Incestuous Management, Ineffective technology, inefficient workflows - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Apr 18, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people that were here and have since left or let go were fantastic. The people that are still here are pretty darn good. The work schedule used to be flexible, this is becoming less so. Creating great content was easy, now there's another hoop to jump through. Who knows what's going to happen day to day?

Cons

2 Re-Orgs within a year, going on 3. Company is owned by a private equity firm, and hinging on bankruptcy. Incestuous upper management fires current management to bring in old Cronies. Terrifically bad communication. Ineffective technology, inefficient workflows, unrealistic expectations.

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5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
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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.

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