How can we further erode rep morale?
Who's making these decisions? Must be our diverse leaders: AB, TAS, TB, CC
In 2009 everything was about “efficacy.”
And you are right. Name one acquisition under MS that actually panned out. Most were spectacular failures.
@4atx+1lFlMHmE Have you ever spent time outside of HE sales? It’s a different vantage point at Pearson when you’re not part of the revenue generating team— and despite that most other companies are mature enough to transition into a fully cross-functional company, not Pearson! We’ve let some rotten rotten apples in sales (not all— in fact not most) really create a toxic environment that was furthered with folks like RB and TB.
Andy’s not your problem folks. He has far more of an appetite and leadership prescence that can take this company somewhere again.
TAP is what will be the death rattle. He’s incredibly transparent that his duty is to the investors. For some reason he thinks courseware sales will dig us out of the hole. It won’t. Ask any rep or VP honestly if they think the targets laid out for them are in any way obtainable.
That’s when the stock will plummet and he will do his bidding to “NEVER sell Pearson”. He will sell to the highest bidder and not look back at the thousands of livelihoods he just destroyed.
The old leadership team?
Marjorie spent the bulk of her time at Pearson buying dud startups and writing them off with your bonuses and raises.
She said she'd sell the FT "over my dead body".
Fallon said in 2012 that the FT was "a valuable part of the company".
In 2015, Fallon sold the FT to Nikkei for £844m.
2013, Fallon said textbooks would be tablets. By 2019, he kept talking about phasing out the $300 textbooks that most students were pirating.
Anybody remember in 2018 when the buzzword was that Pearson wanted to be "The Netflix of Education"?
Except nobody rents textbooks forever!
I suppose that beats today's leadership team.
A couple years ago, Andy told us to work from home. Then recently, Andy told everybody working from home that they were stealing from the company. Andy, whose kids at NYU get to party in a company owned apartment in Manhattan.
Andy, who claims to be for diversity except for all those older, experienced employees who he thinks need to be sent to the glue factory.
Andy, whose primary objective seems to be ginning up the Glassdoor numbers with 5-star reviews by interns, temps, and fake employees.
Andy almost makes me long for the days of Fallon and Marjorie.
The old Pearson leadership team cared so much more about people and culture. At one time this was a fun company to work for and many peoples cared about its mission. The new leaders over the past 6 years came in talking about turning Pearson into a tech company and how our systems were outdated and we reacted slowly. Both were true but what have they done to really improve things. Our internal systems might be more modern but certainly not any better and we are just as slow.
@2jyg+1lFlMHmE. This is so true and it is rampant in what is left of this business. I worked at a company owned by private equity.
The ONLY thing anyone in Sr. Management cared about was getting their payday.
There was no interest in innovating. There was no interest in long-term growth.
When the sale finally happened, the payouts to people who did virtually nothing, and in many cases, harmed the business were simply stunning. Millions of dollars for people who left the business in worse shape than it was when they got there. Millions of dollars to "rent a tyrants" who were brought in to do nothing more than make people miserable so they would quit. I call these people "professional grifters."
I could write a book about incompetent people who joined the business, did nothing and made millions, due nothing to their position and the fact that they were smart enough or were buddies with the right people to negotiate stock options.
Tens of millions to senior "leadership" and I use that term loosely. I saw the payout amounts. It made me want to throw up.
The system is rotten to the core.
I've worked for failing companies in the past.
They all have the same earmarks.
Executives who know nothing about the business, didn't found the company, and didn't work their way up in the industry. The CEO worked for Disney in China. What does that have to do with education or publishing?
C-suite owns very little company stock other than stock options. They count the clock and perform their usual witchcraft to try to make their shares go up in value. When the vesting period ends, they're gone.
Middle management outsources everything and everybody for alleged "cost savings".
Long time employees and subject matter experts who are citizens are canned in favor of contractors from foreign countries and their spouses.
Any advertised positions are always way less than the local market average. They want wage slaves who are easily expendable. Or young people who don't know any better and are desperate for a "foot in the door".
No new equipment bought. You should appreciate that 8 year old laptop and the 14" LCD we have for your desk. You're just lucky to have a job.
First of all, I wanna say thanks to my main man DJ Andy, y'all
He's the one that made this joint possible around this entire United States
Do you like sc—, sc—, sc—scratchin', scratchin', scratchin'?"
Do you hear that?
Do you hear that?
"Scratchin', scratchin', scratchin', scratchin'"
"What is it?"
"Scratchin', scratchin', scratchin', scratchin'"
"Do you like scratchin'?
Pearson=Sears Roebuck & Co...
Morale? No one cares about morale. They want that data entered, everything tracked and documented - no matter how far-fetched. If it's on paper (in Salesforce), it's real and can be used to inflate the value and viability of the business. They'll lean the company out as much as possible, sell off the pieces and the execs will walk away with payouts, major shareholders will cash out and we'll all know exactly what happened.
They can move people around , hire the best sales reps and create new positions but it won’t mater. Too many customers don’t like our products and have tried them in the past and we’re frustrated. Our current user base just sticks with us because they have everything setup. Pearson should sell all of these old outdated products asap.