Thread regarding 3M layoffs

When I started working after college in 1986, maplewood, Oakdale, and woodbury were good places to live. Great schools, minimal bullying, very low crime rates, safe streets. Now I can walk down any street in woodbury at night and feel safe, at least for now. Not so in the other two towns.

Diversity is great as long as you subscribe to the American philosophy of law and order. Commit the crime, do the time. Now Diversity, inclusion, equity have destroyed this founding principle of America. All men and women are created equal but no one has the ba--s to stand up for crime and punishment. 3M is a mess for many reasons but the wokeness are part of the problem, not the solution.

Signed, a happy retiree and boomer enjoying a good pension, retiree medical, and glad to know the answer to the question - what is a woman? Hint: it's all in the chromosomes

Another massive threat to our personal wealth that is not discussed is property value in steady decline.

Public high schools in Woodbury, Maplewood, and Oakdale are roughly 2/3 Asian and Hispanic. This not a bad thing, and supports diversity.

However, Ted Kennedy pointed out in 1964 that minority majority neighborhoods property values drop dramatically. He invented section 8 housing to level up the housing opportunities.

So after our mass lay off, most high end homes in these neighborhoods will be underwater.

Diversity at the expense of boomers that never wanted this in the first place. I feel duped. Curtailed pension, 401k, salary, and now property value.

Current 3M is living with the sins of the boomers. They pollute, pass fraudy products and now blame the issues on the young whippersnappers. Classic geezers going "Back in my day we only let white males make terrible decisions, now they are letting people that don't look like me make shady deals and I can't stand it" This rot is a consequence of "material science" being playing fast and loose with ethics and pollution. 3M needs something different and cutting the fat off St. Paul is a great start. The lab and marketing are a joke and need to actually be aligned with the plants.

As far as how degraded and corrosive 3M culture has become, wait till the cr-p really hits the fan if 3M loses its appeal at the 7th circuit and casey Rodgers, the enraged, anti 3M judge gets her vengeance vs 3M for trying to diss her publicly.

3M will have to find more "synergies" to cut another few billion from the budget.

To the 35 year employee, thanks for a fantastic writeup and summary of the history of 3M since the 1980s. I'm a 1986 hire who left the mother ship after 35 years as well and left as part of the covid business conditions firings. Happy to be out with a pension and severance.

Tartan park was definitely the experience and yes 3M was the best big company to work for in the Twin Cities, even better than general mills which was also a great company to work for as I knew a few of those folks. I believe from the 1980s until the end of the Desi era, 3M was always in the best 100 places to work in usa. That changed with the GE guy.

The only good thing I can say about McNerney is that he did a better job of allocating capital toward businesses that had the best growth potential. Desi dumped over a billion into what later became Imation, and that cash would have been better utilized in other businesses. Imation faded away without a whimper about 10 years later.

Six sigma became EXACTLY as you stated a way to promote the younger high potentials (who were given that ranking because of being younger and also handled themselves well in communications). It was NOT based on genuine leadership or merit. It came down not to how well you did your job but instead the who you know system. Some bosses were in the IN CROWD and got people in the 2 year program while others didn't have the influence.

The jack Welch rank and yank 1 to 5 performance ranking system was the biggest disaster to hit HR, perhaps in 3Ms 1st 100 years. I still cringe when I remember having to, as you said, "offer up" more employees because we did have the 15 percent or whatever number of 2s (below average grade, but not unsatisfactory). I distinctly heard from an HR leader that our business only had 14.6 percent as 2s. Not the mandatory 15 percent. It was awful having to go into the system and change a few people from 3 to 2. I knew that the performance review session was going to be an awful memory for both employee and I. The system was pernicious. Near the end, I too got ranked a 2, apparently because a black belt joined the department and they were going to be a 4 or 5 so SOMEONE had to be dropped from 3 to 2, and it was me. At least that's what I figured out because everyone one of my monthly goal reviews were very positive.

The people I worked with were great from top to bottom until the McNerney years, and then the leadership and HR became hypocritical, even deranged when challenged, and it never recovered. Most employees below a certain level were still fine people, but a few system gamers began to play games and get promoted at the expense of other's accomplishments.

I may regret not taking lump sum this past year. This company is in major financial trouble with next to zero organic growth and likely tens of billions in legal liabilities.

Sad to say when I started work this company was a featured GOOD example in Built to Last book and now is a tire fire for morale, financial performance, and competitiveness.

I've enjoyed reading the posts from this site. I worked at 3M for 35 years only to be downsized in Q4 2015 because financial goals were not going to be met in Q1 2016. I thought it was a great company to work for back in 1981 when I started.

Work hard and play hard was the mantra. Tartan Park and Lakeside were alive with 3M employees on any given night. I was proud to work for such an ethical company that treated employees fairly, and safety & the environment were a priority. At least that's what I thought at the time. It was THE company to work for in the Twin Cities.

Most of the people I knew in Engineering regularly put in the hours needed to get the job done right. Sometimes that was 40 hours / week but it could be 50, 60, 70, even 80 during project installations. Not much complaining or push back at that time but maybe there should have been. I think employees felt more appreciated by their supervisors / managers and they were given challenging projects. It also had the feel of a company that would take care of you until you decided to retire and, of course, there was the defined benefit retirement plan.

