Higher Ed products are antiquated and frequently don't work. We lost significant market share and responded by 1) doubling down on sales of those products, 2) laying off teams working to improve products and processes, and 3) laying off/offshoring end user support to a cheaper option without training or experience. This led to higher sales numbers and very poor execution and support for each semester this past Spring, Summer, and Fall (2023) Layoffs recur among technical resources working on products and in support . We got the speech about "going lean" and "all hands on deck" to support sales in "winning" when half of my division was let go last winter. Two weeks later the Sales team had doubled in size and were collectively offline for a retreat in Florida as we deployed courses for the semester abound with errors and missing pieces. Ultimately, it's a familiar path that Pearson is treading: reducing workforce and investing in buy backs instead of improving products and helping customers. The worsening experience is blamed on those holding the dam together with duct tape and pipe cleaners, and customers are out of luck and increasingly frustrated. Special shout out for the HE Exec leader Tom Simon who is one year into the role. He does 'tough guy talk' to excoriate us for the ills of the company and the need to support Sales "winning" above all else (our clients, each other, our health/family, etc.). Following particularly brutal back to school periods over the past several semesters, the only quarterly acknowledgment is for Sales success and the rest of us need to "do better." Lastly, after seemingly genuine interest to improve and increase diversity at Pearson for a few years (SERIOUSLY lagging behind in this area), at his first meeting last year Tom told us that it was not a priority and roughly that "actually, there are a lot of women working here."
