Good place for extroverts who like meetings and who value form over substance - Anonymous employee General Mills Employee Review

2.0
2 Sept 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. Nice-if-pretentious "campus", with lots of anemities (childcare center, Caribou Coffee, workout center, etc.) 2. Convenient location right at the juncture of two freeways 3. Career development; managers make concerted effort to match people with desired work

Cons

1. Too many meetings: People hide in the organization through meetings, use meetings to do work "collectively" so that they don't have to actually do their jobs. Most employees literally have their entire weeks 100% booked with meetings, back-to-back-to-back. Difficult for a "I'm here to get work done" introvert to even function. 2. Bureaucratic: even small tasks involve getting "buy in" from people via dozens of meetings. No one wants to hold individuals accountable, or be held accountable, which is how the culture evolved into "I'll spread the decision making risk around". 3. Lifers and the old boy's club: Too much emphasis on who you know, not on the work you do. Lifers think the "General Mills way" is the best way, even when it demonstrably isn't 4. Political: 40% of what you do at the company is actual work. The other 60% is navigating the morass of General Mills culture and politics, keeping up with org chart changes, etc. Doing crap work but volunteering for the United Way campaign more likely to get you promoted than the other way around. 5. Form over substance: Company has this ritzy campus and propaganda plastered all over the walls (things like "we care about our employees!"), along with politically pushy "LGBT" banners at the employee entrance and bragging about their "climate change initiatives." Yet actual projects are total messes in execution! One guy I worked with said "we make money in spite of ourselves", and that sums it up.

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5.0
17 Mar 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Good work life balance, many people fully remote or hybrid

Cons

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4.0
4 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Work life balance, pay, company culture

Cons

Slow to adopt innovation, bends to the whims of the shareholders

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