Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Reviews

Pros

Surrounded by highly educated co-workers
Work environment is quiet, clean, well-lit - just a good place to concentrate on work.
Not much micro-management
Co-workers have lot of publishing experience

Cons

Most co-workers are contractors. The company seldom hires full-time employees so there is a temporary feel to most people I work with. The contractors are not low-level either - they are well educated and manage other people or projects within the company.

Many managers are stuck in the print world and can't come to terms with how the Internet is changing the way textbooks are sold. Imagine a powerful arrangement between Amazon.com and a leading publisher and it would spell disaster for us.

Advice to Senior Management

Research how much business is done on the Internet and then make a plan to take a large share of it.

Pros

People were friendly. Benefit packages weren't too bad.

Cons

Job recognition were minimized. Senior management kept changing.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more with peers.

Pros

It's a paycheck and there are some good people that work there. Most of the good talent has moved on to bigger and better things.

Cons

Senior Leadership is a mess, they get paid too much, always get bonuses, and generally have no clue whats going on around them.

There are too many managers.

Too much talk and no actions.

Morale is at an all time low.

Advice to Senior Management

The company needs to be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up. Get rid of all of the meaningless out of date processes (I have to track my time three different ways every week.) Do it right or shut it down.

Pros

Very much depends on what you do. On the content side, there is interesting stuff going on and some good, progressive management. Anything to do with engineering is best avoided.

Cons

Minimal input by employees either into their own work or overall company direction.
Zero communication across the company, both laterally and between management and staff.
Complete lack of respect for workforce from senior management.
No discernible strategy or vision for the company.
No training or advancement opportunities.
Very poor morale. High levels of burnout, especially in the technical staff. High staff turnover.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire some competent senior management.
Devolve some decision making throughout the company. Be more inclusive.

Pros

Love the people.
Love the opportunity to be creative.
Like that we still have health care option (though they aren't very good).

Cons

Wish our HR would do more... something... anything.
Hate getting weekly announcements of new senior VPs (I think it's a one-to-one ratio between core staff and VPs now).
The bottom line is all that is important, not a quality product.
Don't always feel like I'm thought of as an adult or a working professional.
Most of us work overtime or on tasks that are not part of our official jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

Resign and allow individuals with publishing experience to take over.

Pros

Excellent people at the middle management level; high degree of professionalism in the product development areas.

Cons

Less than competitive compensation; poor HR interface; lack of leadership at the executive levels of the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward the employee base with competitive salaries and benefits; eliminate waste and inefficiency especially in the operations areas; better communication of core values and corporate initiatives; commit to a publishing program based on quality and service.

Pros

The people who work at HMH are devoted to providing effective educational solutions. Most individuals care deeply about working collaboratively and are interested in supporting each others efforts. Middle management and staff care about people as people and treat each other with respect.

Cons

Over managed - under led. Senior management cares about the bottom line period and decency is seen as a luxury they cannot afford. People are called to work at any hour of the day with no regard for personal issues. If you do not respond to the call, then you jeopardize your career.

Advice to Senior Management

If you don't care about people don't manage them. Leadership will always be about service and preserving/protecting people's dignity, regardless of the situation.

Pros

Great work atmosphere to be in.

Cons

Streamlining certain processes not in sync with other departments.

Pros

Management does allow autonomy for task completion.

Cons

Publishing is being impacted by on line content.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase salaries to be comparable to industry standards.

Pros

ability to work at home
freedom to make your own schedule
sold a good product for the students
company car

Cons

not enough support with marketing materials for our product
needed public aware of what program could do and they didnt make the effort

Advice to Senior Management

listen to your employees when they tell you what they need to do a good job. dont provide us with tools and reports that slow us down rather than help us out.