I’ve been with 3M for four years now, and it seems to me that options for advancement or longer term career build-up are barely there or straight non-existent. I don’t necessarily want to spend years here, but everyone wants to have something to show for their time with the company after multiple years before they move on. I feel like I’ve been just stagnating here.
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3M promotion is more about whom you know, rather than what you actually do. It's all about perception and optics.
3M's Chief Science Officer, alluded to this, when she was accepted into Charlton Society. She mentioned that for a period of time, she directly reported to the CEO (M Roman). Meanwhile many well deserving candidates and in all probability better candidates, never had a chance since they did not hobnob with the right people.
"Very little upward mobility with flattened organization. Career path in recent years has for sure been stagnant. Maybe with some more restructuring and name changes things will be better"
This.
The elimination pension was by design.
Removing stock options for JG14-15 was by design.
Elimination of offices was by design.
The reduction in rating scale from 1-5 to 1-3 was by design.
Ergo, the limitation of advancement is by design.
Clearly, limiting promotion and advancement was done on purpose.
It’s fun to watch all the people from outside get hired in all the VP positions and above while they say they are people first company.
@vyx+1vP9EGoF is absolutely right.
Sadly, this is 3M. Globally.
You need to learn the art of boot licking. Those who su-k up to the boss, shower the higher ups with praise and tow the line are the ones that get the promotions. Hard work, delivering results, ethical behavior, not rewarded in this company.
Sadly , at present, it first depends on your skin pigmentation. 3M no longer seeks the best, HR just needs to ensure that the correct boxes are checked. Hoping BB corrects this anti-American behavior.
Narrow? The road has crumbled from poor leadership decisions and HR neglect. The bridge is out. Buckle up if you stick around, and don’t suggest you had no clues. There’s years of documented concern from a long parade of caring employees on this site alone. Or maybe you like hearing now is not the time, help is on the way, it’ll get better, and many other hits played by managers at annual EPR?
The major flaw is * velocity of promotion* in management ranks, as compared to * velocity of promotion* for the technical folks , i.e. the working class in 3M.
In the former category, promotion pretty much occurs every 3 years till the level of Director or T6 equivalent. It is just like clockwork. Then it depends (in many cases) on how good a sycophant they are to get to a VP level or higher.
Hence in 10 years every Tom, Di-k and Susan gets to a Technical manager or T5 equivalent, provided they are able to" toe the line" and do the horse-work for upper management.
Meanwhile for the worker bees , every promotion till T5 takes 4 to 5 or even more years and T5 almost always takes some kind of commercialization effort to get to that level. Otherwise career track stops at a T4A level, till an inevitable layoff awaits after the age of 50 or 55.
Thus 10 years for Technical manager in management track while 14 to 20 years for reaching T5 in technical track. After that, probably 3 to 5 % ever make it to T6 or T7.
Is anybody surprised why new folks are running to be a manager. There is simply very low probability of making any meaningful career progress in the technical track ! Ironical considering that 3M is a technology based materials science company.
Also no surprise that middle management is filled with folks who were utter failures at the bench and choose management track to get the next promotion! So many examples at 3M.
Very little upward mobility with flattened organization. Career path in recent years has for sure been stagnant. Maybe with some more restructuring and name changes things will be better
Depends on your educational background and work function. Technical new college grads are generally promoted every two to three years.