We definitely sacrifice our future success for the good of the shareholders today. We seem shortsighted in our decisions (or lack thereof). In a very risk averse culture we frequently pass up on opportunities for growth and improvement, and consistently resist investments that don't pay off IMMEDIATELY. A lot of decisions that simply don't make sense. I think this comes along with a switch from management that "started at the bottom" within Eastman to external mangers who understand business, but not manufacturing or technical innovation. The qualities that get you promoted are RARELY the qualities that actually make a good manager. Probably as good as any big company, but suffers under the burdens big companies suffer under. I would love to see more drive to achieve and more focus on growth. Another topic, (and I hate to complain because I definitely consider myself an ally) but I don't like the way Eastman is pushing diversity goals right now. It's like it's the only thing that matters, and everyone's too afraid to say anything about it. As a woman in STEM, I absolutely admire the goal of getting more women and engineering in management, however, we go about it SO WRONG. We just decided to not change ANYTHING about the culture, or dig into WHY female engineers leave the company, we just unilaterally made a goal to get gender parity by 2030. Without any other changes, the only way to do this is only hire women (whether they are the most qualified or not) and/or push out men who have done nothing wrong. I wish we would instead improve support for new parents, or offer day care, or adopt flexible WFH policies. All of these would achieve our goals of RETAINING good women, instead of just hiring 90% women with the understanding that most will quit, and ignoring perfectly qualified men. People already grumble about unfair promotions and frankly I'd rather be a minority than equally represented but resented and perceived as unqualified. Finally, Eastman no longer seems to value employees and reward service the way it did in the past. Initial offers are lucrative, but raises are consistently below inflation (3% this year with inflation at 6.5%). This would be fine if the company were suffering, but it's making plenty of money. As an individual handling multi million dollar savings processes but giving up my breakroom coffee because of budget cuts, I am resentful. I truly love the people and community here, but it seems to be leftover from a golden age gone by, and good people (who wanted to spend their lives in Kingsport) are being pushed out.
