Satisfying work, but slow to adapt - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

4.0
1 Feb 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

+ Floating holidays + Working from home + Complete control over specialty + Surrounded by extremely smart people + New projects have potential for experimentation

Cons

- Confusing company position. Publishing or digital or what? - People accustomed to print, but not in print positions - Micro-management at all levels is justified

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Cengage Response
11y
Thanks for this. As I read these, I am always happy to hear that people find the work satisfying. I certainly do. The people who work here care deeply about education and students. It’s part of our Credo – we believe in the power and joy of learning. That reflects back on us as employees too – we need to be continually learning to evolve as a company. You're right – we are in the midst of a print-to-digital transition. As long as our customers want print, we will continue to offer it. But much of our work and where we can add increased value to students (and instructors) is in digital. In terms of transparency, this is extremely important to me. What do you wish you knew to do your job better than you don’t right now? Please talk with your manager, or if I can help shoot me an e-mail. You have the ability to request information anytime. I’m surprised to hear of micromanagement here – it’s not usual for us – so check in with your HR partner. We are hosting a series of workshops for people managers on purposeful conversations – this may be a way for HR to help your manager to more directed, useful conversations with you, rather than micromanaging. Thanks again for posting.

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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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