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Employees are offered a private medical scheme, dental insurance and pension scheme, as well as a share-match scheme.Training: Consumer insight, presentation, customer focus and objective- setting are areas covered. The company’s main headquarters is in New York.Easy to get into? It varies. A four-year management development programme launched last year had more than 1,000 applicants and took just five people, all of whom had previous working experience. Colgate also takes on around four sandwich-course students for a one-year industrial placement, but doesn’t advertise in colleges.Glittering alumni: Many have gone on to greater things in the consumer world: BAT director Paul Adams, Walker Crisps managing director Tony Ilsley, Tesco divisional director Elizabeth McMeikan and Stuart Aitken, managing director of the Whitbread round the world yacht race.Pay: Surprisingly cagey when it comes to money, Colgate says it has a flexible benefits package, and salary and bonuses are performance-related. The rest are based at the company’s manufacturing arm in Salford.Ambience: The small number of staff at headquarters makes for an informal environment; it’s a “challenging, team-oriented, young, fun” culture, says a spokeswoman. The company likes to promote a “caring, non-hierarchical” image, but though staff are on first name terms in an open-plan environment, there’s no casual dressing.Vital statistics: Colgate has every reason to be grinning from ear to ear; it has around 40 per cent of the world’s toothpaste market, employs 38,000 people globally – 650 in the UK – and enjoyed a turnover last year of $8bn.Lifestyle: While staff at the Salford factory work shifts, those at Guildford work a 9am-5pm day, and there are opportunities for travel, particularly in Continental Europe. The English branch of Palmolive started up in 1922; six years later, it became Colgate-Palmolive-Peet following a merger.

Renamed Colgate-Palmolive (UK) in 1953, it has been based in Guildford since 1989.
Address: Around a quarter of the company’s UK staff work from offices at Guildford Business Park. Send comments and suggestions to Virginia Ironside at the Features Department, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL (fax: 0171-293 2182), by Tuesday morning. If you have a dilemma of your own that you would like to share, please let me know.. Age: 75, but with origins 192 years ago. History: Both the Colgate Company, founded in 1806 as a soap, starch, and candle company, and its partner the Palmolive Company, established in 1864, originated in the US. Has anyone else been in this situation? I feel my mother should be told the truth, even though she is not a very strong character and has a tendency to depression I hate to feel I am deceiving her. – NinaLetters are welcome, and everyone who has a suggestion quoted will be sent a bouquet from Interflora.

I have talked to the doctor privately and he says she only has between three months and eighteen months to live, but he thinks it is best not to tell her this as he feels she will lose the will to fight. – Sara Clarkenext week’s dilemmaDear Virginia, My mother of fifty three has been diagnosed as having cancer. Can you protect them from a repeat of your own uncle’s behaviour to you? Perhaps your brother has realised that what went on at home was actually abusive, and worries, as you do If so, he could be your ally If not, he is a danger to your children They may never forgive you, if you fail them. It has harmed you, even if only by making you think that it was okay. Now you need to see that this kind of behaviour repeats itself, from generation to generation.Your brother is now your children’s uncle.