Scholastic Reviews in New York City, NY Area

Pros

Good work environment
Respect for employees
Provides a great product for children

Cons

Salary is a little on the low side

Advice to Senior Management

Some technology upgrades are needed.

Pros

Great working environment -- not too stressful, awesome work neighborhood (heart of SoHo), generally friendly (more females to males ratio) coworkers, good mission (helping kids read, education).

Cons

I was a permatemp for too long without option to be hired permanent (a shady practice). There is some bad leadership. Its hard to move up, career-wise. There is in general resistance to change (but maybe its difficult for big corps). Publishing is also in the decline so this is not necessarily the best industry - expect restructuring/layoffs because there were more than 2 instances of it in my less than 3 years there!

Advice to Senior Management

Hire those darn permatemps - your company will collapse without them! Stop making excuses!

Pros

Assuming you work for the right division, Scholastic is a friendly, welcoming work environment. The company has a strong, warm-fuzyy inducing mission: To Help All Kids Learn and Love to Read. Who can't get behind that?

Cons

Scholastic is run like a family business, regardless of the fact that it is publicly traded. There is a great deal of favoritism at play in the company at all levels, and advancement is often more of a popularity contest than a reflection of employees' work ethic.

The company's "family friendly" policy is out of control, allowing virtually anyone (who is female) with children to work from home, or four-days a week and piling on extra work on those who do not have children. This kind of decision is popular with moms, but is a perfect example of why the company seems to be hemorrhaging good workers and can't get itself in the game as far as new publishing ventures and new technology.

There are also huge disconnects between the ways divisions are run. For example, the Book Group gets (secret) "Summer Fridays" where they can take every other Friday off or half-day Fridays in the summer, but the rest of the company is required to work those days. Great for the Book Group, but what about Education? Or eScholastic? Or Magazines? Or the Legal Department? Or Human Resources?

Advice to Senior Management

Rethink the way you treat employees across divisions. You may think we don't see that some of us get treated better than others, but we do. And that's why we leave.

Pros

If you are a self driven worker, Scholastic offers great opportunity for you to get involved in a lot of different areas. People are generally pleasant to work with, although some senior management can be difficult to deal with. Depending on the division, Scholastic has provides a fairly good work / life balance. For women, Scholastic has an extremely generous maternity packages. Compensation is in line with the rest of the publishing industry.

Cons

No structured career path. Very hard for career advancement unless you are a self-promoter and aggressive in reposiitoning yourself. There are a lot of employees that have worked for the company for 15+ years that are in senior management positions more because of their tenure with Scholastic and less because of their competency levels. Work life balance, stress level and employee mannerism vary widely by division and even within divison groups, which could be a pro or con depending on where you end up. Poor training and documentation which is frustrating when coming on board. Not investing in technology as much as they should.

Advice to Senior Management

Re-prioritize the divisions you invest in, as the legacy divisions that were your breadwinners 20 years ago are no long supporting your bottom line. You continue to cut technology investment even though you are behind. Learn to cut bridges with employees sooner. There are way to many people who are there 15+ years that are just floating along in senior positions making a lot of money based on tenure and not based on their value add.

Pros

They loved wasting money on the most boring "moral boosting" parties... but at least there was booze and food. The health benefits were also very good, and you got them as soon as you started to work at Scholastic.

Cons

- Upper management team wasted everyone's time (and too much money!) by making endless revisions, as well as making everyone work on their personal projects (e.g. every year the president of my division had the production team make personalized holiday cards for her family).
- HR doesn't listen to your problems, and they always relay confidential info to your manager.
- Upper management treats everyone like their slaves. And if you don't suck up to them constantly, they do everything they can to get you fired. I've witnessed many high-level employees be treated so well, and the moment they disagree with their boss, they are black-listed.
- Everyone is underpaid because they give their VP's outrageous annual bonuses ($100K-200K)

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees with respect!

Pros

The formal work/life balance programs, in-house medical facility, paid time off, 3-mo paid maternity leave, stock options for employees, discounts on Scholastic store items, corporate building meeting spaces have great facilities, SoHo cafeteria is nice and the food is good and decently priced, most people are friendly and cooperative. And the pay is competitive and fair.

Cons

Management in some divisions is dysfunctional. Executives are intrusive, untrusting, and can be verbally abusive to staff and higher-level managers. There is a recurrent decision to cut project development timelines to meet demands from customers that are stoked by the sales teams, who make promises the company can't meet based on bad or hasty information given to sales. Inter-departmental cooperation is often blocked by untrusting managers.

Advice to Senior Management

Communication about new programs and policies is good, but internal communication about responsibilities roles and changes to processes is not good.

Pros

Great company serving a great need in promoting literacy around the globe. Awesome location in SoHo which is a fun and vibrant spot. Great work/life balance and good support from middle management; although it's mixed so it really depends who your immediate supervisor is.

Cons

This company is more siloed than many government organizations which is just shocking considering they are a publicly traded company. Ripe for a takeover by any well-run organization, especially with the publishing industry in the midst of another disruptive technology impacting the bottom line.

Senior management has structured a company that regularly competes with itself. Many projects and services in today's climate cut across multiple departments/groups and the top-heavy hierarchical org structure creates for amazing turf wars that ultimately hurt stock owners. The amount of in-fighting is widespread and intense.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management should read one of Jack Welch's management books - any one of them. OR, better yet, scrap all the high paid executive consultants who can't implement real change because of the human tendency for self-preservation (need to eat and pay rent), and bring on Welch himself because he doesn't care if you take his advice or not.

Pros

If you are into a fast-paced environment with room for growth, Scholastic is your place. It is an innovative company with good product.

Cons

People work extremely hard at Scholastic and overall are treated fairly however, there is leadership within the organization that mistreats those who work very hard in order to cover themselves if needed. I'm sure it happens everywhere.

Pros

Good benefits
 Great learning experience if paired with right senior
Exposure to multiple departments
great access to communicate with managers and executives

Cons

pay
no growth
manger was personal assistant the year before I join (no finance experience)
Because manager had no experience forced to work late, 8:30 - 8/9 during close (thought this was the norm until I left)
received senior analyst responsibilities as a financial analyst but not compensated

Advice to Senior Management

management is completely politics. Managers hold their positions because of their relationship with the executives, not based on education or experience

Pros

good products. good location in an interesting neighborhood rather than in midtown. good brand name for your resume.

Cons

no support or mentoring. very little contact with manager, even during first month. IT technology is old, not even close to cutting edge. company divisions are very siloed. no one seems to "own" anything and getting decision made is like going in circles.