In transition - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

4.0
Apr 30, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

New management team seems to be focused and will bring back growth The company made its number for the first time in living memory Seems that decoupling International from CL is working and the company looks to be investing Sense of purpose being restored Deadwood cleaned out and accountability is part of the culture

Cons

tough recent rounds of layoffs some miss-steps in reorganization Growth targets are steep Though cuts were necessary there are still some bitter old timers who hearken back to the" good old days" and they are resistant to changing anything!

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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.

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