I really don’t know where to get started.
The backend SNO support teams are in tatters. Whenever a new initiative gets confirmed and launched, a brand team member gets promoted and nothing happens in PS team. Some teams have some of the inept middle managers [B3 to B5]. B5 onwards it gets better. The SNO structure is a massive mess but is being paraded in a victory lap.
The Singapore office has had some of the shadiest hiring practices with contractors and new hires. The mandate from the top is to increase experienced hires but the lifers think otherwise. So, what the SG office does is hire experienced hires on 6-month probation periods to meet critical projects that can’t be done by the so-called in-house ‘’greats’’ and then puts people on notice using PIP to kick them out once they complete the project.
This happens with both contractors and experienced hires. Note: the normal confirmation period for normal hires is 3-months.
Some brands have more Adecco contractors than P&G staff. It’s a joke!
In some of the brands, B4s are all from one nationality. They schmooze together like they own the place. One even commented that “he/she” is more powerful than people in Cincinnati.
The product review meetings are joke and are conducted so that B4 and above can closely guard their strategy and ensure no change or initiative ever gets the go ahead and disrupts the overall brand strategy. So, working team spends a lot of time going through x number of pre-meetings, x number of pre-pre-meetings just to get past B4 and B5 level to ever get to the main approver’s plate. By which time the approver has more or less decided what he or she is going to do. It also buys time for the approver. [Ever wondered why the overall economic productivity in the world is on the decline? This might be the reason]
Sometimes you get to go to seminars, and guess what nobody raises the hand. When someone does the moderator, who is usually a B4 will frown at you as if you have committed blasphemy. Basically, the moderator doesn’t want to get into the bad books of the seminar conductor who is usually from US/Europe. [Often signs of inferiority complex from the typical Asian bosses]
A lot of bad mouthing happens when you are social events. Crass comments like – “ Oh..you know what I once hired a guy from an Ivy League University or a top management school grad and he was so bad”. Another sign of inferiority complex from the typical mid management team that really doesn’t know how to carry itself based on its achievements. They feel the urge to bad mouth to boost their average egos. The company also removed a lot of MBAs as a part of cost cutting.
There is a serious lack of strategy in the company as is witnessed by the tremendous competition in Shave care, Beauty and Fabric. In Fabric and Home are dwindling part of the revenue drivers. I will let you in one a secret – Some brands are called a billion-dollar brands but are really only delivering 70% of the worth i.e. if they were independent companies, they would be trading at 30% discount. So, much for sum of the whole is greater than the parts theory.
Some Functions don’t let you aspire. It is also true in some categories like Beauty. You are not allowed to have any ambitions. If you do your rating will be affected. I sometimes wonder how this company will manage to draw millennial customers into the with this kind of archaic philosophies.
Performance Reviews: If you are a good at the being a poodle to your manager, you may get somewhere. This is normally true in Brand function. In PS, it doesn’t work because when you deliver, the brand person will get promoted.
The company has an agenda to have 50% of women in the organization by I think 2025 or 2030. This is a laudable goal in my opinion but you must at what cost? The answer is meritocracy. What I am saying is ladies on average will be promoted more often than men to meet this goal irrespective of performance. In some categories like Beauty it’s all ladies and in some categories like Fabric it’s all guys. Normally I am fine with this but the management should do a better job at managing expectations of performers. Now back to the goal, there is a subtle insight. There is data worldwide to show that women are underpaid than men across professions. So, one begs the question, is this a subtle cost cutting measure at the top?
The company is still using rating curves to NOT gauge your performance BUT to perform cost cutting. So, if the logic is somebody MUST go every quarter or year, then does your performance even matter? Data already shows that performance is neither improved nor worsened through performance reviews but let’s not listen to top thinkers. We’re are smart! FYI – the company that invented performance reviews GE has just tanked by 80% of its value. Karma always comes back to bite the hand that feeds it.
Top down the culture got lost since the new top management has come onboard. It was more fun till 2015 since then it’s been downhill. Asia doesn’t seem to matter to the top because the focus is on US. Basically, they have given up the fight with Unilever in Asia and they are getting hammered in Beauty by low cost South Korean Brands and lost the Gillette war to Dollar Shave Club. No acquisition plans! No innovation plans! We will grow through entropy seems to be the message.
