Hamfisted attempts at being relevant in a digital world falling flat - Anonymous employee Wiley Employee Review

1.0
12 Oct 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I was in editorial for one of the digital products. Mostly great coworkers in the NY office. Good benefits. Great work-life balance.

Cons

The company's transition into digital is poorly managed because they have a poor conception of what they should be focusing on. They force publishing industry best practices and aesthetics into the web space, and the whole product fall apart because of it. (Example: In creating website wireframes, rather than keeping the negative space that's so en vogue in web design right now, they INSIST on filling everything up as much as possible so that it looks like a mid-90s search engine. And then they're proud of the fact that they fit everything in, rather than using actual design principles to create a product the company can be proud of.) Also, no cultural training between British and US offices -- many misunderstandings arise from differing cultural expectations. Poor communication between offices in general. Management is secretive and partisan: keen to play favorites to their staff. I've seen more than one person get thrown to the wolves due to clashing personalities, which is extremely unprofessional.

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5.0
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Pros

good environment, good energy, free lunch

Cons

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2.0
3 Jun 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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