Chaos - Sales Support Wiley Employee Review

2.0
13 Feb 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Wiley's legacy of centuries of publishing languor has left a a relaxed - some would say too relaxed - attitude to targets which makes it a nice place to work if you are hoping to stay unnoticed. The staff environment is pleasant enough and it has an old-fashioned charm. It still clings to the idea that publishing should be an ecumenical and intellectual industry far from the hullaballoo of the modern world. Good food and no insistence on watching the clock beyond the hours set by your contract. Great for workers with young families.

Cons

Where to begin? Decades of neglect have left workers with at least three legacy CRMs all providing conflicting information about customers' billing details, and if a customer calls, staff recoil in terror as they know it will take a day of sifting through archival notes on a greenscreen monitor to find out what has happened to their journal. There has been no attempt to modernise the systems or the working environment, and training for new staff members emphasises competence on 1980s systems that are no longer relevant, while ignoring newer developments. It takes at least two years to know where all the files have been stuffed, while promotion is glacial - even for newcomers who have worked in the industry before, they can expect to wait two or more years on a pitiful salary before starting a slow grind toward middle management. All too often the upper management appears to be concerned with "big concepts" and wishful managerial guff (such as imploring their staff to "Take a great leap forward") without actually providing the systems that are so badly needed to achieve this. The information overload for new starters is excessive - several have quit within days of starting once they see how many contradictions and exceptions they are supposed to remember. This is exacerbated by a tendency for team leaders to discourage questions, and a culture of small teams who don't socialise means that you can easily pass two years without knowing many of the names of your co-workers. Most people are simply treading water until they can move on to a better-paid position.

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5.0
18 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Nice coworkers and managers, work-life balance, smart people and industry, opportunities to grow skillset. If you volunteer for opportunities, you will be supported and will learn a lot about the industry.

Cons

Pay and hybrid office work

2.0
3 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent pay and benefits for publishing.

Cons

Once of the most toxic work environments I've ever worked at. Upper management tears editors down if you are not a favorite. Favorites are chosen by metrics that do not exist, and are subjective and arbitrary. Wiley is losing money because brilliant, young editors leave due to no support and toxic work environments. Wiley Trade is essentially a hybrid publisher. Author's put a lot of money into their book -- too much. There is very very little marketing and publicity support for authors. But they brand as more than there actually is. All in all a very sad place to work and sad for authors.

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