Private Equity ruined company - Quality Engineer Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Nov 30, 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
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

1.0
Jul 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

Cons

C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

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