Perseus Books Group Reviews

In the last few years management has been focussed on selling the company, cutting overhead, and/or growing the distribution side of the business, and has devoted few resources devoted to building Perseus publishing imprints, better and more integrated systems, or supporting chronically overworked and underpaid staff. Everyone has more to do than any one person can possibly do, and there is too little support staff for the volume of work, ever more stringent budgets, and a mishmash of primitive systems to navigate that makes every task take longer. Since the near- but aborted sale of the company to Hachette and Ingram, morale is low and anxiety high. Raises are typically 1-2% if you get one at all, less than the rise in benefits cost and cost of living, and management's attitude about that is that if you don't like it, go get another job --we'll easily replace you with someone else who won't complain. Unsurprisingly, many employees feel unseen, unheard, burned out, and devalued. It didn't used to be like this at Perseus. Five+ years ago the company and its culture seemed optimistic, open, creative, collegial, nonhierarchical and innovative, and employees were devoted to it despite a somewhat lower pay scale than the majors. That's changed, and it's sad.

Niche groups- between departments and different offices there is a lot of eye rolling and behind the back talk. No one is getting payed enough under the VP & C levels for what they do and they're putting in a lot of micro management changes. Half of the systems are out of date and don't work together and most of IT is doing too much with too little. The company constantly implements things they can't support right away and puts that extra work on someone and sort of tells them to just figure it out. Health benefits change every year so good luck keeping the same doctor in network. HR and payroll are hit and miss on responsiveness, and like most HR departments they work more for the employer than the employee. 90% of the time someone gets hired on because they know someone and the closer you are to the boss personally the more you get away with. I've seen some good people fired because the boss's friend was having a bad day. What ever department is making the most money matters more than anyone else, even if they start demanding changes that make someone else's job harder. There's only pats on the backs to individuals when the leave the company and often times they're attributed with things they either didn't actually do or given full credit for something they hardly touched. We keep getting told how much money we're making as a company but all we get in return for it is told we need to find away to cut back spending. The company is still up for sale and the CEO has a golden parachute while the rest of us have to be ready with resumes on hand. It's pretty clear that he doesn't care so long as he can get us sold.