It's OK - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

3.0
13 Dec 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Nice office, simple customer service work (if a very high workload at times), good coffee, some reasonable opportunity to progress within the company. A decent first step into the publishing industry.

Cons

Clique-y, stuffy and somewhat unfriendly atmosphere if you don't "fit in", lots of pointless middle management activity and corporate waffle, very forced "teambuilding" and "company culture". Repetitive, rigid nature of work. Expectation to deal with unreasonable and angry customers, and follow arbitrary processes that make life harder for us and the customers. The work itself is easy, but draining to do all day every day.

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Cengage Response
4y
Thank you for taking the time to leave this review. It is encouraging to hear that you felt like Cengage Group offered fair advancement opportunities. Employee growth and development is a priority and we’ve expanded our programs over the past year and continue to invest in this area. Regarding company culture, we work hard to build a strong community based on transparency, trust, and inclusivity. I am sorry to hear that this was not your experience. We value our employees’ wellbeing and strive to support healthy work-life balance. We know that we can continue to improve and appreciate your feedback. I wish you the best in your next endeavor, Michael Hansen, CEO

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5.0
1 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Strong CEO leadership and mission driven company, leveraging innovation to anticipate and address needs in education.

Cons

Moving fast, so change is a real part of the day to day operations.

3.0
4 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Company has some interesting approaches to the market and in the past they seemed value employees. There are some good employees there and there was, in the past, visionary leadership, but the people with the vision and leadership skills left the company a few years ago.

Cons

The company actively de-values employees. They had a project they called "Project Horizon" where they told all employees they needed to cut costs, so the company was going to have multiple layoffs over 3-5 years - but nobody was allowed to know when, where, or why - - just one day large swaths of people would be gone. That hung over everyone's heads - for years, and is indicative of how Cengage values employees - it doesn't. Everything is about trying to secure new funding and prepare for an IPO, so they stopped investing significantly in the products about 3 years ago and that's about when they stopped acting like they cared about employee wellness as well.

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