General Mills reviews

4.0

80% would recommend to a friend

(3,880 total reviews)
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Jeff Harmening

80% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

General Mills has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 3,880 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The General Mills employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufactura industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

4K reviews
2.0
Oct 5, 2021

Downhill Fast

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very flexible work schedule, nice campus.

Cons

General Mills used to be known as "Generous Mills" for their outstanding benefits. Over the past decade those benefits were slowing reduced while many companies competing for the same talent pool increased theirs. Sadly, General Mills benefits are now merely average but the "We're General Mills and we're special" sentiment pervades the recruiting and hiring process. They take great pride in benchmarking their pay against other companies and boasting about how they strive to hire the best. So if you've done that benchmarking and supposedly know the salary ranges of other companies for a given position, why then do they hire for the midpoint of the salary range? You'd think they'd realize that would get them the mid-point of the talent pool but alas, that reasoning has not penetrated. The real decline, though, started just prior to COVID. They brought in a new Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Jaime Montemayor. He came from 7-11 and PepsiCo and was never really in the office prior to COVID and as such had no concept of the rather nice, collaborative corporate culture that existed. Whether intentional or not, he started turning the culture into a competitive cesspool. Instead of encouraging others to work together the best rewards seemed to be for those who threw others under the bus. And Heaven help you if you were a director that disagreed with him. Jaime almost single-handedly dismantled the collaborative culture in a little over a year. General Mills is bleeding employees right now. A lot of their best employees in the technology areas have left or are leaving. Management is freaked out by the departures and are trying to figure out why people are leaving in droves. Unfortunately they haven't thought to really ask those that are leaving.

1.0
Aug 7, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

US based workers much better than average. Enjoy my direct team and those I’ve worked with for years. Known brands and a good headquarters location. Somewhat embracing flexibility.

Cons

Regular layoffs are a strategy (5x in 10 years) and not communicated well. In the most recent layoffs, employees were notified via email. New senior leadership is questionable at best and out only for themselves. Lack of candor or transparency in the organization. And a divergence away from true General Mills values. No career track for US based employees and knowledge and experience is not valued. Standards of those working in the US is not the same for what is off-shored; as long as they are cheap, work product can be poor. Strategy of using external partners in many areas to make strategic decisions for the company and in critical areas. Lack of work life balance. Work load has been very heavy and getting heavier.

1.0
Aug 4, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Used to be the best employees anywhere Internationally recognized brands that are in nearly every home. Large scale operations Beautiful main campus with many amenities. Excellent work/life balance for headquarters employees.

Cons

Mature, low growth business Major layoffs every 2 years on average for the last decade. Layoffs communicated via mass emails, even for employees with 25 years in the company. Extreme 'woke' culture that has adopted critical race theory to justify sex, race, and orientation discrimination. Zero tolerance for anything but far left politics. Diversity and inclusion efforts focus mainly on virtue signaling and not in on improving inclusivity. Dishonest Senior leadership Flattened organization provides few opportunities for advancement No professional development outside of affinity groups Very slow to make decisions Most roles have a very narrow scope Plants are generally not in favorable location Performance appraisal system designed to minimize wage and incentive growth.

Viewing 49 - 51 of 3,880 Reviews

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