Beware your incentive pay, vacation - Process Engineer 3M Employee Review

3.0
Dec 17, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stable company with very diverse markets Some products are very cutting-edge technology Good mid-level management Many of their factories are in small towns where it is cheap to live, if you like living in small towns Pay is decent

Cons

Company holds back a percentage of your pay each month for salaried employees, and based on how the company and division perform in the year, you get a payment in March. If the company exceeds their plan, you get a bigger payout. If they have a rough year, you get less or maybe not anything at all if it is really bad. But beware their trickery! This year they changed it from US & International sales to solely US sales. International was the bulk of business, so they found a way to pay their employees less. New changes to their vacation policy are also upsetting. All vacation is given at the beginning of the year and must be used by Dec 31st, or it disappears. Problem is, some years the plants will close down at Christmas so everybody saves their vacation until the end of the year. Then when end-of-the-year orders come through, everybody has to work. So either take your vacation in the summer and take leave without pay in December, or hold on to your vacation and watch it disappear in December when you're buried in work.

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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