Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Reviews

Pros

Kind and Friendly Human Resources Department

Cons

Senior Management is working all by themselves up at the top with complete disregard for those lower than them. Lots of stupid decisions being made.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to your people!

Pros

It is great to be able to change students lives with educational products. The customers are wonderful. The benefits are ok but not the best.

Cons

There is big divide between people at the top of the management chain and the people who create the revenue and do the actual work. Sales management seems to be hall monitors and task masters rather than contribute to the sales process. Very Dilbert style sales management. They would rather you make up numbers to make them look good for a meeting instead of facing reality and dealing with product issues to create more of the sales they want and need. Individual sales jobs vary based on immediate manager. There are some really good ones and there are many that are just your "task manager".
If you are good at staying under the radar, you might survive and thrive.

Advice to Senior Management

Take off your tie and get in touch with your employees and customers at the ground level. You will only be able to hang on to your old style management as long as you have middle age and older employees. Young college graduates will not tolerate the "seen but not heard" attitude toward employees.

Pros

There is hope that the company will survive under Linda Zecher's leadership. She made changes today (November 11) in the executive ranks that were long overdue. With more changes promised, it can only get better.

Cons

HMH is currently in shambles. It has been leaderless since the merger of Houghton and Harcourt and since then, it has been only about the" numbers"; executive perks, destroying people and creating an image of success. Customers are no longer important. It has been more important to "manage" the message and manipulate metrics than address problems. If there is a problem, schedule a meeting or assign PMO resources to create the appearance that something will happen - but it never does. The culture is based on fear; individuality is frowned upon; and reality is not accepted. Only the individauls at the lowest level in the organization are held accountable, yet we have no authority. If something works, outsource it.

Advice to Senior Management

Linda, please don't stop. There are more EVP's, SVP's, VP's, and directors that could leave the company without negatively impacting the future. Please, poll the people living in the trenches to get the truth. People want to talk but fear retribution. Time is running out before the organization crumbles; it is worse than you could imagine.

Pros

The pros ended after merger with HMH. Harcourt was an excellent fulfilling work environment that was lost in the shuffle of upper management.

Cons

Over worked
Under paid
Undervalued
No accountability for one's work
The inexperienced are in charge
With the experienced doing all the work and not receiving compensation for it.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen, trust and empower your employees. If this is accomplished, you will in return have employees who respect you, the company and their work.

Pros

We have some really great people and most salaried employee's the manager's are very flexible when it comes to hours worked. They really do try to have a healthly work/life balance. Advancement possiblities are great at certain office locations.

Cons

Work loads seem to be not balanced out accordingly in most departments. We have key people who are great at thier job but are getting discouraged and leaving due to being overloaded with work and seeing remaining team members bearly putting in the standard work week.

Advice to Senior Management

TO LINDA K. ZECHER:
1 WORD is all it takes, ACCOUNTABILITY

We have a lot of free loaders in the company that should be held accountable and if they can't raise thier performance to meet department standards then they should be let go. Then the budget will allow for the hard working dedicated employee's to get compensated fairly and you will keep the top talent.

I have worked here for over 5 years, and I have only seen one person let go. All other people that have come and gone, either A) Left or B) were laid off during the merger.

This company has a lot of potiential but will never be sucessful until we take a true look at peoples performance and hold them accountable.

Pros

Decent work environment. Nice people to work with. Good management staff. Great hours.

Cons

Lack of decent raises. Better cost of medical insurance.

Advice to Senior Management

None at this time.

Pros

Lots of school holidays off.

Cons

Economy for the education market. Being run by venture capitalists.

Advice to Senior Management

Act on innovation rather that meet about it while it passes us by.

Pros

no one keeps track of days off, you can take as many as you like.
no one cares so you can take long lunches.

Cons

management has no idea what IT does, so they just outsource your job and make the knowledge base in IT disappear, real intelligent!

Advice to Senior Management

if you guys kept the same job for longer than 6 months instead of playing musical chairs every 6 months, maybe we would care about what you think we should be doing, ok ready REORG!!

Pros

Technology Leadership in Dublin is very strong. You will learn how to lead people from the people here.

Cons

The technology leadership in this company, based out of Dublin is fantastic. The head of technology and his team are supportive, innovative, mature, communicative and have all the strengths you want to aspire to and work for.
We are now learning that this is changing, for some reason the US organization are hiring a new US person to relocate to Dublin to lead this. I am speechless – how to crush the spirit of a growing organization in 2 easy steps.
A lot of my colleagues are pretty angry and are talking about leaving before Dublin is smothered by the same poor leadership and fearful mentality that is rife in the US organization (which has already been allowed to leak into the Dublin Content group due to very weak management there)

Advice to Senior Management

look at the talent you already have, nurture it and stop being so afraid.

Pros

• Those who have worked here 10+ years remember the glory days of this company, they remember quality work, quality outcomes, and being treated respect and dignity. We yearn for a vibrant, healthy, satisfying work environment again. The pro is that a handful of these people still exist here, and we are ready for a new day.

• It is close to my home.

Cons

• Too numerous to mention, really...
• No employee empowerment
• No professional development
• No interest in keeping talent. Three people have left this location without a another job simply because they were too miserable to continue coming here each day.
• This venerable publishing institution is now run by MBA's whose focus is metrics and six sigma processes. They seem not to understand that educational materials are developed by highly creative *people*, who do best when treated as sentient, respected beings, valued for their area expertise and accumulated skill sets.

Advice to Senior Management

If management would stop and read this - I would say to you: the quality of the products that have made this company a success for decades will ultimately decline, and HMH will fail - unless you find a way to keep your talent here. Read these reviews on glassdoor.com. Read what your employees really think of working here. (We have no other outlet.)
Perhaps new CEO Linda K. Zecher will save this sinking ship, but she and the rest of top management would do well to look at what made this company great in the past - the people who care about the products they develop. Make this a place we *want* to come to everyday, instead of a place we *have* to come everyday. Then we will ALL be a success, together.