Thread regarding Cengage layoffs

@1bn Bull-sh-it. there were very questions. but there were at least 1000 people on the call. a handful of strategically positioned questions don't represent the real voice of the employees. Fake Slack Channel

@19w slack had awesome questions and call outs that were not acknowledged by the ET. Took guts for those employees to call them out. You need to go back and reread the slack FF channel. Lots of unhappy people asking what is going on.

@19f You clearly work for MGT> The whole presentation was fake and orchestrated by MH including the questions in slack.

The fake part isn't the presentation. It's the manufactured engagement.

When leadership points to "all the employee questions" and "all the employee feedback," what exactly are we talking about? Two questions? Five questions? Ten questions? Is that really supposed to represent the thoughts of thousands of employees?

Look closely at what was asked and, more importantly, what wasn't asked.

Nobody asked about the missing reports. Nobody asked about adoption losses. Nobody asked about sales credits. Nobody asked about the May reorganization. Nobody asked about pricing increases. Nobody asked about Customer Success burnout. Nobody asked about the Finance layoffs. Nobody asked why we're still talking about alignment months after launch.

Instead, we got polished questions that conveniently led into exactly the topics leadership wanted to discuss.

Maybe that's a coincidence. Or maybe it's just another carefully managed narrative.

At this point employees have seen this pattern enough times. We see carefully constructed town halls. Carefully constructed talking points. Carefully constructed messaging. Carefully constructed goals. Carefully constructed OKRs. Carefully constructed reorganizations. Carefully constructed explanations for why things aren't working.

The problem is that reality eventually exposes constructed stories.

You can construct a slide.
You can construct a presentation.
You can construct a growth target.
You can construct an enterprise strategy.
You can construct an OKR framework.
You can construct financial optics.

What you can't construct is employee trust. That has to be earned.

And that's why so many employees remain skeptical. Not because they don't understand the strategy. Not because they're resistant to change. Not because they refuse to align.

It's because they keep hearing leadership describe a company that sounds very different from the one employees are actually working in every day.

The presentations say things are becoming clearer. Employees see confusion.

The presentations say we're becoming stronger. Employees see fewer resources.

The presentations say we're putting customers first. Employees see higher prices and reduced support.

The presentations say we're building trust. Employees see transparency disappearing.

The presentations describe the future. Employees are living the present.

And right now, those two stories don't seem to match.

@17m slack was not dead during that call. Did you not see all the employees who stuck their neck out and called him out on everything? Kudos to them.

MH - Internal employees only comment was in Slack, not in the actual invite. No wonder people missed it, but how is he going to keep it Internal only? Every week people depart this company, and of course they are going to share everything. MH and his Bone-headed crew, never move in the direction to actually improve this company. He believes his greatness. Apollo put an End to this nightmare Executive Team.

@17m What stood out to me wasn't what MH said. It was what he accidentally admitted.

He said, "The takeaway isn't that everything you heard today is new." That's actually the problem. Employees have been hearing versions of the same message for years. The purpose hasn't changed. The strategy hasn't changed. The goals haven't changed. The buzzwords haven't changed. Yet somehow we're still being told to align, connect, integrate, transform, and rethink how we work together.

At some point employees start asking a simple question: if the strategy is working, why does it constantly need to be re-explained?

MH says growth comes from serving more learners, delivering stronger outcomes, and earning greater trust. Sounds great. But trust isn't built through speeches. Trust is built through actions.

If trust matters, why were so many experienced employees pushed out? If customers come first, why were support teams reduced? If outcomes matter, why are employees still struggling with territory ownership, sales credits, reporting, adoption visibility, and accountability months after the reorganization? If trust is growing, why are so many employees openly questioning leadership?

Then MH says the company now has "one shared enterprise strategy." Again, that sounds great. But five months ago we were told the May structure was already the result of extensive research, planning, analysis, workshops, consultant input, and executive alignment. Now we're being told the company needs a shared strategy to help make better decisions, clearer priorities, and smarter investments.

