Blackboard Reviews

Pros

By working to improve education for everyone, people feel good about working at Blackboard. The company offers good benefits and work/life balance.

Cons

Some of the downsides come from ever changing organizational structure - due primarily to ongoing acquisitions and mergers. New teams are formed all the time, but that can be a good thing from an experiential standpoint.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to work on improving top down communication. Integration of product sets and creating solutions which benefit millenials and tech-savvy learners is critical.

Pros

The company has a good leadership team. Work Culture is very good.

Cons

Employee Benefits can be better.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve Benefits.

Pros

Great talented people to work with and satisfying work. Clients are mostly cool and because it is a college enviroment, it is a pretty relaxed atmosphere. The pay is fair.

Cons

You will have no home life! It is all about the work and the more you do, the more they demand. There is constant pressure to increase revenue and vacation is seen as optional.

Advice to Senior Management

Help employees balance work and home life. Allow people time off and don't force them to work on their vacations. Balance the work load. Burnout is definitely an issue and we are losing good people.

Pros

Direct supervisor shares negative and positive feedback and is more than willining to help in anyway possible. The people whom I work with are great which makes working with them easier.

Cons

Competative pay is non-existant and communication about future goals is very limited;

Pros

The quality of the people hired was probably the best reason to work there -- the work environment fostered by the team made difficult situations easier.

Cons

The implementation of very detailed employee data tracking (clicks-per-minute, resolved cases per hour -- even though many cases were of an extremely technical nature) felt a little much.

Advice to Senior Management

I would maybe ease back a little on the employee tracking. Otherwise, the corporate culture at Blackboard is beyond reproach.

Pros

Flexible work/life balance
A way to positively impact education, students
Lots of changes happening all the time
Lots of satisfied customers
They leave the divisions (platforms) essentially alone, to do their own thing.

Cons

Completely dysfunctional
No synergy between different divisions
Arrogance of the company, think they are indestructible, while the company is being chipped away by competition
No strategy, no vision
"East Coast" mentality
Very clique oriented, if you're not "from" the organization you're treated like a redheaded stepchild.
Difficult to be a new employee. Completely disorganized.
If you're not in HQ (Washington DC), forget about communications or having visibility into anything
Everything is ass-backwards, things don't make sense, issues that many other companies resolved 10 to 15 years ago exist here
Lots of power struggle between corporate and the divisions
Assimilation of acquired companies is abysmal, they keep the old company's management, continuing the old company practices and antics (that often got them into trouble, hence be acquired).
Company doesn't embrace technology, change, best practices, making things better or easier
Prevalent "not invented here" mentality
If you're a seasoned professional (more than 5 years experience), you'll find that many many people in HQ are very young, inexperienced and have an enormous chip on their shoulder.
Inexperience of people in HQ is stunning.

Advice to Senior Management

After you acquire companies, get rid of their management or bring someone in above them.

Pros

The people are very passionate and committed and there is a lot of opportunity to get involved in many areas of the business.

Cons

It's a company that's notably stuck between it's entrepreneurial history and a true corporate environment. Walking the line is hard on most, as decisions can still be quickly made in silos, without regard to the impact to others, formalized processes are rare and relationships mean everything. In fact, it often feels like you're trying to win a popularity contest in high school.

Advice to Senior Management

There needs to be an increase in diversity, especially among senior management and executive leadership. The work/life balance issue needs to be addressed, so people don't feel so burned out. Also, the promotion process is ridiculous as is the level of professionalism at corporate-sponsored events.

Pros

The employees at Blackboard are very smart and passionate.

Cons

Management is leadership is a little weak.

Pros

Good work environment including friendly peers and adequate equipment/office
Flexible work arrangement
Good work/life balance

Cons

Process heavy
Salary is on the low end of the spectrum

Pros

Great work envirronment to work in. Great co-workers.

Cons

No so impressive leadership. Things are kept closed doors often times.

Advice to Senior Management

No advice