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Luck of the Irish Irish immigrants William Procter and James Gamble met when they married sisters. Procter, a candle maker, and Gamble, a soap maker, formed their company with about $3500 a piece in 1837. After growing steadily and reaching $1 million in sales in 1859, the company hit it big with Ivory soap in 1879. Procter & Gamble remains the world?s largest manufacturer and marketer of household products. The company currently reaches across a spectrum of more than 300 products that it markets in 140 countries worldwide. The P&G Hit Parade The 20th century at Procter & Gamble sounds like a commercial for a compilation of consumer goods' greatest hits. The company's research centers have churned out a remarkable string of successful innovations: Crisco, the first all-vegetable shortening (1911); Tide, the 'washing miracle' that was the nation's first synthetic laundry detergent (1946); Crest, the first toothpaste with fluoride clinically proven to fight cavities (1955); and Pampers, the first mass-produced disposable diaper (1961). More recently, the company has introduced Pantene Pro-V (1992), the world?s leading shampoo, and in 1996, received U.S. FDA approval for the use of Olestra, a calorie-free fat replacement. P&G became the leading marketer of feminine sanitary products when it acquired Tambrands, maker of Tampax tampons, the following year. In 1998, the company, hoping to create a 'fabric refresher' product category, introduced spray cleaner 'Fabreze,' and 'Dryel,' a home dry cleaning kit. Perfecting their pitch As much a pioneer in marketing and advertising as in product innovation, Procter & Gamble has also produced some of the most famous campaigns in advertising history. The famous "99.44% pure" Ivory soap campaign was one of the first to directly target the P&G consumer. In 1923, Crisco sponsored cooking shows on the radio; and in 1932, P&G began sponsoring daytime radio dramas. The company aired its first TV commercial during the first televised major league baseball game in 1939. And long before Peoria became popular among politicians gauging the pulse of America, P&G played there ? Pampers were test-marketed in the small Illinois city in the early 1960s. With a $3 billion marketing budget, Procter and Gamble is the world?s biggest advertiser. Get behind me Satan! A company as consistently successful as Proctor & Gamble is understandably threatening. Perhaps that is why P&G has long been accused of Satanism - the false rumor that P&G's trademark was the devil's sign and that the company donated to the Church of Satan was revived in 1996. The company logo, which depicts a bearded-faced moon and 13 stars (representing the 13 original colonies), actually has its origins in 1851 America. In response to consumer alarm and sliding sales, P&G sued competitor Amway for allegedly fanning the false rumors among distributors. A $595 million lawsuit finally went to court in 1999, but was found to be without merit. P&G is appealing the decision. Jager's new deal Only six months after replacing John Pepper as CEO in 1998, Durk Jager found himself with a major restructuring on his hands. In September 1998, the company revealed a plan dubbed "Organization 2005," through which it will eliminate 13 percent of its workforce (15,000 jobs worldwide) over the next six years. Additionally, the organization will be converted from four regional business units to seven global units divided according to product category. The company will also create market development organizations to create unique local sales and marketing plans. The restructuring is designed to cut costs, boost sales, and keep P&G on track to meet its goal of doubling sales within the next 10 years. By June, 2000, however, Jager decided to call it quits and handed the CEO reigns over to long-time P&G exec. Alan Lafley.
Procter & Gamble recruits for its management-track jobs at most prestigious business schools and undergraduate colleges. It also prefers to hire through its internships rather than directly into full-time positions at the company. Internships last about 12 weeks in the summer. The company asks that applications be submitted by January for the internships, as they try to fill them by March. Recruiting schedules, and in some instances, P&G contacts for certain schools, are posted on the company?s career center web pages. The screening process is very selective. It usually involves several rounds of interviews and always includes a company-designed multiple-choice test designed to test critical thinking skills (formerly called the P&GMAT, and now officially called the ?Problem Solving Test?). Procter & Gamble is equally concerned with the personal traits of its hires, and thus gives applicants a questionnaire designed to probe characteristics the company believes will predict job success. The basis of Procter & Gamble?s recruitment and evaluation for managers are what it calls the ?What Counts Factors.? The most important of these, insiders say, are leadership, initiative and follow through (execution), innovation, and critical thinking. Procter & Gamble?s summer internship programs are the best way to get started at the company. Says one MBA intern who planned to accept a company offer: ?Summer internships almost always result in job offers. This summer, interns received their offers before they left P&G. During this past summer, the CEO stated that one of his long-term goals was to recruit brand people only from the intern pool.? Another MBA intern says she knew of no one in the program who did not receive an offer.
