Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Employee Reviews about "great people"

Pros

People are great and nice to work with - a collaborative environment

Cons

You end up working more than 40 hours a week - regularly

Pros

People that I work with are great people and we really work as a team. We publish excellent material and it is a pleasure to do the work.

Cons

It is a great place for new hires and not so much for the people that have been there a long time. Loyalty means very little as well as institutional knowledge.

Pros

The actual 'worker bees' are great people and truly want to do the best they can. That kind of mind set builds team spirit and friendships that pull together.

Cons

Upper management makes choices and decisions based on spreadsheets and matrix. They really don't understand the full business from the ground up - they only know how Excel spreadsheets work and how to read bottom line totals. HMH keeps hiring "MBA" type mangers who feel that good decision making can come from any background or business. So what's happening at HMH is that upper management doesn't understand how their decisions and choices play-out down below where the "worker bees" are getting slammed and are working in circles and not making headway.

Pros

I have worked with various teams at this company taking on many different roles in doing so, from production to project management. Almost every person I have worked with was professional and courteous. Others were Amazing at their jobs and great people. They offer challenging deadlines and decent pay.

Cons

The company is always in flux and so everyone lives in fear of being in the next round of lay-offs. Real talent gets let go while those who "play the game" but really contribute little hang on. Independent contractors who have hopes of getting full time work can pretty much give that dream up.

Pros

I have worked with great people on my team and through internal client teams for many years and I really like what I do

Cons

the company environment is toxic right now and employees don't feel like upper management cares about anything other than the bottom line. Since a merger that occurred just before the recession, the company has been reorganizing or realigning every 6-9 months and has gone through a string of CEOs. Now there is lot of office space consolidation and an 8-10% cut of the workforce to try to repair the damage from a recent CEO's "failure to meet financial goals" and her poor business decisions. Where are the checks & balances?

Pros

They try to stay ahead of the game in the education sector. Great team of people to work with and everyone is very supportive.

Cons

Clear communication is sometimes a struggle. Must be a highly motivated independent worker and may not fit everyone.

Pros

Great people who are committed for the long term to the stupendous authors who make up the core wealth of this business. Fantastic products of book/curriculum/journal/PD/video work comes out of this intimate place in Portsmouth.

Cons

Management has changed since I've left but no Cons anyway....very smart people investing in helping teachers/classrooms/schools.

Pros

Great people to work with and working with schools was fantastic

Cons

A lot of changes in management

Pros

I have only been there three months but the people here are really great (a co-worker came by to share comics with me today :) ), the problems we are tackling are challenging and meaningful, and the culture here supports having a family and stretching myself as a designer.

Cons

Right now, I have a long commute into work and I knew that it would be the case when I started. Work can come in fits and starts with a rush of work needing to all be done at once and then a quiet period where a new direction is being figured out.

Pros

A wide variety of creative and challenging tasks; great people at my level and one step above; competitive pay compared to other area employers

Cons

An endless list of senior VPs; morale that continues to sink; workless thursdays due to constant fears of layoffs; shipping tech support and other services to India; 401K match that vanishes, yet promotions to senior management occur the same day; sky-rocketing health care (monthly cost to us doubled for 2010)... and worst of all: getting rid of the best internal copyediting group in the country!