Scotts Miracle-Gro reviews

3.6

55% would recommend to a friend

(904 total reviews)
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Jim Hagedorn

60% approve of CEO

44% positive business outlook

Scotts Miracle-Gro has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 904 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Scotts Miracle-Gro employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

904 reviews
1.0
Apr 18, 2021

Extremely Disappointing

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary and bonus compensation is above other local corporations. Benefits are great including 401k contribution of over 7%. The company is very stable and business is good. Little to no risk of downsizing. CEO seems down to earth and very transparent. Many people that have been with the company for 10+ years. All hands meetings are fun and engaging. They also send out "gifts" prior to every meeting.

Cons

Onboarding and training is surprisingly disorganized and unplanned. Processes and knowledge isn't on paper and just in the heads of those who have been with the company for a long time. Processes and training documents are created during the onboarding process leaving room for gaps and confusion. You are "thrown into the deep end" before you are trained and have knowledge to see things through. You are expected to self-train and just ask other people on the team what you should do next or how to do certain tasks. Overall training consists of walk-throughs of tools with general functionality and then cut loose to perform tasks without real life examples. An exorbitant amount of meetings. Literally every day 9-5 back to back. Sometimes starting earlier and going later. It makes it impossible to perform your duties of your role without working evenings and weekends. I found myself working as early as 4 am and as late as 10pm almost daily and on the weekends just to try and stay afloat. Tools are archaic. They love their google sheets and there are hundreds. Sometimes google sheets with lists of links to other sheets as a "bookmarking" system. Tools don't talk to each other and you are expected to update multiple tools and sheets taking up more time in your day. Saying no or negotiating timelines is not accepted. You will continue to take on more work whether you have capacity or not. Higher leadership at VP and above don't seem to have a clue what the teams below them are going through. The CEO sends an email every Friday saying it's an early release and everyone ends their day at noon. It's actually very inconsiderate knowing that many of the teams can't even dream of participating in that. The culture on this team is very negative and at times rude. I've seen the director shame someone on their 5th day with the company in front of the entire team. With no remorse. A few weeks in, I found out that there was an extreme amount of turn over on the team with full time employees and contractors. Anyone that leaves the team or the company is bad mouthed and talked about from leaders about how "horrible" they were. On occasion I've heard managers brag about their direct reports getting so overwhelmed they blew up on them and quit on the spot and said good riddance. They were proud of it rather than being reflective. I've seen the same manager blow up and belittle business partners on team calls in front of colleagues. Extremely unprofessional behavior and it's encouraged at the next level. It's seen as being assertive and "taking charge". Comments like "throw you in the deep end" , "I'm not going to hold your/their hands" and "I need you to be a problem solver and figure it out" are said on repeat when you are new and can't possibly have enough knowledge to make informed decisions. It's clear that the team is not staffed appropriately, or that the managers of people in place are not strong people leaders. They are doers who don't have the capacity or patience to train new hires. They have unrealistic expectations and are not open to discussing how to make it better. You will be told that they can't change the demands of the job or that Scotts isn't right for everyone.

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Scotts Miracle-Gro Response
5y
We are sorry to hear your negative feedback. If you could please reach out to your HR Partner or our HR Hotline, 1-888-YOUR HR1 (1-888-968-7471), we would like to learn more. Thank you.
1.0
Feb 11, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Scotts is a very fast-paced environment - - sink or swim, no on-boarding. It can be very exciting to work at Scotts for the right personality. Also, the company's products are truly good quality and it makes one feel good that they are part of adding quality products into the market.

Cons

It's not Scotts' 'sink or swim' culture that's the problem. It's the 'good ole boy' network from the top to the bottom that creates an artificial environment of politics. It's all about winning favor with the right people - otherwise you will not be rewarded and may even be penalized because of where you stand politically (that is - who in the high ranks likes and supports you as an employee). And, Scotts promotes the 'forced ranking' performance review system. Not every manager uses forced ranking. Its manager's discretion on what degree to use forced ranking. So, if you work for the wrong manager, and let's say - in a department of about 5-15 people, he or she ranks everyone from 'best' to 'worst' and puts the 'worst' on a performance improvement plan. Don't worry - you don't actually get fired. It's just part of the system at Scotts that some managers use. However, remember the 'good ole boy' network? Where you stand every year in your manager's forced ranking is dependent on how you're viewed by the network - not by your performance. You can do the best job, and if you don't get the right alignment politically within the company - guess where you will stand at the end of the year? One has to deal with company politics everywhere, but at Scotts, I felt like the politics and aligning with the 'right' people was much more the job than the work that I was hired to do. If you're good with corporate politics, this is a place for you. If not, you may find the environment very frustrating in that whatever you do, you cannot get a 'pat on the back' saying 'good job'.

4.0
Oct 10, 2017

Highly energizing but can be difficult at times

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A fast-paced and high-change environment so you must like this pace of work in order to be successful. This is a large international company but operates like a medium sized business meaning you will get exposure to higher level initiatives and leadership. Casual corporate culture but can be aggressive at times. The Marysville Corporate Headquarters has a beautiful campus with state of the art wellness center.

Cons

The fast-pace and casual culture could be a negative to some people. A lot of acquisition work can make it hard to keep up to speed on business processes and streamlining them.

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Glassdoor has 1,008 Scotts Miracle-Gro reviews submitted anonymously by Scotts Miracle-Gro employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Scotts Miracle-Gro is right for you.