Medtronic reviews

Work/Life balance in the U.S. is simply terrible, especially in staff functions. Many employees and leaders in staff functions are just burned out. After the Covidien acquisition, Medtronic became much more bureaucratic, and it adopted many of the Covidien bureaucratic policies and procedures. This resulted in many employees at the senior manager and director levels having to slow down the work of their teams to comply with the new rules. In the U.S., Medtronic employees also experienced a significant reduction in their benefits, as Medtronic responded to the need to reduce benefit costs to make sure that Covidien benefits did not increase too much. Also, after the Covidien acquisition, the business travel policy for airline travel significantly reduced the value of airline travel for business travelers. Medtronic said that its new policy was "competitive with market practices" (which it was NOT). But the aim of the changes was simply to reduce the cost of international airline travel at the expense of those business travelers who frequently traveled internationally.

- Department of Justice investigated two charges with this business and Medtronic agreed to a settlement in 2018. Charges stemmed from practices dating back to 2008 and 2015. - Medtronic R&D spend doubled from 2014-2023, however, significantly behind peer group as a % of revenue. Innovation has suffered immensely. Market and shareholder appreciation will need to wait a decade to see any meaningful change especially in such a bureaucratic and matrixed organization. Stroke market expects rapid fire innovation forcing Medtronic to acquisitions, but there is one problem - corporate Medtronic isn’t growing revenue any faster than 4% and can’t get meaningful operating leverage to deliver more profits to generate cash. Cash prioritized to strategic growth businesses which Neurovascular is not. - Medtronic has immense pressure to deliver improved operating profit. Higher expectations put on Neurovascular to offset poor performing other businesses. Expectations are outsized with market growth, innovation and realistic market position. - 2/3 of revenue with the Neurovascular business comes from two products. One market leading product with the balance of portfolio in lagging market positions. Consistent pipeline challenges. - High teen percent employee turnover hasn’t materially improved causing several issues. Leadership and succession planning internally driving assignments with inexperienced and ill-prepared. Higher leadership appointments often coming from outside Medtronic. Employee development lacking. Engineering and marketing in Neurovascular have volatile staffing challenges reportedly perpetuated by poor or no leadership. - 20+ year Medtronic veteran, new leader arrived in Neurovascular early 2021 proclaiming change only to perpetuate a culture of fear - now with a smile. Operates with restricted and privileged access where seemingly routine updates are expected to be “performances”. Senior finance personnel describe not being able to communicate financial expectations in a straightforward manner and so forecasting is gaming. - Several examples of Neurovascular leadership positions open for nearly a year only to be filled by close personal friends of the president. Peculiar hiring practices like a manager appointment with no prior experience who assistant coached on the President’s youth football team. - Several quality issues in this business were served with regulatory warnings - symptoms of low to no process, poor training and revolving door for employees - High employee turnover combined with decade-long low investment in process and information technology is cause for extremely low employee job satisfaction (reported semi-annually) with ease of job and then with regards to managers caring about employees. - Year to year merit increase is budgeted at 2%. Leadership advertises promotions to be 4-8%. Major restructuring in recent years with annual layoffs to reduce levels offer fewer promotions causing career compression. Compensation is not competitive compared to larger Medtronic peer group and certainly not against other companies in Neurovascular - Enterprise-wide cost cutting measures in place for four-plus years with frozen headcount and minimal to no travel starting Q2 and lasting through end of year. Leadership seems to have no interest in customer and market. Focused on internal reporting and quarterly pressures.