Mandatory Overtime - Picker/Packer Cengage Employee Review

3.0
Apr 27, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Overtime Pay Independent Work Hours Breaks, 30 minute lunch unpaid and two paid 10 minute breaks, and additional 10 if you have to work overtime. Shifts— night shift is 9pm to 5:30 am (my favorite) AM shift is 6am to 2:30pm and day shift (where I started) is 10am to 6:30pm.

Cons

Mandatory Overtime— you don’t get to choose when you work overtime, and sometimes they don’t tell you about overtime until 6 hours into your shift, so don’t make plans for days you work. You have to show up 20 minutes early, there’s a mandatory shift meeting 15 minutes before your start time, but you can’t clock in until 6 minutes before your shift and even if you clock in early you don’t get paid until your starting time. So there’s a 20 minute unpaid period. Benefits, there’s a 90 day probation period and they tell you that at the end of 90 days you’ll get $2 raise and health benefits, I know people who have worked here for a year and a half and never got any of that. I left before my 90 days to work as a CNA in a hospital so I can’t personally attest to that though. Also the day shift managers have a problem with people going to the bathroom. Night shift is the best.

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.

6
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