Pros
CEO Omar Ishrak is the absolutely best CEO in Medtronic history. He has been laser focused on 3 key long term strategies, since he joined the company. This focus has facilitated the execution of the business strategies across all of the businesses. And the company has met its financial objectives in nearly all of the quarters since he became the CEO. The stock price is significantly higher than when he became CEO - that is a huge benefit to employees who participate in the stock purchase plan and who receive stock options and restricted stock units. And, obviously it is a huge plus for external shareholders. Employees in all businesses and geographies are committed to the Medtronic Mission. It is the glue that binds all business units and geographies. The very rapid pace of change helps employees grow their careers very quickly. They learn to adapt their skills and competencies to the ever changing business environment.
Cons
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.