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      Cengage

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      SInking ship - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

      1.0
      May 1, 2016
      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Most employees are truly passionate about the company's goals and about "making a difference", super-competent, hard-working, and smart. A lot of them have been with the company long enough to have the important institutional knowledge that has been keeping the company's machine well oiled.

      Cons

      Very frequent reorgs/layoffs, constant change in focus and direction, which lead to extremely low morale. Middle and upper management seem to compete for visibility and the attention of the executive team for their own survival and leave their charges to fend for themselves. Sudden and frequent changes in direction are sold as the clever and nimble actions of an informed executive team but results keep remaining poor and the only solution for that team is to lay off a great number of employees in order to make "their number." However hard an employee might want to believe in that team's competence and honesty, in the end, with the constant instability, incoherent policies, one cannot help but become cynical. A great many who have been around do leave, as a preemptive strategy, before being laid off--and perhaps that is the executive team's goal: to shed the existing labor force and replace it with low-paying, inexperienced staff.

      avatar
      Cengage Response
      10y
      Thanks for posting. A few years ago when I started, I would have described us as a leaky ship in calm waters. Now we’re a very stable ship in rough waters. Neither is easy, but I would much rather be in our current boat! Given your 10 or more years here, you have undoubtedly experienced what many of us feel: The pace of change is accelerating in our industry. Cengage’s goals remain the same: We need to make a difference in the lives of our student customers. To achieve that, we need to make adjustments in what we prioritize and how we work. We are seeing the results of our strategy and flexibility to respond to customer needs. MindTap is a great example – without the changes we’ve made in the past, we could not have created this product – and now it is tremendously improving student outcomes. Nonetheless, in a change environment, it is easy to become cynical. With your deep experience here, I hope you will keep an open mind on this next phase of our journey.

      Explore other reviews about Cengage

      5.0
      Mar 28, 2026
      Content specialist
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

      Cons

      Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

      1.0
      Jul 13, 2026
      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

      Cons

      C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

      2
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