People are Great, Management Not So Much - Sales Manager Cengage Employee Review

3.0
6 Mar 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very much a "we are family" kind of feel between colleagues. Most people across departments are willing to help and contribute to the success of others. Benefits are good and autonomy is good & bad...good employees are free to do a great job & experiment with ideas but bad employees never seem to be dealt with...overall though a good working atmosphere.

Cons

Upper Management = nothing but the "posse." Not creative, nor very bright it seems. This trickles down several levels. Promotion of friends is rampant, no matter the qualifications, and job performance isn't really judged it seems.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

3.0
4 Jun 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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