Pros
The 5 Principles are in theory one of the best visions to guide a company even if Mars doesn't adhere to them across all spans and layers of the company. There are opportunities to learn about Supply Chain Management as Mars is very good at what they do from a production standpoint, where they fail is almost every other area of internally managing the business. If you land in the right spot and build relationships with the right people you can fast track to management regardless of your competence, this is not really a pro as conversely if you land in the wrong spot and are unable to cultivate the right relationships through no fault of your own you will fail regardless of your ability, your work ethic, and any value you add to the company Opportunities exist for personal and professional development through developing competencies through training courses, Mars encourages this as they have a very robust performance and review process tied to developing these competencies. The problem is that while I believe this process was well intentioned when it was developed, it's execution is abysmal, the review process is inconsistent from team to team and department to department. It's often merely paid lip service too and in many cases that I saw as an employee it's used to scapegoat an associate rather than develop him/her. The courses and the concept of the review process are still a value add even if they fail in practical application.
Kontras
The 5 Principles (Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency, Freedom) are posted very visibly at every Mars site, in every conference room. The problem is that you constantly see people preaching about them while breaking them in the same breath. One prime example is something called a punctuality bonus. At Mars every associate punches in at a time clock regardless of position. If you are a minute late you lose your punctuality bonus for the day, which means you lose 10% of that days salary. The problem is that some members of management never punch a clock, they override it, which is fine except in the same breath they will tell you that they have to do it just like everyone else. This is one example of the hypocrisy that pervades the business. Like any other company you have good people and bad, the thing is that in the span of my 25 year career I've never seen so many bad people in management, getting promoted through the ranks while good people stagnate in low paid jobs, or get backstabbed out of the company. I personally witnessed a scenario where product went through development and made it's way to the retail shelf of one division with a retail price point before the plant management had determined production cost or assigned a wholesale price. Three people involved - the one who discovered the error, and the two who committed it. Guess which two were promoted and which one left the company. Associates are either grossly underpaid, or grossly overpaid. This means that in many cases you can't attract good talent unless you catch them in a time of desperation. Overpaid associates are generally ones who landed in the right place and either manage to master the game of Mars politics through stepping on the necks of their peers or playing the game of not caring about what's best for the company when it conflicts with what's best for them. The Talent Management System encourages this practice leading to situations where if something is good for Mars but isn't on an associates objectives, it's ignored regardless of whether it impacts a departments budget or not.
