McGraw-Hill Reviews

Pros

high base plus easy hours and nice people

Cons

imposible to hit your quota and no room for advancement

Advice to Senior Management

policies change often

Pros

Nice work environment, office space is in the heart of the city.
People that work at McGraw-Hill are for the most part hardworking.
Flexibility to do what is necessary to be successful.

Cons

The communication from leadership is very low.
Several of the people working at the lower levels are in need of direction.
No clear management objectives driving results.

Advice to Senior Management

Management at McGraw-Hill should lead by getting everyone on the same page. There is a clear lack of leadership and lack of communication. Improving these two factors would result in greater productivity.

Pros

true interest in developing staff

Cons

heavily matrixed and layered organization. Very risk averse. Caste conscious. Not a good place for those with an entrepreneurial style.

Advice to Senior Management

It is possible to take responsible risk and reap the rewards.

Pros

The McGraw Hill Companies, because of historical decisions, is an industry leader in a handful of businesses. Further, they have very good benefits.

Cons

I cannot imagine how anyone could be happy working at the Mcgraw Hill long-term. The culture is extremely untrusting. There is always the assumption that the employee is doing something wrong. The finance organization and the HR teams are really painful. And bad. There is a huge amount of politics. So much gossip. And almost all (but not all) the people picked to be leaders are really not good. There are a few pockets of excellence and / or decency, but Mcgraw hill senior managers worked hard to eradicate those. Senior team is all old white men. I went to a meeting with some of them and several fell asleep. If you can't stay awake at the wheel, don't drive!

Advice to Senior Management

I went to a meeting with some of the senior managers and several fell asleep. If you can't stay awake at the wheel, don't drive!

Pros

The offices in Canary Wharf are quite nice. There are some decent people trapped therein and some of them will pop over to the pub with you now and again.

Cons

Almost everything else. It is a mind-numbing place to work. First, if you are not working in main headquarters - New York, you are on the outside looking in. Second, in order to succeed, you need to be a political animal. If you have a decent bone in your body, forget about career advancement. It is all about licking someone's boots above you. Nothing new ever gets done and people sit around and complain about how nothing will ever get done because that was tried before and din't work. The culture is very bad.

Advice to Senior Management

I am not qualified to head a large company, but I can tell pretty clearly that you guys arenot also. The culture is really bad in your company. And it comes from you folk. You need to trust the employees and do not promote political animals.

Pros

Okay benefits, flex work arrangements for certain areas

Cons

Okay benefits, but doesn't recognize innovative people who work hard. Only woman in my group and do three times the work of my male counterparts. Not promoted even though my some of my colleagues come to me for advice and decision making. Sr Mgmt is aware of this and has done nothing.

Pros

McGraw-Hill is a solidly good place to work. People are treated with respect and dignity. They're paid well. And it's by and large a company with great values and integrity, despite the mess at S&P that led to AAA ratings on mortgage-backed securities.

Cons

It's bureaucratic and super conservative. Slow moving company with less than A players in senior management.

Advice to Senior Management

There's a need for more dynamic management at the company. There are too many B and C players in key roles.

Pros

Excellent for working moms, flexible schedule allowed, high quality product, they care about work/life balance, amazing benefits

Cons

Lack of on-the-job training, Bureacracy, a little bit of an attitude like "we are the best-- take it or leave it." Not a huge willingness to look at things in new ways.

Advice to Senior Management

Think out of the box- -and don't just say it in meetings-- really do it!

Pros

Their benefits are very competitive.

Cons

IF you're fortunate enough to work at Corporate in New York, you should be a happy camper. If, however, you work at any of the satellite locations, don't get too comfortable or expect to move up in the company. Also, there was essentially no training or formal on-boarding process. There was a distinct impression that offices other than Corporate were viewed as stepchildren and thus not worth the same time, effort or focus. Mid-level management was ill-trained to manage and seemed uncomfortable with new ideas or making waves. There's simply no process to flow optimism to the lower ranks.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing to say...management has decided to sleep with the devil and the devil's name is "shareholder". There is no support for the lowest levels, because managers are all looking out for themself.

Pros

The firm has good benefits and matches donations. They rarely get rid of anyone. Ever. Under any circumstances. You get to read about it a lot because it has business units which are in the paper and a CEO who wants to be in politics as far as I can tell.

Cons

Senior management is useless. The ceo is visionless, unmotivating and a poor speaker There is a new CFO. Time will tell on that one. The last cfo should have been removed decades ago. He tried to control everything at McGraw. Now he runs the education business. Feel sorry for that group. HR and finance operate like the secret police. No trust in the org.

Advice to Senior Management

Time for a change. On a lot of fronts. Let the teams have freedom to succeed. Invest and don't just focus on current margins.