Thread regarding Cengage layoffs

22 years; multiple promotions; not 1 review received that was not Meets Expectations or Exceed Expectations. RIF’d with severance. 3 attorneys told me if I sued(I’m over 50 white female) - it would take years in court and lots of $$ to fight them. I cut my losses.

@11KeHMMk-xad Yes....and don't forget about how the CEO has been saying for months that this is a "complementary merger" with McGraw and that he "doesn't see much overlap." So even IF these cuts had anything to do with the merger (they don't) it would be another lie exposed.

This is not a "Good post from @11J7PoyT-kdj." It is the exact opposite, in fact.

In fact, this post is typical of the unrealistic optimism and rosy expectation surrounding every Cengage misstep and ill-conceived move.

This is the same sick culture that caused employees to merely shrug over the unexpected, overnight closure of the entire San Francisco HQ location, calling it "no big deal" and "entirely unrelated to Cengage Unlimited."

This is the same lock-step group-think that swore that Cengage Unlimited was an "unmitigated success" and that "now is a very, very good time to be with Cengage" at the very same time the CEO reported out a massive, double-digit decrease in revenues in U.S. College.

Why? What prompted these people to say and think - and actually believe - these things?

Because their CEO said so, that's why.

This poster is all too happy to forget previous announcements (that there will be no changes or layoffs until the merger happens, until sometime in 2020 at the earliest) and to claim that this massive downsize has been planned all along, and is simply to prep for the coming merger!

That's interesting, why is McGraw Hill not announcing emergency, last-minute job losses involving one-fourth of the entire company?

Why isn't McGraw Hill about to announce a massive revenue downturn in their upcoming investor call?

Exactly what is wrong with this picture?

Nothing, nothing. The loss of San Francisco and 100's of employees just a couple of months ago was no big deal, just as this current loss of nearly a thousand employees is no big whoop. We are going to be leaner and meaner and Cengage-strong and we will marry McGraw and together we will dominate the universe and no no, my job is not in peril - that kind of stuff always happens to the other guy. . .

@11J7PoyT-kdj, if you are unlucky enough to be on the "dump list" this month and in fact lose your job, please be sure to let us know here so that we can collectively shrug and tell you how it's "no big deal" . . . just as you have done with your 100's of former co workers.

This is a classic private equity end game for a company. If there's no potential for growth, slash the payroll, find another company to merge with, shine up the balance sheet the best you can and then dump your investment before it all blows up. MH has been a profoundly incompetent CEO, but private equity has been behind all the pain at Cengage going all the way back to the sale from Thomson.

Yes, there are groups opposing the merger....but none of them have any real clout. Think of all the telecom and media mega-mergers which had real opposition but all went through anyway. No one outside of our little ed publishing world cares about these companies.

On the merger, every single group representing student, institutional and Bookstore interests have come out against the idea of this merger. To date, there are no outsiders who have endorsed the idea. Will any of that matter? Time will tell, but the future is FAR from certain.

This is not some kind of elective and controlled attempt to "enhance the liquidity" of anything going into a potential merger. Whatever on earth gave you that idea? Do you even bother to read the transcripts or listen to the quarterly earnings reports your leadership shares with us all? This is a last-minute and QUITE unexpected dumping of expense. Last quarter, Cengage burned through nearly half its cash on hand to fund the ongoing CU push. This quarter, from what little has been leaked, represents a massive hemorrhage of income. We'll find out what "massive" actually means in the next few weeks, but let us remember ...

The company is dumping a quarter of its workforce. That's one out of every four employees. Within a TWO WEEK period.

Nothing normal about that, and certainly nothing planned.

Let us correct one other, apparently massive misunderstanding on your part: specialists and "top performers" are going to be the first to be cut. This is about saving money, friend. As much money as humanly possible. Those making the larger salaries? They are among the most easy of cuts.

This is not about the "transition from print to digital." Cengage Unlimited is not "digital" - it is a subscription service involving eBooks (which are NOT "digital" according to Michael). CU is a bargain-basement fire sale. This is about a desperate, last-minute hail mary of an end-game pass: "here, we will give everything away at a cut rate, just spend your money with US please!"

If an employee has 20 years of reviews where they were rated as "meet expectations," and then is told they are losing their job because they are a poor performer, you can sue based on there being no track record of being a poor performer. You need to have a long paper trail of documented performance issues to fire someone based on their performance. Given that almost everyone in the company receives "meets expectations" on their reviews, it is impossible to single out 25% of employees for performance issues. Not gonna happen.

Why would cuts based of performance open the company up to lawsuits?

They're going to be cutting based on a formula HR and legal conjure up to avoid lawsuits, and I can guarantee it will have nothing to do with performance. If they did tell cut employees it was due to their performance, they would open themselves up to endless lawsuits. 25% of the workforce does not have a long track record of poor performance reviews.