and iPad.

Cons

All about favoritism and who you know
Review process is a joke
Complete lack of diversity - many of the minorities have been "let go"
Two women in Senior Leadership Team
Good old boys club
No one trusts anyone else - for good reason!
Kiss up and lie and you should do well!!

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people fairly. Not everyone has to or wants to be a future leader at Mars!!!

Pros

Very good people to work with - smart and supportive; very good brand building

Cons

the promotion relies on the manager impression on you but not the performance; the workload is huge; it is not a working place for technical people

Advice to Senior Management

personal relationship can make things easier. Mars is a PEOPLE business.

Pros

Great people, good working environment, safety, cleanliness, good pay compared to other food companies and work-hours flexibility in certain jobs.

Cons

Senior management covered for each other. Lack of proper discipline for managers who obviously played favorites. Very lean company, so you did more than your share of work. High levels of stress amongst hourly employees. Most say they can't wait to get out of there.