Micron Technology reviews

1. Micron is turning into Sandisk v. 2.0. There have been few internal promotions to executive levels since Sanjay took over, with most new blood coming from Sandisk and almost all are are non-American and have no clue about the culture in places like Idaho, Utah or Virginia; that culture is what made Micron a success and they're killing it. 2. The executive team (the C-Suite execs in particular) are COMPLETELY disconnected from the operations of the company, seem unaware of the low morale they've created with the focus on their own wallets and power structures, and present a garbled, disjointed "values" system that is more marketing than a realistic plan to improve the soul of the company. For example, they espouse the value "we care about our people" while at the same time kicking team members out the back door. 3. The new performance management scheme is a thinly veiled attempt to lay-off 10-15% of American workers every year for the next 5-7 years. While unspoken, it's become apparent that Sanjay and his team have no respect for American workers. Each year, 10-15% of workers will receive a failing performance grade, and while there's an alleged path to redemption, in actuality it's nearly impossible for those workers to meet the arbitrary and unrealistic expectations defined in their "performance improvement plan". And since everyone is graded on a bell curve, every year another group of workers will fall into the failing category and be fired. This rank-and-yank system has been shown over and over in studies dating back to the 1980's that it lowers morale, turns the job into a popularity contest, lowers efficiency, and just doesn't work. The fact that it's in use in 2019 shows a level of incompetence and ignorance from the executive team, and doesn't engender a lot of trust among the hard working team members who make them successful. I personally know of dozens of highly skilled workers who are no longer with the company because of this scheme. 4. Continuing from #3, it's obvious that Micron is trying to get away with performing layoffs without having to report that material information to the SEC, shareholders, and other stakeholders. It's a legal requirement in the U.S. that all workforce reductions above a certain percentage must be reported. 5. Expect to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including on vacations, holidays, while sick, etc. With all the terminations and resignations, and with no back-filling of those positions being allowed, each team is doing the same job with less and less labor. The inevitable result of this is going to be more failing performance evaluations and more firings. It's a vicious cycle that will see workers spending more and more hours on the job, never quite catching up to the work-load, being told they're failures, and morale will continue to decline. 6. While you're expected to be on-call 24/7 and available by phone, remote connection or pager, the company doesn't provide equipment beyond a cheap 80's era pager with which to communicate (and even that's only 1 way communication). With 10+ billion in profit last year, the least the company could do is provide cheap smart phones for all team members who are expected to act 24/7 in the case of an emergency. 7. The CEO is using the tax breaks provided in the new 2017 tax law to make $10B in stock buybacks. Even as market conditions deteriorate, the exec team is stubbornly sticking to the buyback plan. This goes completely against the alleged "progressive" values the company purports to support. 8. Expect to have your "priorities" shifted on a regular basis, often while in the middle of a project that was top priority just 2 weeks ago. The company's strategic planning is non-existent, and often happens after the action period has already started. For example, it's March 2019, 6 months into the fiscal year, and upper management is still deciding how to execute on the (non-existent) strategic plan for the year. Also, everything is a top priority, which means nothing is really a priority, and this contributes to low morale and indecisiveness by team members and their departments. 9. Departments often have objectives that conflict with other departments, and often those conflicts are resolved by whichever VP can yell the loudest or who knows the most powerful C-Suite exec. I've been in meetings where I spent an hour listening to VP's and Directors scream and cuss at each other, and I've even seen several people threatening violence. Those people are still with the company and leads to my next point: 10. Many upper management and executive level leaders use a management style reminiscent of 1980's era thinking. Management by fear. Management by negativity. Management by impossible expectations. Management by dictate. Management by enforced cutthroat competitions among team members. 11. The company is slowly shifting American workers to India - expect to train your replacement if your department is one of those being off-shored. 12. The environment for a regular cubicle worker is terrible. The lighting is bad, people are packed in like sardines, the decor is drab, there's very little natural light, and overall it doesn't contribute to happy, healthy and productive workers. 13. The mental health of a lot of workers is extremely compromised. Combine a poor physical work environment with cutthroat survival competitions, shifting priorities, opaque direction from the executive team, the fear of dropping into the bottom 15%, the hostility from management towards mid-management and front-line team members, and their are a lot of people in a really bad place mentally and emotionally. The company has offered mental health services to team members, but it's attacking the symptoms without touching the underlying root problems.

No feeling of job security, the current performance model demands 8% layoffs each and every year. Even if every employee excels someone will still need to go. Micron promotes employee contentment on one hand and slaps them around with the other. Not many employees are happy with this new model, supervisors are telling employees they are doing great at midyear reviews and then being forced to lower the review rating and offer the employee a severance package at years end. I have been told this comes directly from Sanjay and no one has the balls to tell him this is wrong. He believes that there is always room for improvement, which is true, but this is a drastic way of achieving that goal. He is attempting to instill performance through fear.