That doesn't sound like a plan that was fully thought through.

It sounds like leadership is still trying to explain why the original assumptions aren't matching reality.

The most revealing line was about making better use of capabilities and strengths across the company. That's interesting because many employees have spent the past several years watching some of the company's strongest capabilities walk out the door.

Experienced salespeople.
Industry experts.
Product knowledge.
Institutional knowledge.
Customer relationships.

Those weren't weaknesses. Those were competitive advantages. Yet many were treated as costs to be eliminated rather than strengths to be developed.

Then came the part about OKRs becoming the framework for goals, priorities, and execution. Employees don't need a new framework. They don't need another acronym. They don't need another management system. They need evidence that the current strategy is working.

The reality is that employees are already testing the strategy every single day.
They're testing it through the reorgs.
They're testing it through staffing shortages.
They're testing it through pricing increases.
They're testing it through customer frustration.
They're testing it through territory confusion.
They're testing it through the constant organizational changes.
The issue isn't that employees don't understand the strategy.
The issue is that employees understand the results.

And for many people, the results don't match the promises.

That's why skepticism continues to grow. Not because employees are resistant to change. Not because they refuse to align. But because at some point people stop listening to leadership explain the future and start evaluating what leadership has actually delivered.

And that's a much harder conversation than another All Hands meeting.

@w6 LOL LOL LOL MH did respond on slack. During the call SLACK was silent and pretty much dead. I totally overlooked slack because i figured they would ignore any questions because they are full of sh-it. But he responded and it is obvious that he was speaking towards this post in Layoffs. here is what MH put into Slack: " The takeaway isn’t that everything you heard today is new. Our purpose hasn’t changed, and our businesses will continue to have distinct strategies for the markets and customers they serve.
And importantly, our growth, goals, are not separate from our impact. Growth should come from serving more learners and customers, delivering stronger outcomes and earning greater trust. That growth in turn, gives us more capacity to reinvest in our products, our people and the capabilities that strengthen the flywheel.
What is different is that we now one shared enterprise strategy that connects where we play, how we win, the goals we’re working toward, and how we work together. As Cengage has evolved to become a more integrated, market-facing company, we need that common context to make clearer choices about priorities, investments, and tradeoffs and to make better use of capabilities and strengths across the company. The real test of this strategy will be how it increasingly shows up in our Objective and Key Results (OKR’s), operating rhythms, investment decisions, and day-to-day work. OKR’s will be the framework we increasingly use across the enterprise to track goals and priorities.
On confidentiality, the SOAP and the specific goals and strategy we discussed are internal, and competitively sensitive details should not be shared externally."

@aj Looks like MH responded to this on FF Slack lol

what happened to Pookie and Ray-Ray? their post was removed? Damn.

@qp Keep the eyeballs on the facts ..bootlicker. NK and BE need to be FIRED!!! Let's get it DONE! and hopefully they cry on their way out and tell where all of the skeletons are buried to take down MH.

I'm certain they will fold if questioned. They are both Criminal minded but will Roll on MH and the organization like the pa----s we know they are. Two horrible passive aggressive hacks.

@nf it was written for the entire company to read. Sorry you don’t have eyeballs

@ex "What I found fascinating was who seemed to be carrying the conversation. We had the CEO on the call. We had division presidents on the call. We had product and technology leadership on the call. Yet one of the strongest voices discussing strategy, direction, priorities, and the future of the company was HR."

this this so much this. Nothing normal about this. How are employees to trust HR when they are leading the financial conversations? Not that anyone should ever trust HR but this new woman from Apollo is not about to start helping the ones of us who are still here. Its all about protecting the investment and crushing morale.

@m4 wasn't too explicit... I didn't see it. Bootlicker. and didn't hear it during the call. But Bootlicker, NONE of us would follow those guidelines, because NONE of us respect anything MH and the last of his original hires have to say... They will all be GONE soon enough and each bone headed decision will be amplified here. This Executive Team can't help but make terrible decisions, so we will always have content to post here.

