Latest reviews provided a clear picture of the Cengage dysfunction.
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Diverse perspectives at Cengage? The company that had a mandatory voluntary viewing pizza party when Obama was elected?
Cengage is like a more liberal NPR. Unless it's trans dancing at Christmas, sorry - Holiday parties, there's no diversity of thought.
The HED leadership team across sales, marketing, and learning & development seems to be influenced by a longstanding culture of exclusion and favoritism; legacy employees cemented in their old ways being there 10-20 years+. Middle level management is competent because it brings in newer team members for diverse perspectives. It's not surprising that this dynamic is impacting overall performance.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cengage-Group-E20055-RVW98560415.htm
Leadership here likes to smell their own farts. The push to get employees to use LinkedIn push re culture is rich. What culture?
Please share the benefits of this so called culture.
posts on this thread have been removed...... no names were listed... but some one didnt like the truth telling.
@rx funny part is that program is essentially now defunct
https://www.cengagegroup.com/news/perspectives/2024/the-power-of-mentorship/
@pt Don't forget the Apollo hatchet man also compared what they are doing with Cengage and it's silos equal to house flipping. When he said that I thought, 'holy sh-t this place is so heartless to the employees'. I'm not sure how anyone can have positivity working there after that Friday.
Did anyone else not see the karma on the first Friday call when board member and Apollo hatchet man tried to connect and garner sympathy over his house burning in the LA wildfires? Happy that no one was hurt, but the irony was delicious. He can afford it 😝 after all the US lives he is destroying here.
@b6 It’s incorrect to assume that everyone commenting here was involved in publishing at Cengage. Many of us had roles that had nothing to do with publishing. For example, the company I worked for wasn't in publishing at all, yet Cengage’s involvement made it the most disorganized environment I’ve ever experienced.
As for MH, I don’t find him to be particularly honest. His Friday updates were mostly rambling “word salads” with no clear explanation of what was happening or where things were heading. From the very beginning, the whole situation felt like a train wreck in slow motion.
That review is the same tired dribble that people have been writing for years.
Cengage is a business. It's very good at losing money, but it's not like people who go into publishing are highly motivated.
Back in the Thomson days, paying $150+ for a textbook that was revised every couple of years was the norm. It hasn't been that way since we began hearing about MH's goal of digital outselling print.
Private Equity is interested in making money, but they overpaid for Cengage a year or two before the industry started a huge decline.
I don't like MH, but since the beginning, he has always been honest about his plans to lay people off. Ron Dunn was a wonderful man, but he did sugarcoat things and make us feel like everything was ok.
The days of being a publishing lifer are a lot rockier than they once were. If it's an industry you love, I would say stick it out, but if you think things are better at Pearson, MGH, or Wiley you may be very disappointed.
The best advice I can give you is to look at the LinkedIn pages of mid level Cengage people and see what they're up to now. I think you'll find most are not in publishing.
How’s the unionization going?
@am and others. The curtain is open…
I'm guessing you're referring to this review:
"It's become a bunch of private equity consultants in a publishing/edtech company trench coat. Leadership is either part of this or too cowardly to stand up to it. No direction, no understanding of what works or what learners need, just a bunch of penny pinchers who don't understand how to create anything and worship at the PE "line must go up 10+% every year" alter. What soul this company once had is good and dead.
Advice to Management
It's too late. It's already been ruined. Hopefully your salaries and travel for the next few years until you're also chewed up and sp-t out by Apollo were worth it."