Scholastic Reviews

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

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

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

Good benefits - friendly environment - fair pay

Cons

Political decision making - no career advancement unless you belong to the "group"

Pros

The benefits are very fair but seem to change year to year

Cons

The way the whole place is run is all about what "click" you are in. The heads are locked in and they act like it is there way or no way. All about the money and people there do not matter at all.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to consider that people are human beings with lives and that they are caring and loving individuals, not just there to be kept down. Certain people have a chance ESPECIALLY if you are related to management (regardless of whether you can even spell or not). The management is living in there own little world and no one else should rock that and be sure that they do not have to do anything extra. They are all too worried about the woman running the place and what New York might thing. World of dysfunction to be sure!

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 vacation and time off. Interesting projects, and flexible work environment.

Cons

Very limited (more like no) opportunities for advancement. Pigeonholed into a role. Poor resource-management by upper management, and no proper direction for the company as a whole. Very few people took their roles seriously.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to manage resources better, reduce number of consultants and delegate to full-time employees.

Pros

good to know your making a differance in childrens lives.the insurance is ok for now. the employers are friendly

Cons

company not manage very well.people are treated like children and you are not suppose to have a life other than schlastic

Advice to Senior Management

treat people with more resect and you will get further than ruling with an iron fist. oh and the cost of living has gone up so wake up and give the people enough to support themselves.