Much changed when McNerney came on board. Some positive, but much of it was negative with Six Sigma and Black Belts becoming the so-called future of the company. As someone had said earlier, many good middle aged employees were passed over for these BB positions just because of their age. It wasn't even kept a secret. Some were simply told that they were too old. I was actually in a room when a senior manager told an employee exactly that. I was part of the class action lawsuit for age discrimination. Mid 30's was the sweet spot. BB's completed their two year assignment and were given huge promotions to positions (JG15-16) that, in many cases, they were not prepared for. Chaos ensued.

Relationships / teamwork started to take a back seat to the bottom line. HR no longer represented the employee but now protected the company by any means possible. Diversity and inclusion were stressed for promotions at the expense of more qualified employees. Performance appraisals had to "fit" a certain curve depending on business results and there had to be a certain number / percentage that were rated 1 or 2 on a scale of 5. There was no exceptions to this rule. I could barely stomach the process when HR told the managers we would have to "give some people up" and change their rating from a 3 to a 2 to fit the rule. I made my feelings known (unfortunately in an ill-advised e-mail) and I was subsequently given a rating of 2 in two different leadership qualities and was told I was lucky that it wasn't worse.

Now it's all about the bean counters and the stock price & shareholders. Most investors that haven't sold yet are still in love with the dividends that 3M keeps churning out. Otherwise the stock price has been abysmal for the last 6-7 years. I'm not sure why the current CEO is allowed to hold his job with these type of results. Given the billions that will be paid out in future lawsuits for PFAS and ear plugs, 3M is doing what they can to free up money.

I fear 3M will not come out on the other side. RIP 3M but not until you clean up the global mess that you are directly responsible for. Watch the movie "Dark Waters". Mostly about DuPont but 3M is also part of the storyline.

You guys are boomer AF. Just because you wasted 30+ years of your life believing in some great cause doesn't mean that you didn't just sell you soul to some d-mb corp. The level of copium in this sub by boomers is hilarious.

Regarding 3M "ethics" somebody posted earlier that there is an inverse correlation between the number of PR announcements and stock performance. Companies try to divert attention from pathetic shareholder returns by churning out more PR newsline stories, whether "awards" for innovation (never mind that sales never materialized) or diversity inclusion and equity. 3M has absolutely nothing to boast about for shareholders under Mike, so hey let's pay some feel-good HR firm to "win" another award. Or let's hoot and holler over 220 bldg Christmas lights.

I was only a few years into my career when national lampoon Christmas vacation came out. I chuckled at how a company could be run so poorly and have such an arrogant condescending boss like Frank Shirley. 3M had mostly good if not great leaders those days, and a culture that supported innovation and caring for employees above goosing the share price by a nickel by cutting more heads.

What has happened here is a Harvard business school case study of what happens when you bring in a rigid, quarterly earning focused, management by fear culture of GE into a collaborative, friendly, employee focused culture like 3M developed under McKnight and that lasted through Desi. The culture shock has ruined a beautiful company.

3M would be better off just to hire cousin Eddie to run the show than the M&M boys.

Think it over , 3M has been yearly forcing its employees to sign of so many compliance courses.. one which even says check if you hold up your actions for public scrutiny and if it doesn’t it’s not ethical or compliant.

And so much that is in the news about 3M recently whether litigations on PFAS , Ear plugs and how they gone about gone redundancies would not hod up to public scrutiny.
At the same time and then going out chasing ethical awards, spouting sustainability.

Every other employee at a certain on social medial making statements to say what a fantastic job and such great initiatives, in the hope of surviving the next round of redundancies..

What a toxic environment, culture it’s been reduced to !!

Glad you prefer working for a d-mb company that makes stupid decisions with incompetent leadership. Admitting that you'd rather work in a cush job will never get 3M out of the toilet......(another c r a p p y reference). Make sure you keep that mouse jiggler plugged in so it looks like your working while watching reruns of Deal or No Deal.

Oh, by the way.....whenever there was a "leadership" review, great time, effort, and expense was used to repaint walls, remove and reapply floor tape, etc. The point is is if you can't take care of the small stuff like showing respect for your employees by providing clean facilities, what else can't you do?

3M has culture? Best joke of 2023. Maybe it had but all gone.

3M is d-mb and makes stupid decisions but seriously this machiavelianism you are putting on senior leadership is pathetic. I will take incompetent leaders and keep this cush job instead of working to the bone for some place with a "good culture". If s h i t t e r s is the best thung to complain about then yoy haven't worked at a scrappy company.

HR generated comment? Just dont brainwash people with your new ideas. Fighting for "freedom" generating slavery!

3M is a copycat. This culture is 1990s GE under jack Welch. Management by fear. Mind games played on employees by deranged bosses. Rewards system skewed to reward only the highest levels like JG15 and above. Extreme passive aggressive. Your job is the most important thing in your life. Thanks James McNerney. You brought this company a gift that keeps on giving, the GE brand STDs. As for the rest of you, be glad you have the jelly of the month program. Cousin Eddie approves.

I agree working from home in your pajamas, watching price is right, not having to use shared stinky refrigerators and gross microwaves and bathrooms is cush. Everything else - not so much.

3M might have bad features but you must not have worked at another large company. They are not the best like they used to be but work in real manufacturing and you will realize how cush 3M is.

Curiosity is just the beginning ‼️

Please don't tell me to leave if I don't like it here. Trust me, I'm working on it.