A good place to grow old - Business Development Manager 3M Employee Review

3.0
Aug 15, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very social attitude towards employees and work-life balance resulting in low employee turnover rates. Very strict business ethics and culture of respect and tolerance for diversity as well as high sense for environmental responsibility. Many different work opportunities within the same company. Excellent reputation for high quality products and innovativeness. Stable business growth creating secure work places.

Cons

Extremely complex matrix organisation structure with chronically underressourced teams that are supposed to achieve outstanding reasults by coincidence. Very poorly designe structures for customer-facing and external business subserving tasks. Far too much administration and formalized processes creating internal friction and reducing time and energy for more meaningfull external and customer-oriented work. Too many initiatives and programms that seem to serve more as career boosters for the individuals who introduce them instead of making real positive impact on business results and culture. Filling of higher level job grades very intransparent. Latent attitude of risk-aversity. Little possibility to develop fast for real talent.

Explore other reviews about 3M

5.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good company to work for.

Cons

Large corp culture for employees

4.0
Jun 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Compensation is genuinely competitive — one of the stronger-paying manufacturing roles you'll find in the area. Benefits package is comprehensive and well above average. The retirement account and stock options are a real standout, especially for a machine operator role; 3M clearly invests in its employees long-term. Day-to-day, the people on the floor make the job. Coworkers were hardworking and easy to get along with, which goes a long way in a production environment. Upper management is what you'd expect from a large corporation — a bit removed from the floor — but that's pretty standard for a company of that size, Not a deal breaker.

Cons

The shift schedule is rough. Rotating between 12-hour days and nights on a swing schedule sounds manageable on paper, but constantly flipping your sleep schedule takes a real toll over time. Work-life balance is difficult to maintain when your "days off" are often spent just recovering and readjusting, and you can easily miss out on normal life things — social plans, family time, errands — simply because your schedule doesn't line up with the rest of the world that week. Upper management can also be a friction point. When people who haven't touched the machines in years (or ever) come to the floor with strong opinions about how things should run, it creates frustration. The folks actually operating the equipment day in and day out develop real expertise, and that doesn't always feel acknowledged from above.

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