Political, No Room For Growth, Low Salary, No Lower Level Employee Support - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

There is absolutely no room for growth. The last round of "promotions" were for middle management and given to the lifers who drink the cool-aid and would never admit when a process or project isn't working. There's an environment of "come to me with your problems and suggestions", but past experience has shown that doing so puts you on a blacklist with management and HR. There's a general consensus that HR tattles to management and management disregards employee concerns. Anyone who has been with the company for over a year knows better than to trust voicing their opinions to HR or management since we've seen how horribly that ends for those involved. There's very little room for growth and the salary is embarrassingly low, especially compared to our competitors and how much it costs to live in the city. When management says that the salary is fair, I don't think they understand how little a salary in the $30K range actually covers. Many of my fellow colleagues have to pick up a second job just to cover rent or student loan payments. There's an obvious old school mentality that doesn't understand or utilize the younger generation, especially when we have insight into the demographic of our customers and the type of technology Cengage wants us to create. The products are very dated, but suggestions on how to improve them are constantly ignored. How can you expect younger employees to stay motivated when their suggestions for technology and content that they're familiar with are pushed aside because they don't align with old school, archaic ideas? The morale is very low, especially with the reorg that is now asking employees to do twice the work AND switch over to a new role. I constantly leave the office frustrated, tired, overworked and underpaid, and wondering why I continue to make suggestions when no one listens. The environment itself ranges from cliquey, high school lunch table to an old boy's club. Let's not even talk about the dismissal of women when certain men are in a meeting or the cattiness that comes from other women when someone doesn't fit into their ideal personality mold. Promotions are based on popularity and friendship and a lot of people have been giver higher titles and more responsibility (but no higher salary) as a way to placate them. I've been with the company for three years and all the "new opportunities" management keeps saying they have are non-existent. It's the type of place where if you don't want to brownnose, you're never going to get promoted. Cengage has the opportunity to go in great directions, but it's very clear that they want a certain type of person and unfortunately, the type of people they want are not the type of people that will help the business grow in the direction they intend.