NWEA Reviews

3.1

41% would recommend to a friend

(234 total reviews)

Chris Minnich

39% approve of CEO

28% positive business outlook

NWEA has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 234 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The NWEA employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

234 reviews
1.0
14 Aug 2023

Steer Clear

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Prior to when the acquisition was announced in Jan 2023, the list of pros would be long. Sadly, the only pro anymore is being able to work remotely.

Cons

Leadership is out of touch with an increasingly lack of compassion and even larger lack of accountability for decisions made during and after the acquisition. Chris Minnich told us over and over that everyone would benefit from the acquisition and things would be comparable, if not better. When in fact what we came to find out did not benefit us (your hard working employees) but rather lined and filled the pockets of corporate greed. The overall comp package was drastically cut in half (with some benefits completely gone after a year), which created a substantial reduction in pay (which was already well below market standard). We also saw upper management promotions one month before the acquisition was announced, which now looking back was no coincidence. We were already extremely short on resources but then we saw people exit left and right once knowledge of a severance package became known at the 11th hour. Then not even 90 days after the acquisition became final, we saw layoffs of around 10%, to highly qualified and much needed staff with indication that additional layoffs will be coming. The once employee and student focused company with an outstanding history of success is now clouded with greed and the same spiel over and over again from leadership and HR to try and convince us that everything is wonderful while continuing to completely disregard the negative impact to morale, our paychecks, and general well-being that this acquisition created. With that said, any negative review from 2023 should absolutely be taken seriously.

2.0
14 July 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

NWEA was a very employee/student centric mission driven company with a purpose and took care of their ppl. Great benefits, retirement, PTO and most importantly the ppl. The people are what makes NWEA

Cons

HMH has taken over and now looks at employees as numbers on a balance sheet and will wipe you off the ledger in heartbeat if it helps balance the books. Students are not the mission as they are just dollar signs now.

1.0
26 July 2023

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Working from home has saved me from the noisy, disruptive office.

Cons

Chris Minnich tried to sell us on the idea that the acquisition by HMH was going to be good for everyone and that if it wasn't, he would scuttle the deal. Lies. He's lied from the start. He held all-staff meetings touting company transparency while dodging tough questions, blaming the board for the acquisition to deflect blame for what he knew was going to be bad for us, and then going ahead with the deal he said he would scuttle when it was clear to everyone that it was going to be bad for us. - Retirement benefits: was 15% without employee contribution, now 1/2 of employee contribution up to 3% max - Medical benefits: was fully covered for employee, now equivalent plan partially pays for employee and deductible is higher - $4,800/yr work from home stiped is now $2,400 (subject to ending) - PTO: was up to 6 weeks, now "unlimited." In practice, we were paid out for unused PTO when leaving the company (i.e., when the HMH acquisition went through). Now, unused PTO is not paid out if you leave. "Unlimited" means there is now an invisible arbitrary limit decided by management when they feel enough is enough. Everything is worse than it was. Layoffs happened, and all I know is that it was around 100 people. I don't know who, what department, or anything else. How about that transparency? I've heard through the grapevine that it was a lot of people who directly impact the work from my department. We got notice that we're going to do it again this Fall '23. If you're reading this after that point in time, you're probably looking for HMH since the NWEA brand will likely be further diluted or wholly subsumed soon. Speaking of which, part of Chris Minnich's justification for the acquisition was that NWEA was a powerful name representing an industry-leading platform and philosophy. I guess it's totally logical to allow a for-profit corporation to swallow that brand and make it a subsidiary.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 234 Reviews

Glassdoor has 263 NWEA reviews submitted anonymously by NWEA employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if NWEA is right for you.