Not a bad company, but there are problems. - Editor Cengage Employee Review

3.0
Aug 31, 2009
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

The vast majority of co-workers are fun and intelligent. If you want to move up, there are opportunities for the motivated. Overall, the work environment is relaxed, though as each year passes the environment becomes more corporate and bureaucratic. For some departments there is flex-time and work-at-home policies, which are very nice for facilitating life outside of work. Lower management is generally very supportive of employees. Lots of challenging, interesting problems to be solved. There are some large-scale initiatives/projects that could make the company thrive. Company is known and well regarded in its industry.

Cons

Executive/senior management is mediocre to poor. Communication from senior management is negligible. It's as if they live in a bubble. Departments get mired in politics with other departments: the resulting face-offs cripple positive movement on projects. Owned by a private equity firm that will eventually dump the company for the almighty dollar. Below average salaries and annual whittling away of bennies. Overall company morale is to the low side. With the advent and growth of the internet (and lots of free, decent information) combined with the current economy, the future of this industry is an unknown, though they, and others like them, seem to hang on year after year. They clearly are in an industry transformation and/or transition and need to figure out how to capitalize on it.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

3.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
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.

9
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