Looking forward to seeing the numbers!!! Come on and post them... we are ready to see the TRUTH. are you ready ? Maybe if you sell the warehouse Independence you will have enough to hide your losses. .

@kj if you worked here you’d know who said it. It was written out very explicitly for the whole company.

@kg who said internal employees only?

@h7 your sad attempts at trolling is embarrassing

@f9 Internal employees? when did they say it was for internal employees only? I don't recall them saying this? where they talking about a certain topic or about the whole meeting? Who said it?

@ex it’s very clear they read here and are furious they cannot control it. It’s why they said the info in the meeting was for internal Cengage employees only- bc all the employees are airing out the dirty Cengage ET laundry here. Apollo can see how d-mb they truly are.

Don't forget there was No Mention of the failed IPO..... fake IPO, or what ever you want to call it. Address it and move on? But they don't , not one word, Its easily searchable, why can't they just say it failed. or if we are moving forward to the IPO, say that. We could talk about bankruptcy again.

One thing that was glaring to me was the single slide they put together to support their "Flywheel" pitch. The Executive Team is obviously reading TheLayoff. Employees have been posting for months about how tired they are of endless PowerPoints, buzzwords, strategy sessions, and leadership slogans that never seem to match reality. So what do they do? They show up with a single slide as if we're all supposed to be impressed by the simplicity of it. The problem isn't the number of slides. The problem is the credibility behind the slide.

One line said "Put Customers First." Really? Customers first? Then explain the layoffs that gutted support teams. Explain the reorg that created confusion across Sales, Customer Success, and Operations. Explain the massive price increases on core products while faculty and institutions are already under budget pressure. Explain how reducing resources while increasing customer expectations somehow puts customers first.

Another line said "Prioritize What Matters." Apparently what matters is IPO readiness, cost cutting, headcount reductions, territory compression, and doing more with less. Because that's what employees have actually experienced for the past several years.

Then we got "Scale What Works." This one was my favorite. If it works, why is there another alignment meeting? Why are people still confused about ownership? Why are reporting structures still evolving? Why are territories still being questioned? Why are sales credits still being disputed? Why are we still trying to explain a structure that was supposedly researched and designed for nearly a year? If it truly worked, scaling it would be easy because the results would speak for themselves.

Then came "Own the Results." Who exactly? Because frontline employees seem to own every negative result. Sales misses are owned by Sales. Customer issues are owned by Customer Success. Operational problems are owned by Operations. But who owns the strategic mistakes? Who owns the failed assumptions? Who owns the decisions that created the chaos we're all trying to navigate?

What I found fascinating was who seemed to be carrying the conversation. We had the CEO on the call. We had division presidents on the call. We had product and technology leadership on the call. Yet one of the strongest voices discussing strategy, direction, priorities, and the future of the company was HR. Maybe that's normal now, but it certainly felt strange. When employee trust is low, turnover is high, reorgs are still being explained months after launch, and morale is at rock bottom, hearing HR help lead the business strategy discussion raises more questions than answers. It almost felt like the company has become so focused on managing change that it has forgotten how to create results.

And finally the goals: 7% sustained revenue growth by FY30. Industry-leading EBITDA margins. High-performance enterprise. Ambitious goals are great. But goals aren't strategy. Goals are outcomes. The slide told us what leadership wants. It didn't explain why employees should believe leadership can deliver it.

Especially when many of the promises made over the last few years have never materialized: new products that were supposed to change the game, competitive compensation while experienced employees were pushed out, cost cutting disguised as transformation, larger territories with fewer resources, more layers of management with less accountability, and endless restructuring with fewer measurable results.

The most revealing part of the meeting wasn't what was on the slide. It was what wasn't. No discussion of why previous assumptions were wrong. No discussion of what leadership miscalculated. No discussion of why employees are frustrated. No discussion of why trust continues to erode. Just another vision of the future.

