McGraw-Hill Reviews

Pros

MHP has good benefits and good work/life balance.

Cons

The company is extremely poorly managed. Like something from the 1950's. Command and control and no trust of employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your employees. Don't offer simple buzzwords. Also, look outward. Most of the time you seemed to be navelgazing.

Pros

The firm has good benefits and respect for peoples time off. There are some good people trapped at the firm who you might work with.

Cons

Managment of McGraw Hill is very very bad. They are in la-la land and have no touch to reality and do not seem to have any vision to make the company better. It is hard to get excited about working for any of the senior leaders. Everyone in the company is so scared of looking bad that there is too much backstabbing and scared behavior and little posivie activity.

Advice to Senior Management

Increase respect for the employee.

Pros

Company is honest and cares deeply about quality, it generally serves a blue-chip clientele that is easy to work with, it has pretty good management talent, and it thinks globally

Cons

They're working on this, but the company still works through relatively small business units that have a lot of independence, which means that it's harder than it should be to move around within the company, that management and strategy are inconsistent, and that it's hard for the company to "win big" at a level shareholders would care about

Advice to Senior Management

Throw your whole corporate weight into your strategies

Pros

good place to work most of the time

Cons

communication could be better most of the time

Advice to Senior Management

more focus most of the time

Pros

Opportunities for career growth and advancement

Cons

Very structured management and work environment

Pros

Lots of professional development opportunities and opportunities to advance in your career. The diverse businesses made it easy to find a new opportunity without having to leave the company.

Cons

Structured development is focused at the highest levels in the organization.
Somewhat risk averse culture.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on lower levels for development to feed the talent pipeline and reward innovation.

Pros

MGH Education has a highly supportive corporate culture. Most people are enthusiastic about helping you.
Benefits are pretty awesome--they even support same-sex domestic partnerships.
Volunteering in the community is a huge focus
Laid back atmosphere (for the most part)
Those who do good work are recognized for their abilities and are seen as the "go-to" persons when things get tough

Cons

Trial by fire on-boarding process. There are few departments that have anything in terms of a real training program, and you learn most things by accident.

Several examples of managers who either micromanage or don't pay enough attention to their employees.

There are many employees who are simply "getting by," who don't actually pay enough attention to procedures or past mistakes and are doomed to make the same errors over and over again. On top of that, their managers rarely do anything about it. One of the biggest reasons is that HR is so entangled in every single decision that it's nearly impossible to get anyone fired from this place, even if they are doing a terrible job.

The performance management review process is antiquated and ridiculously complicated.

Deadlines are hard, fast and often cutthroat. it seems like sales and marketing make most of the decisions without regards to anyone else's work/life balance. I've worked about 60+ hours a week on a regular basis for months as a result.

A huge corporate reorganization was implemented in 2009 to shake up some of the broken procedures and dismantle departments/roles that an external consulting firm decided were no longer necessary. Huge mistake. We eliminated positions that were crucial to the publishing process (Umm... whose idea was it to remove proofreaders altogether?) and created new jobs that are still unclear to the masses. Now we're spending more time trying to bend over backwards and fix things that weren't broken in the first place.

Promotions aren't always based on work/professional experience, but on a "who you know" basis. It's a cult of personalities, not a meritocracy.

Advice to Senior Management

Act on the procedures you've implemented. Give the big picture to everyone on the team--most people are pigeonholed into their own corner and don't think twice about how their actions affect the entire program.

Pros

Decent salary and benefits, though there is a strong expectation of "face time" (in other words, you'd better be in your cubicle--and I do mean cubicle; only VPs and up have offices--from 8:59am until 6 or 6:30pm, as the president will literally walk around to check who's there).

Cons

Quite possibly the most corporate, top-down "publishing" company there is. The atmosphere is one of fear and repression--there is seldom any laughter or camaraderie among employees, as the senior management is stiff, controlling, and watchful.

Reluctance to hire enough staff results in extremely overworked employees who have very little time for the supposed work-life balance that is touted here--and, again, there is an expectation of being in the office all the time, so don't expect to actually take advantage of working from home unless you're on disability or maternity leave.

Upper management (especially in Professional) has a difficult time admitting their mistakes--if an initiative (or managerial hire) doesn't work out, they tend to back away and watch things fail rather than stepping in and addressing the problem.

Advice to Senior Management

Show your employees some respect. You're not high school principals; trust the people you've hired to do their jobs well, and they will respond by exceeding your expectations. Have you learned nothing from the mass exodus you witnessed in 2009 after you so gleefully stated in your "town hall" meeting that jobs are scarce, but anyone who doesn't like it at MH could leave?

Pros

The benefits package is great.

Cons

The work surroundings are more on the dirty side, unless your in the upper management positions. In most departments, as long as you "buddy up " with your supervisors , you will be treated right. The company shows little gratitude for a job well done. Management does not show good examples. Necessities need to successfully do a job in a timely manner are many times not provided..

Advice to Senior Management

Start taking a sincere interest in employees concerns regarding issues within the company.

Pros

Great employees focused on success. Good benefits, especially for working moms. Strong bonus program depending on position.

Cons

Biggest complaint was difficulty of getting in to management without outside sales experience. Some unrealistic expectations regarding working outside of normal office hours.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to remain open-minded in terms of acquiring talent from within. While competitive acquistions are good sometimes, there is much to be said for keeping people happy internally as well.