Private Equity ruined company - Quality Engineer Cengage Employee Review

2.0
30 Nov 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Loved working here for years. Smart and talented coworkers; opportunities to learn new skills

Cons

Zero job security. Priority is on documenting your job for “efficiency” but is used to determine whether you can be replaced by cheaper non-US labor. Run by private equity with seemingly no direction or purpose other than to increase their profits. Outsourcing all US resources to increase revenue - emphasis on time tracking (every minute of your day in JIRA) managers do not care about real work but only about this time tracking and completing documents used to determine whether they can replace you with overseas resources meanwhile overworked and stressed beyond belief. Give folks bad performance reviews to “quiet fire” them to not pay severance.

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Cengage Response
1y
Thank you for sharing your feedback. I understand that recent changes within the company may have created some uncertainty. I do disagree with some of your sentiments here. First, our investors strongly support our company strategy and direction and have an acute understanding of our business and the education space more broadly. Secondly, we all have a responsibility as a for-profit business to run the business in a way that is impactful to our customers and operates as efficiently as possible. As a result of this, we need to continuously look for ways to improve the business, and we need data to do this. I want to emphasize this data is always based on evaluating the outcomes of people’s work, not time spent. I am saddened to hear this has not been your experience or view, and encourage you to speak with your manager to better understand how your work is evaluated. We value the feedback of our employees, and each year, we conduct an engagement survey to gather insights and make improvements to enhance the employee experience. I appreciate your input, and I encourage you to reach out to me directly with any suggestions on how we can continue to improve. Best, Michael Hansen, CEO

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
28 Mar 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
4 June 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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