Innovative Playground but with Toxic Features
Pros
3M is an amazingly innovative company. As a scientist, working at 3M is like being a kid living in a toy store. It's a wonderful feeling being a part of world-class innovation. I absolutely love the work I do, and it's a real thrill to develop exciting products alongside other passionate scientists and engineers.
Cons
Unfortunately, 3M seems to have some major faults, especially in today's sociopolitical climate. It's hard to write this, but it's important to share. From my point of view as a scientist and product developer, 3M seems to care more about its shareholders and its managers than it does about the people inventing and manufacturing the products that make our company relevant. This is a sad situation and I think 3M can do better. The first step is acknowledging some of its many serious missteps: 3M cut jobs and salaries during the pandemic, but somehow had plenty of cash to pay out as dividends to rich investors on Wall Street. This makes very little sense from an organizational health perspective. And it makes even less sense from a social justice perspective where income inequality is such a strong forced for much of the negativity we see in the US right now. Furthermore, 3M promotes and rewards managers who lay off productive and valuable workers with no regard for the pandemic-rattled job market. Leadership would do better by 3M to adopt a Stakeholder Mindset. 3M claims to be an inclusive company committed to sustainability and equality, but continues to reward career sharks who stifle truly sustainable innovation and the diverse people who drive that innovation. 3M cancels programs and stifles innovations that offer true sustainability (even ones with objectively excellent profitability) in favor of gratuitously high and unsustainable profit margins. 3M further rewards the same lock-step managers who feed this toxic culture, and stifles the careers of those who try to make a positive impact to our global society. As a scientist and global citizen, it is incredibly hard to see this happening at such an ostensibly progressive company like 3M. While 3M is truly excellent at charitable donations around the world, there are serious internal problems with diversity and inclusion. I applaud 3M's philanthropy, and hope to see improvements in culture internally. For example, while we do have quite a few underrepresented groups in leadership roles, many of these people have the same career shark mentality that prevents the people they're representing in their demographic from thriving and attaining similar success. Now, this message board ensures that "each employer has the right to respond to a review left by a member for free, and that the employer be given the last word on a review." I enthusiastically invite a response to this thoughtful review - with the counterargument that our planet, 3M's employees and customers, and humanity's global society always have the last word. 3M needs to do better. The good news is that we can do better. We have many excellent people. We just need to have the right people in leadership roles. Suggestions are provided below.
