Medtronic Reviews

Pros

I am inspired by its mission: alleviate pain, restore health and extend life..." and want to do somthing meaningful.

Cons

very hirarchy structure
Does not value its employee (some department)

Advice to Senior Management

You need to verify the outcome of a change. Do not just change for the sake of change.

Pros

Nice people to work with

Cons

-Management does not promote people.
-Upper management lacks sense of direction.
-Too many politics and layoffs

Pros

Excellent benefits, competitive salary and reasonable vacation time. It feels good to be part of company that makes truly amazing products that can improve lives. There is an active technical community within the company and they've done some cool work internally with social networking to leverage employees' expertise across business units.

Cons

Lots of layoffs in recent years and and maybe more to come with worries about markets slowing down. Moving to different jobs internally is not easy. In my experience,some hiring managers are reluctant to hire people who are looking to grow new skills. But there are good opportunities if you take time to build a network and let people know what your goals are.

Advice to Senior Management

Most formal leadership development programs are open to management only. I wish there were some leadership programs for individual contributors, too. Leadership skills are essential for lots of people who don't have "management" in their title.

Pros

Good place to start a career. Leaders will communicate well with the employees. Feedback mechanism is followed and is better than other companies.

Cons

Not many opportunities to grow within the company. Hard to change functions or roles. Limited salary growth. Overall compensation is not very good.

Pros

Great mission and satisfaction from working on medical devices.

Cons

Internal politics, more time spent battling other groups for funding within Medtronic than focusing on the competition. Poor portfolio decisions by senior management, and when competition passed us up with a new device it was the employees fault if the copy cat project wasn't completed in an unreasonably short time. Little respect or appreciation for working overtime (which happened all the time).

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees and not your egos. They have some good ideas about what the market needs and have good communication with physicians.

Pros

Great benefits which include time off, onsite gym, onsite cafeteria, stock options and reasonable works life balance.

Cons

No enough resources to manage all of the demand.

Pros

Smart People
Hard working team members
Good Benefits
Good name for resume
Dedicated employees
Pockets of good management
Competitive pay
Mission

Cons

No growth
Turning into a commodity business, and Medtronic does not have a competitive advantage-not number one in quality, not lowest price, not best/easiest customer service..
Layoffs every year since 2006
Lack of clear direction
HR policies change all the time with no notice
Spends many millions of dollars on dinners, charitable outings (golf tournaments), and other events for doctors--money that could be used to brand Medtronic, develop new products, improve quality, etc...
Many employees think that the mission is "dead"

Advice to Senior Management

Revitalize the mission and pick a direction, for example: low cost, highest quality, most efficacious, best customer service, etc.
Remember that the organization is made up of people---43,000 Human Beings (some who are Medtronic patients) who develop the products, make the products, sell the products, distribute the products, service the products...
Hold people accountable for budgets and don't use layoffs as the only means to address budget challenges.

Pros

The company succeeds despite itself. Well respected name. Ample resources. Offer excellent benefits and opportunity for upper movement due to the high turnover of managers

Cons

Communication from the home office to the field poor. Mgmt not in tune with the environment or reality of day to day operations. Sadly, it is perceived by customers as an arrogant company...knowing what the customer needs...versus asking the customer. Recent gains by the competition has put the company in a tailspin unable to effectively compete having "owned" this market foe so long

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. Don't just operate under "the way we've alway done it". Time for a radical facelift to compete with strong competitors

Pros

Company that is very serious about its Mission: "to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life."

Cons

Highly regulated environment, taking long time to embrace and execute change compared to other industries.

Advice to Senior Management

Be a leaner organization, willing to take the risk & change, Regulatory agent is not whom you serve -- patients are.

Pros

Sensitive to diversity
Management supports work life balance

Cons

Promotions come late, and salaries are not on par with other big companies