Where to start? If you’re lower-to-mid level in any department (except maybe sales), you will not move up. Ever. All the company resources are put into high-level technology acquisitions and into promoting people who seem to specialize in nothing besides ladder climbing. Unless you already have VP in your title, be prepared to be underpaid (salaries are laughably low, even by publishing standards, and in-house departments are operating with skeleton crews) and overworked for the foreseeable future.
About that technology: It’s TERRIBLE. The company has invested money not only in shamefully inept customer-facing platforms but has also sunk countless dollars into internal systems that don’t do what they’re supposed to do (which they address by buying more “patch” systems that also don’t work. Frankenstein’s techno monster).
There is little to no communication from higher levels about the direction of the company, probably because they don’t want to tell mid-level people that they’re being left to languish in professional no-man’s land. However, you cannot say that to the corporate overlords. No -- they think they are the most benevolent of overlords, and all the underlings should be licking their boots in gratitude. Lots of doublespeak to try and make employees feel like they should be grateful beyond words to work there (and I’m pretty sure they have been asking senior people to post falsely positive Glassdoor reviews to offset the barrage of negative feedback from actual ground-level employees). It’s toxic, disingenuous, and condescending. Employee morale is virtually nonexistent.
Corporate leadership has knee-jerk reactions to anything going poorly (see above re: technology), which has resulted in several rounds of layoffs over the last few years.
Also, loyalty means squat here. Many people who helped build this place into an industry leader and had been there for literally decades were unceremoniously let go over the last few years. The quality of Macmillan as both an employer and a bookmaker has bottomed out in the wake of their leaving. Employees who remain (there are fewer and fewer every day since smart folks are fleeing like rats getting off a sinking ship) are routinely overworked and discouraged with the fact that the company keeps failing its people at every turn.
