Pros

Great brands, reasonable work life balance, diversity of experience. Even if you have to take the beating for a few years, it looks good on your resume

Cons

Horrible managers, favoritism everywhere, a general disdain for anyone but senior leadership expressing their own opinion. Lack of fresh ideas and fear of true innovation.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of Massimo. Stop playing games with your best brands (Tropicana and Gatorade) and give them back to the brand managers, instead of the agencies.

Pros

Fast paced, result driven, exciting work, lots of responsibilities for a new grad.

Cons

Salary, progression to higher levels, culture of loving pepsi over the the top.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend advertising dollars better. Reward those willing to put more hours and effort.

Pros

+ Great pay and benefits
+ Generous vacations
+ Unlimited personal days off
+ 4 day work weeks year round
+ Promotions come automatically
+ Very light workload

I started working at PepsiCo Chicago 22 years ago when we were Quaker Oats. I worked for about 5 years when I realized that my peers were not working and were being promoted. After speaking with them I learned the corporate way:

1) Create a role for yourself: e.g. requirements lead, test coordinator, construction manager, ....
2) Insure the role you choose does not require any tangible output.
3) As the contractors are motivated, let them do the work. Get details/status from them.
4) Document and present the work details/status.

This has been working for over 15 years. I have been promoted 3 times. When PepsiCo purchased us I was concerned about change, but things are even easier now. Management is in Plano Texas and they know even less about what I do than did Quaker management. PepsiCo hires only contractors and no employees, so there is always someone to do the work, and our positions are not threatened.

After 22 years I am ready to retire, but I'll stay around as long as I am being paid, and wait for my package. Hopefully the SAP migration will speed things up.

Cons

- No skill development.
- No movement between departments / cities, can't move to a warmer climate.
- Few motivational activities / programs

Advice to Senior Management

- Create opportunity to move between departments.
- Develop training programs.
- Develop rewards programs.
- Develop more on-site motivational activities.

Pros

Very laid back culture. All the people are easy going and very helpful. Overall, the people do not see work as their first priority, so there is a good life/work balance.

Cons

Almost impossible to advance your career path into senior management unless someone dies or you work with the company for 50 years.

Advice to Senior Management

Need better organization. There is massive division within the internship program. Interaction between interns is very rare, so it is hard to gauge how the others are performing.

Pros

Top notch Brands, Speed to Execution, Compensation, Leadership visibility, Diversity focus, Exposure to Sr. Management, Company Equity/Image and Facility.

Cons

Work life balance is a joke, too many priorities that change constantly.
COmpany growth was phenomenal in last 5 years which created a huge neglect for processes, structures and approach. Integration between other units hasn't happened even after 5 years which puts lot of pressure internally.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on HR leadership so they can put critical processes in place (training, etc.)
Reduce number of priorities.
Create better integration across key functional areas.
Simplify the organization structure.

Pros

Looks great on the resume
Good professional learning curve
Some good systems, SAP exposure in certain areas
Highly driven people

Cons

Highly driven people

 "PepsiCo Chicago" is treated as a PepsiCo "Chicago". They're not us which is what prompted this review. Take this in a relative stride but you are an acquired company and not core PepsiCo. Your assimilation has been something akin to Germany taking Poland without tanks but not smiling. The realities of working in NY are far more stark; 60hrs wk during down cycles, no work life balance, Summer what?, just no pleasantries.
The AOPs are a mess, the massive system integration exhausting and costing too many brand people, the flight of leadership to outside has been covered by the press in Business Week, Ad Age, and the Wall Street Journal thrice times.
We are losing mid & upper mgrs in droves and should be. Indra has positioned this company for disaster.
"We need more consultants in here", "If the world is a hand and the large nations are the fingers, then the U.S. at times acts as the middle finger towards everyone?" We have lost all of those brand seasoned guys and replaced them with ibankers and consultants. Bad ethic. Poor Chicago's brands have been pummeled by her direction, what was she thinking with the Tropicana and Gatorade branding this year??? You just can't repair that kind of share loss.
The turnover is huge and the questions that perspective replacement candidates ask are difficult to answer pretending we're still a leader in the industry anymore. No one is following where we're leading. We already hit the iceberg and the people leaving know what's happened.

Advice to Senior Management

Put down your synergy report showing xyz, drop the bs consultant speak, and be a man and quit. Or take your work by the horns and steer some concrete change because you know what you are talking about. We are littered with type A's who are all front & no back.
Hey Indra how many years have you sold Orange Juice? Because we've been selling it for decades and you just took the picture of the freakin Orange off the carton.

Pros

PepsiCo offers competitive salaries, half day fridays during the summer, a diverse workforce, some training opprotunities and decent benefits.

Cons

PepsiCo is a hard company to work for because there is no manager accountability, projects mandated from senior leadership that are controversial, and the company for some reason has the "me too" mentality that does not foster innovation and creativity.

Advice to Senior Management

PepsiCo needs to revamp it's innovation and idea creation program. Also, need to make manager more accountable - especially new managers. Training for new managers needs to be completely reworked.

Pros

The job has exceptionally great pay.
The holidays and paid days off are tremendous.
Very liberal budgets/deadlines, finish work at your pace.

Cons

Programmers from a generation ago when anyone could be hired as a programmer due to a programmer shortage have by seniority moved up into the ranks of management. The skill sets are far below par.

Due to the excessive budgets there is no real accountability. If a one month project takes four months that's fine; six months is fine also; or eight.

The excessive budgets leave management free to fill projects with cronies. So a project is loaded with 80% cronies who do nothing except create their facade.There is no incentive/reward to work hard. The senior people have done no work in so long I'm not sure they are capable of working any more.

There is no one minding the store. Upper management is in Plano Texas. I haven't seen them in a long time, and never in the winter.

Advice to Senior Management

Create realistic budgets so that managers have incentive to use good people.
Check the aptititude of the workers, including managers.
Use oversight.

Pros

Pays well
Great work-life balance
Fridays off
Easy workload

Cons

Promotions are based on politics. There is no incentive to work hard, many people work maybe 4 - 6 hours per week total, yet are treated better by management. Management seems incapable or unwilling to manage.

Advice to Senior Management

Get management to manage.
Do something about the corruption and politics.
Distinguish between people who work and people who don't.
Promote based on abilities.
Review based on achievements.
Use something other than politics to determine opportunity and promotions.

Pros

Great brands and company reputation are sure to make your resume sparkle. People are the bright, ambitious, and fun to work with for the most part.

Cons

Due to management shake-ups and slashed budgets, morale has suffered over the years. When a bunch of type A personalities sense their jobs are on the line...it's every man/woman for him/herself. Not a pretty picture.

Advice to Senior Management

Stabiliize!!!! Scared employees are powerless to innovate.