Pros
Cargill spends a lot of time focusing on building long-term results rooted on foundational Guiding Principles and Values, such as Integrity, Commitment to Serve, and Engaging Employees. There is a strong sense of building community within Cargill locations. Lots of really good managers and employees who work hard to be inclusive, supportive and willing to go out of their way to help each other. You can look up anyone in the company in the global director and call or e-mail them with a question and everyone will respond happy to help, no matter how high or low their position. Focused heavily on worker safety and food safety, community development and support and meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
Cons
Cargill's HQ management staff is predominantly full of underwhelming, probably under-qualified nice-guys who think their job is to prevent waves and keep things in budget. There is almost no one willing to make a decision on their own, often slowing things down with group consensus until a reason can be found to kill the project or until the train slowly works it's way to implementation. This carries over into talent management, such that there is only minor differentiation between those doing amazing things, those doing average things and those doing nothing, with everyone ending up getting average salaries and bonuses and company profit maintaining a slow (but steady) increase over time. If you're a go-getter expect to do a lot more than your peers, be paid about the same, with you're only long-term reward being opportunity for promotion. This really drives a lot of relocation, because you don't get a good salary increase unless you move up. A lot of poor employees go unaddressed and often get moved around within the company, wrecking havoc on special projects. This causes the rest of the organization to loathe doing anything new, because it usually gets managed by a poor performer, and all new programs end up crashing miserably. And since we don't blame people, it has become part of the culture to not try new things, even though they would probably work great if better people were involved.