Top heavy under constant reorg to save money - Sales and Marketing Manager Cengage Employee Review

2.0
May 11, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people and mission. The culture is mostly positive. Good benefits and fair pay.

Cons

Constant layoffs are horrific. Cliques and favorites get to stay, not those that work hardest or have the most experience (in fact, they go first because they are paid more). Extremely top heavy which hurts as they lay off the workers. Everyone has to take on more work to make up for those fired (with no increase in pay). Recently gave everyone a 20% pay cut and stopped 4501K match. Future looks bleak.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

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.

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