Great People and Culture - Senior Manager Mars Employee Review

3.0
Aug 17, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Company Culture. Really believe the 5 Principles and most associates use them in decision making. Open office and access to senior managers across segments. Focus on Sustainability, volunteer, offers great opportunities to give back to People and the Planet. Open communication. Training programs developed in the past 5 years are excellent - leadership training and other. High caliber associates in general. IT Division: close interaction of the IT team to the Business Units, good opportunities to grow,

Cons

Location, salary no longer in the top 75%. In the Global Services division, management favors a single style to get ahead rather than diverse opinions or styles. Still very much an "old boys club". Senior management (Mars Global Services) mostly white males of a certain age and "yes-men". Associates are identified as having "leadership potential" early on and given additional opportunities, coaching and training, creating a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' of talent who excels. While this happens everywhere to some extent, it has become more overt over the past 5-10 years, and difficult or impossible to advance for those not considered the 'chosen few'. Many very talented leaders have left to go elsewhere (and have become CIOs and VPs of other global CPG companies) because they were not among the 'chosen' and were not promoted.

Explore other reviews about Mars

3.0
Jan 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Company car (fuel card, insurance, etc) - Good benefits - Great brand exposure/understanding of CPG sales at the retail level - Annual sales meeting is fun, but exhausting - Simple job

Cons

- Micromanaged by leadership (EVERYTHING is tracked) - Extremely repetitive work (not much freedom in creating your schedule, same tasks over and over, etc.) - Dealing with retail management. If you don't have respectful store managers, good luck. A lot of your KPI's are out of your control and your experience relies on your store. - As DOZENS of other people have said, this is a merchandising job - not sales. You are responsible for placing product on the sales floor after consulting with the store (basically asking management who only views you as free manual labor). There is no commission/incentive for producing positive results. - SEASONS: this is the reason why you have this job if you're working with the Walmart channel. You have unrealistic expectations set from leadership to pack out hundreds of heavy cases of candy each holiday season after begging store management for space to place it. Most of the stores' back rooms are a complete mess and a lot of your product is inaccessible. Long days are expected with no additional pay. - Work/life balance: It is frowned upon to work the bare minimum of 40 hours/week. Your stores get backed up while you're on PTO. Overall: an okay role This isn't a bad job by any means, you just need to know what the role entails before taking this job. You need to relocate for any future opportunities within the company.

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Mars Response
5mo
Thank you for taking the time to write your review. We’re sorry to hear your experience with us has not been positive. We aim to support our Associates in every way throughout their time with us and are committed to their wellbeing and development. Please reach out to the independent, confidential team at ombudsman@effem.com, and we look forward to discussing this further.
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