Cengage Learning – “Sexist environment; company needs improvement overall”

Pros

This company is growing fairly consistently; there were cutbacks when we were acquired by a private equity firm, but it seems to have stabilized. It is also , at least thus far, performing well through the recession. I am very unhappy here, but stability has its own value.

Cons

The pay is atrociously low, the company tries to take advantage of workers whenever possible (when recently promoted, one staff member tried to negotiate for the standard 10% raise and was told that, given the economy, they could easily find someone else for the job). There are very few male entry-level employees; I have heard from the ones that do work here that they have been encouraged to go directly to sales. As this is the only route to advancement, this is no accident; female entry-level employees, by the way, do not receive this encouragement, and are more likely to be subtly frightened away from sales.

Most managers come from the sales force, which tends to have the greatest proportion of male employees. "In-house" employees (in Marketing, Editorial, Production...) tend to be female, and are barred from advancement supposedly because they have not been in textbook sales - it is generally understood among the "underlings" that this is a way to promote men into managerial positions despite their lack of departmental knowledge. The few female managers were mostly brought in from outside companies, and are comparatively overqualified and underpaid for their jobs. The company manages to make it clear that women will never have any real power here.

It seems to be a company policy to promote salespeople into whatever position they like, regardless of whether they are suited for it. This is a publishing company, and many of the former salesmen are unable to write a coherent sentence, let alone communicate appropriately with their coworkers and customers. It is actually embarrassing to see what they send out of the office. Managers have literally no experience with or understanding of what their subordinates are doing - this is a major problem, as management is unable to estimate the time or difficulty associated with various projects.

Managers also have little to no respect for their subordinates - I don't know if it's because the lower-level staff is almost exclusively female while management tends to be male, or if it is simply because the lower-level staff has the audacity not to have entered the sales force (though having been here more than three years, I still have yet to see an in-house promotion of a female salesperson to a managerial position). The result is that pushy, obnoxious, and frequently rather stupid men have a number of younger, highly intelligent and competent women cleaning up after them.

The lower-level staff literally keeps the company running, and function as work-wives for their bosses.

Advice to Senior Management

Have at least a few managers who have worked their way up from inside the department. One reason turnover is so high, aside from the pathetic salary, is that (female) entry-level staff see no way of ever achieving the status held by (male) managers. We are all willing to "pay our dues," but it seems pointless when those dues will never lead anywhere. Moreover, when your supervisor has no understanding of or respect for your work, it is almost impossible to get anything done - a project that takes 4-5 hours is made at least 30 minutes longer when you have to justify every single step. We may be young and female, but we are good at our jobs, and deserve to be treated with the trust that we earn every single day. If you would simply allow non-salespeople eventual access to managerial positions, efficiency, motivation, and the duration of your employees' stay with the company would increase rapidly.