Some good qualities but lacking direction - Cengage Learning Cengage Employee Review

2.0
May 9, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fairly flexible with time off Summertime is a pretty lax time, although it seems to be getting more time-consuming at this time also. Some good training/experience

Cons

Be prepared to work many hours during the evening in busy seasons (most of the time) Many hours will be spent unnecessarily recording and updating customer records and keeping track in Seibel CRM of every little thing you do and you know about customers. The company is constantly introducing a wide variety of products that don't sell or aren't properly tested and therefore having to pull them back off the market. (hit and miss) There is a completely unrealistic expectation for digital sales. The economy has very negatively impacted this recently because profs don't think that students can afford it. Only about 2 out of 50 salespeople in Southern California got their full bonus last year (2010). I know for a fact it is a much higher percentage for competing publishers. (8 out of 10 in one district alone). The company belatedly tried to address that afterwards. However, more cuts are coming across the board in CA, so adjustments will have to be made.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

3.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Company has some interesting approaches to the market and in the past they seemed value employees. There are some good employees there and there was, in the past, visionary leadership, but the people with the vision and leadership skills left the company a few years ago.

Cons

The company actively de-values employees. They had a project they called "Project Horizon" where they told all employees they needed to cut costs, so the company was going to have multiple layoffs over 3-5 years - but nobody was allowed to know when, where, or why - - just one day large swaths of people would be gone. That hung over everyone's heads - for years, and is indicative of how Cengage values employees - it doesn't. Everything is about trying to secure new funding and prepare for an IPO, so they stopped investing significantly in the products about 3 years ago and that's about when they stopped acting like they cared about employee wellness as well.

10
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