At some point people stop judging leadership by their slides and start judging them by their results. I think we're well past that point.

@bc Racist ? HUH ? what was racist?

I support DEI.. MH got rid of DEI faster than, Target

@an the reply from YC was “KT addressed this question in relation to the employee compensation and retention strategy.”

Did she though? Waiting for the transcript to see.

When MH was speaking about " you cant build a car fast , because it will come out shi-tty" All I could think of was how Shi-tty it was that MH took all of the company cars away. D-mb analogy MH. You should remember that you just took our cars away in July and now taking K12 cars in October. You are so disconnected from reality it is pathetic and insensitive to others. Its always the MH show. By the way you should not curse so much, I even heard you drop a few F-Bombs over the years.

@an Speaking of School, how are they supposed to meet a 7% mandate on nonadoption years? Once again the ET has NO IDEA how the market of adoption cycles work. It would be laughable if they didn’t have all this power.

@ae agreed about KT. Before she was blathering on how all of us should feel and act, she was commenting on business strategies. How is that HR? Like all HR, they are there to protect the business, not help the employees. Another hour of meaningless drivvel.

They also avoided this upvoted Q and notice how they didn’t say we will reply to all unanswered questions in the slack channel.

In the School segment, it feels like we are not investing in our people (low salaries, fewer perks, goals that aren't realistic) which is leading to high turnover.  This turnover directly affects our bottom line because we are losing institutional knowledge and breaking customer relationships, and this undercuts customer trust.  This feels like the classic issue - you have to spend money to make money. How can we change this trend?

Measure outcomes...? how we get paid? MH you su-k .. same ol speech!!

DP--- its the customer fault. they really dont know what they want? They want Ai and our competition is just slapping something into their platforms, that basically summarizes , we had cliff notes for years... Really DP? You take your time... Getting it just right...... No new AI products for Cengage wants to get ir right... Even though they get it wrong for 10 years. This Executive Team is always selling Fluff. Maybe DP , you should ask Ai how to build a better product.

The most important question in Slack is left unanswered:

"What is different about this strategy than what we've been doing? And to Y's message, what was shared today that could not be shared externally? I guess I'm just missing what exactly the new takeaway here is."

You don't have to spend alot of money to build a car. German versus Japanese automakers. Terrible example. I can't with this Executive Team.

You gave to do things well..... there is nothing new..... we were promised better products in Dallas 1 year ago.... but a year later.... same ol products...

Again, car and education are not the same thing...you can't just build a fast educational product and expect it to be of good quality.

NK sounds awful.... he's not convincing at all. Is KT planning to take over. Why is she speaking when NK should be saying this information. KT has no clue but she sounds better than NK ... this is so strange.

DP comes across as pressured and desperate. Are competition stock is trading lower... great place to end with a little truth... the IPO was in his head

Opening it up for questions.... lol... there wont be any real questions.... lets see

The fly wheel? DP is testing dozen if not hundreds of new products and throwing out 90% ..... they only want the best of the best .... sure okay!

MH believes we can grow by 7% over the next 3 years..... more like decrease.

MH asked Why is important to make money ? because it goes back into the fly wheel. we can make new products . buy new business. MH talks to us like we are 8 years old and we don't know how business. works.

Why is KT from HR even talking? Telling us what the ambition is?? Girl go sit down.

Someone in Slack wrote, "Fail fast and move on if it doesn't work! Try, iterate, deploy!"

We are talking about education here...some of our customers are professors who spend years publishing just one paper. Which customers are we even talking about?

You can't solve customer complaints with a skeleton crew lol The FF slack channel seems dead too

But the ET will never have a "real conversation" because they they are flailing and do not know how to "win." I hate that corporate wording by the way. It sounds as gross as all the reorgs and shoddy leadership. I don't want to win. I want to work for a company that knows what its' doing and respects employees with decades of experience instead of pushing them out and forcing the rest of us to work more. But oh well.