Pros
There is a great range and interesting work you can do as a market researcher at Clorox and the work-life balance has traditionally been excellent (no one is there after 5pm and there is half day Fridays over the summer) but the new CMO is actively looking to change this
Cons
The crazy politics within the GI department has gotten so out of hand they are now hemorrhaging people left and right. There were 4 people who just quit, literally in the span of 2 week period, who were some of the best & most experienced market researchers within the department. The GI leadership has promoted and valued those who are extremely political, who have shamelessly taken credit for other people’s work, and who are seriously incompetent without even realizing that some of the work that’s been happening has been flat out wrong, giving business partners bad information from which to make decisions. It’s just shocking that the business partners haven’t figured out what’s been going on, yet. In addition, nowhere else would some of the people who are Directors and Senior Directors in GI even be considered for senior manager roles. There is a range of outrageously immature, unprofessional, inappropriate and unethical behaviors that happen among the GI leadership such as talking about getting drunk or going on dates during large team meetings as well as publicly shaming people and disclosing inappropriate information about some people to others. Moreover, I believe in meritocracy and would have no problems having anyone who is deserving regardless of their age and experience be promoted IF they are able to do a great job. But at senior levels, one factor in being able to be great at your job is actually having the benefit of experience whether it’s in managing people, directing an organization or even having appropriate level of expertise in work but Clorox GI gives zero credence to the amount of experience people have. In Clorox GI, there are people who are Senior Directors who are so inexperienced, have poor judgment and aren’t smart enough that they don’t even realize that some of the work that is happening is absolute garbage. And it’s a total shame that they have some really strong and experienced people who have to report into these incompetent Senior Directors. Level and type of experience should be a necessary but not sufficient factor that they look for in senior leadership but the top 2 people who are being considered to replace the head of the function in the next couple of years are the youngest and least experienced people in their mid-30’s who are not respected or trusted by those who have to report into them and are extremely immature and have done countless inappropriate things. Also, there was a recent restructuring of the marketing organization where everyone in GI went from being a specialist to now a generalist. The problem is that some of the specialties like Shopper Insights doesn’t even teach you how to do research and now the organization is left with a large set of junior people who don’t know the basics around research along with a sizeable number of managers who also have never really done any research or the type of research that are done most frequently. Blind leading the blind, anyone? Net, I would not recommend considering Clorox GI unless if you excel at politics and don’t really know how to do research work, in which case this might be a place you want to join since you may have a shot at getting promoted.
