All Over the Map - Assistant Editor Cengage Employee Review

3.0
Jul 28, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Many smart, dedicated colleagues who want to make a positive contribution to learning. Good benefits.

Cons

Senior leadership are spin masters, some messaging is contrived and not sincere. Favoritism is rampant - promotions are held because of budget problems. Some managers adhere to policies while others get away with way too much. CEO talks about accountability but doesn't hold all senior leaders to some basic behaviors of decency. Respect for employees is not always apparent. Workloads are all over the map -- some people work crazy long hours (expected to be available during vacation) while others barely have enough work to do to fill their days. (so they stretch the work to look busy). CEO is an elitist who doesn't value the "common" worker who actually does the work and cares about students.

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Cengage Response
11y
I regret that you’ve had this experience. I would like to see us recognized as a meritocracy, where the best and brightest have opportunities to grow their careers, in a frank and open environment. Our pace of change can leave anyone (at any level of the organization) feeling off-balance or even undervalued some days. I agree that sometimes there can be a disconnect between what we’re trying to accomplish and how it is being put in practice at various levels. We’re continually strategizing on how to bridge this gap, and how to drive the desired culture further into the organization. However, each and every employee has the responsibility to contribute to this effort as well. You can do so by making your suggestions for improvement to your manager. We are making headway, but it’s a work in progress. Thanks.

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Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

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1.0
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CEO approval
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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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