Yuppie heaven As would be expected of a company whose logo contains a reference to the original thirteen colonies, Procter & Gamble is not the hippest of work environments. Still, the winds of change do waft through Cincinnati. One employee describes the company as ?very conservative.? ?To fit in,? he says, ?you should be a typical yuppie - drive a Saab.? However, most other employees say the atmosphere is shifting. ?The culture here is a bit on the conservative side, though it seems that the younger generation is changing that,? according to one insider. ?I am finding an emerging diversity of thought and dress. More and more men are finding it ?OK? to keep their hair long or have an earring,? says another. ?Obviously we?re still a somewhat conservative company. But there is more openness and acceptance of those who don?t fit the ?traditional, conservative? look or views.? Stifling structure Accounts of how P&G operates run the gamut from ?surprisingly nimble and non-bureaucratic,? to ?extremely structured and hierarchical,? but enough insiders complain about its being overly bureaucratic to suggest that the description, while perhaps not unilateral, is far from a fluke. ?What I did not like was that the company was large and sometimes very bureaucratic, which meant that change sometimes happened very slowly and that entrepreneurship was sometimes stifled,? says one former international brand manager. Niggle me this, niggle me that Within brand management, teamwork and communication is stressed ? 50 percent of a brand manager?s evaluation is based on the development of employees in the brand. Most employees speak glowingly about their treatment by superiors, saying their bosses take real interest in their development, and treat their opinions with real respect. But bureaucracy can rear its ugly head when it comes to interdepartmental movement. ?Many of the functions (outside of Brand and Finance) do not have the performance incentives we have. As a result, they can be bureaucratic and will use Brand?s failure to follow procedure or guidelines as an excuse,? says another employee. But within Brand, the company can also be overly stiff. ?It?s definitely bureaucratic, it?s very difficult to get things done at P&G,? says a former assistant brand manager. ?Things just move at a very slow pace.? That former employee says that when a new idea is presented, it is sent by memo to a superior, and then ?niggled? ? sent back with comments in the margin. The memo is rewritten and sent to the next level, where it is ?niggled? again. And so on. ?It?s a pretty stifling place,? he says. You'll never buy soap again In the summer in Cincinnati, the company rents out an amusement park for employees and their families to enjoy for free. In the winter, it does the same for events such as David Copperfield, Harlem Globetrotters or ice-skating shows. Sales reps get a company car and keep their frequent flyer miles. There?s also a company gym, holiday gift packs, and coupons for P&G products. Says one employee: ?I haven?t bought detergent or soap for nine years!? And the perks aren?t confined to the P&G campuses. ?All kinds of perks all over town,? a contact brags. ?P&G owns Cincinnati.? P&G also was one of the first companies to offer ?FlexComp,? which gives employees a wide range of healthcare and other insurance choices. And P&G also gives 2 to 4 percent of an employee?s salary (above base pay), which workers can use to pay for their benefits. P&G shares the wealth But by far the most impressive perk P&G offers is its company profit-sharing retirement plan. Initiated in 1887 to address labor unrest, the program is the longest-running profit-sharing plan in the United States. Under the plan, the company automatically kicks in stock worth from 5 percent to 25 percent of a participants annual base pay, with the maximum company contribution coming after 20 years of service. The plan is considered a real gem because, unlike the pension programs at many companies, it?s not a matching program: P&G makes the contributions above base salary regardless of what the employee does. ?It?s automatic, you don?t even have to think about it,? according to one employee. ?I?ve had job offers with higher salaries but have never been able to make the long-term math pay out over what I can reasonably expect here,? another employee says.
Richard L. Antoine Human Resources One Procter & Gamble Plaza1 Cincinnati OH 45202
Body Shop;Playtex;Unilever More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
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