Culture irreparably deteriorating - Account Manager Cengage Employee Review

2.0
18 Sept 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Work from home, excellent benefits, flexible with schedule.

Cons

Increasingly greedy due to demands from private equity firm, implemented new ordering systems which are unbelievably broken and have made customer facing positions a nightmare, sales continue to plummet along with company morale but they just squeeze harder, expect more, and tell you to be happy with what you get. Meanwhile if you're in a senior position you're probably on a chopping block. Layoffs got so out of hand they stopped sharing them. Business outlook bad. Feels like a sinking ship, not that anyone cares as long as the bottom line stays in tact.

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Cengage Response
8mo
Thank you for sharing your perspective and for your more than three years of contributions at Cengage Group. We know that system changes and organizational adjustments have been challenging, and we are working hard to improve our ordering platforms and customer-facing processes so they better support our teams and customers. These transitions take time, but addressing them is a top priority. As a for-profit company, we have a responsibility to optimize results for our shareholders, just as most retirement and 401(k) funds invest in companies like ours with the expectation of sustainable returns. At the same time, we recognize that our long-term success depends on the talent and dedication of our employees. That is why we emphasize inclusion and belonging hand in hand with a merit-based culture, guided by our Credo: we are responsible to and for each other. We value your feedback as we continue to strengthen our operations and culture, and I want to thank you for your commitment during this period of change. — Michael Hansen, CEO

Explore other reviews about Cengage

3.0
4 Jun 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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