Elsevier reviews

4.0

79% would recommend to a friend

(2,185 total reviews)

Kumsal Bayazit

91% approve of CEO

76% positive business outlook

Elsevier has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 2,185 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Elsevier employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
2.0
Mar 27, 2018

Company with an Identity Crisis

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible Work Hours. Between decent VPN software and communication tools that enable meetings to occur across the globe folks can generally work where its most convienent, though this can lead to issues when abused. The company has noble intentions. Ultimately it shouldnt be ignored that Elsevier is legitimately trying to improve healthcare across the world through their products and content. Decent Vacation Packages. The nice 'pro' of working for a European company is the importance put on time off for vacation and getting away from things for a while.

Cons

The company is clearly going through a transitional period where its core competencies are coming into question. The print business isn't going to see better days so the company has 'reinvented itself' as a information analytics firm. This is seen as a joke in many circles as this was largely a change in title only. New products that are intended to provide lifelines to the company's long term success come out half baked or are delayed, often leading to leadership turnover due to consistent poor performance. This can largely be perceived as growing pains of the transition though, the weak leaders are getting weeded out. Unfortunately those individuals tend to reside in higher roles. However, the real con of working here was the open office concept that now dominates the offices. No assigned seating and no offices mean you share space and equipment with unknown amounts of individuals, which was a real joy to experience during this past flu season. Oh, and did I mention that since there are no offices it means that senior leadership is nowhere to be found on most days as they are mostly working from home? Because that is a thing now too.

1.0
Sep 4, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Not a "Pro" to be found-

Cons

A complete senior leadership crisis! Operations are running the show across the corporate brands and constantly move the goal posts. Sales professionals are dismissed and set up for failure instead of success. Blatant disrespect for employees is a daily guarantee and not random one off occurrences.

1.0
Mar 16, 2017

Downhill express

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some veterans tell good stories of the glory days, if you can find one. Work at home opportunities likely available in many departments as they're always finding new ways to empty out their fancy building; maybe they'll start leasing the space.

Cons

Leadership seems incapable of taking suggestions given by programmers and staff regarding proper customer service; shipping buggy software and poorly-protected books and journals is fine; most customers won't return them. Offshoring all possible labor to India and the Philippines is fine; the money saved on salaries and benefits more than offsets the business lost due to their errors. Elsevier reduces salary increases and health benefits as much as possible for all employees who aren't upper-tier management and pads the pockets of those who actually make the decisions while attempting to streamline everything to excuse their policies as good business to major shareholders. Lean Six Sigma can be an effective way to untangle a messy corporate infrastructure and introduce clear direction and priorities to an otherwise nebulous morass. That's what it's for. You can't just throw it at every team, especially since Elsevier already has tightly-defined teams going into things. Some higher-up just thought LSS sounded fancy and convinced us to waste thousands and thousands of dollars on trainers to "help" us do what we're already doing, just with more purposeless meetings and nagging requirements. Every single major decision I've seen since joining them some years ago has been a bad one from the perspective of everyone but the upper brass who use the sweat and tears of the workforce to polish their boots. It's just progressively worse every year; I quit because it was soul-crushingly depressing to work for an employer like that. Broke my heart, since I'm a proudly loyal person and my team was fantastic, but this is a terrible place to spend a day, let alone multiple years.

Viewing 4 - 6 of 2,185 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,530 Elsevier reviews submitted anonymously by Elsevier employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Elsevier is right for you.