It's a NO from me - Sr. Director Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Feb 11, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good people who work really hard and believe in education. Decent work life balance in my experience, but some are forced to work very long hours

Cons

I was at this company for 10 years. I bought into the culture hype and the ra-ra Cengage crap, I was a very loyal and dedicated employee who often had 3-4 departments under me; more work than was reasonable. However, no one is immune from the unceremonious and continuous cycle of layoffs and reorganization, and I fell victim to a reorg that stuck me with the worst boss of my life, and ended up leaving before I developed a dependency on Xanax to get through working with them. Despite repeated complaints and an entire department walking out, that boss was retained for more than 2 years, while good, experienced people left because of how bad they were. Every reorg is presented with "well the last one didn't work, but this time we figured it out!" only to be told the same thing 6 months later. Each layoff puts more pressure and more work on the remaining staff, while internal systems and structures are antiquated and almost impossible to navigate. The industry is in serious decline and the pressure to be profitable is enormous; it seems their only tool to do that is staffing reductions, even though there are repeated boondoggles and pet projects and acquisitions that receive massive funding but go nowhere. How well you do, in my experience, very much depends on whether you are your boss's favorite rather than whether you do a good job; talent actively identified as "retain" are not, in fact, retained, with dumb reasons made up as to why they can't stay or advance. Lots of decisions they make are real head-scratchers. Bottom line: if you have a choice between Cengage and a different company to work at, choose the other company, as there is ZERO job security at Cengage.

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Cengage Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to leave an honest review about your experience working at Cengage Group. I appreciate the positive remarks about your former colleagues – I agree and have experienced the same dedication in working with individuals across the organization. I am sorry to hear that you had a negative experience with a reorganization and your former boss. I understand the impact that a difficult work relationship can have on one's job satisfaction and overall well-being. We take these matters seriously and are committed to fostering a supportive and fair workplace for all employees. Organizational changes and layoffs can be challenging and sometimes create additional pressure on the remaining staff. However, we are continuously working to improve our internal systems and structures to ensure efficiency and ease of navigation. To your point on loyalty, I believe the post you are referring to was discussing advice to the young workforce and whether longevity in a role or at a company matters. My advice in that post, and I uphold it, is there can be opportunities that gaining the ability to influence, which most often comes with longevity. At Cengage Group, we are an organization that value candor and dialogue, and it is a key contributor to our success. You are correct, that this does not mean loyalty should come above all else, but rather every individual needs to gauge if a particular company at this particular time is the right platform for their talents. Thank you for your more than eight years of service. I wish you the best in your next endeavor. Best, Michael Hansen, CEO

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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