Good flexibility and people to work with, Out of touch senior management, no HR - Analyst Cengage Employee Review

3.0
Oct 9, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I enjoy flexible hours and workload. I earn constant 'exceeds' reviews because I am able to constantly add more work to my purview. Lots of good people at the bottom who have great skills. The CEO seems very genuine, transparent, and forward thinking.

Cons

The senior management seems to not buy into what the CEO is preaching to us. While the CEO tells us to take initiative and make things happen, we are stymied by his direct reports when we actually do that. It's very much still top down, do what we say and we know what we're going around here. Also, HR is not very interactive in benefits and pay. There are no performance based incentives here for anything under director level, and when any annual increases (well under cost of living increases) are given out, it's at the managers discretion. HR should be doing this, not managers who can favor friends or punish employees who don't agree with them on something.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
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.

3
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