Agree with below. A UK company forcing American employees even if presenting with infection-recovered immunity to submit to a pharmaceutical procedure still in trials or risk job and benefits loss while offering no financial assistance or insurance for those who have adverse reactions like Bells Palsy stokes or myocarditis for his stock portfolio is heinous. Now he doesn’t have the ba--s to accept accountability for participating in bigoted discrimination.
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True. As if AB has any idea whatsoever it’s like to be a young black man living in the USA—especially one who Pearson fired for having recovered from Covid with durable, broad-based immunity bestowed afterwards but still fired by him for refusing a superfluous, ineffective vaccine. AB is a snake posing as a progressive who probably had major stock in Pfizer who like Bill Gates, dumped it quickly in 2021.
Sales down again this year, chatgpt, and managements realization they don’t know how to turn HE around puts a sale back on the table.
If you aren't looking, please start. The company is not stable and when they do the next round of cuts they may not be as generous.
HED sales metrics are looking bad on all levels. Taking marketshare is way down this year and losses continue. Who is to blame? The one metric that is positive is returns are down.
In the words of Andy Bird: 'Don't worry, be happy'.
I guess that's easy when you're on a six figure salary!.
@6dyi+1lLL5QQm In the world of PE there is NEVER enough fat to cut. They grind the bones up. Then they sell it to someone who will go more medieval.
So wait. I shouldn't be packing my banana hammock, immodium and Pearson north face jacket for the big leadership council trip to the Bahamas in 16 months?
Strip it and flip it?
Andy gave that broken-down car in the Pearson parking lot to the tow truck driver.
That's what happened.
Here’s what regent is going to do. They will strip it and flip it.
Someone feels sorry for those let go? I'm applying like crazy to get out. I'm here at the Maryville account just barely being able to breath. Im sure Core employees are also a part of high morale. Micromanagement continues as ridiculous emails are sent from a useless, overpaid manager, leukanuts, about daily activity...We should get a daily report what managers have done to make this place fail. Start with the Bol character. Notice most management stems from past experience in basement institutions or has zero experience.
So Regent has no experience in this failing OPM industry and will retain the same management? Loser leadership gets to stay and implement their continued brainstorming failed ideas. I envy everyone who was let go hoping my name will be called next. I'm sure there will be more layoffs before the final ownership transition and more when clueless Regent takes hold. Notice in the last meeting KB and MC wouldn't confirm future benefits or potential severance for employees who are let go. Good thing there was a mass hiring that started last Fall. 🙃
It is interesting to hear more POLS layoffs in April because they promised us no more layoffs. We should totally trust Sasha and Kees, right? I know the ELT only has our interest in mind (insert sarcastic eyerolling).
I feel for all the employees who were just let go after years of service and some near 20 years. One of the best assets of POLS was the human capital. You can't quantify the knowledge or experience that just left because someone decided that these positions needed to be cut.
I could fall out of bed and make a 6.5 percent goal.
I also heard they will layoff people in April but HR said that through the sale transition the current staff will be kept....wonder which is correct
I’m hearing goals will be around 6.5% for higher ed. The company expects sales to be down for the year in the low single digits but Finance feels 6.5% was high enough to minimize bonus payout and the executive team thought they held out on giving goals for long enough and 6.5% was low enough to not have a bunch of reps quit in the middle of spring. They wanted goals to be about 10% higher than expected growth to get the majority or the reps under 90% of goal to decrease bonus payout.
No way they will sell higher ed! They’ve invested too much in our state of the art products and have created such a great brand loved by our users. Our product teams and sales force are second to none and the industry is growing by leaps and bounds. This division is setup for success for years to come and Andy obviously has such high regard to what this division is doing.
The POLS bloodbath will be happening in April. If they’re really interested in being profitable they should start with the ELT. But keep 1 or 2 but that entire team is an utter failure.
Pearson sold to POLS an equity firm and told us all it is a great move. A great move for Pearson. They dumped a losing portion of the business to an equity form.
Regent will look at all our inefficient processes and eliminate staff. Pearson will not eliminate any more employees (according to HR), but they can't guarantee our jobs when Regent takes over. I see the ineffiencies...anyone with a brain who doesn't buy into the pearson BS can see them! When the job massacre comes, we will not be offered a severance! (I hope everyone is polishing up their resumes.) After we are working with skeleton staff for a year, there will be small profits, but by then Regent will be looking to offload us.
Higher Ed, you guys are the next target. Be prepared to hear how your division is a drain on the company...we heard it enough in POLS.
"The OPM business will be sold in exchange for a share of its future revenue, with Pearson receiving a 27.5% cut of profit annually for six years. Pearson will also take a 27.5% cut if the business is later sold on by Regent LP."
I'm laughing.
Was POLS ever profitable? It lost nearly $30 million in 2022 on revenue of about $180 million.
Pearson gets a cut if the business is later sold by Regent? Huh??? I guess Andy decided to make the terms of sale as if he was selling a NFT. How cute.
Pearson is never getting money out of that deal. Taylor Swift should write a song about the deal, it would be called "We are Never Ever Ever Getting Any Money Out Of That Deal"
Pearson Higher-education is almost unrecognizable these days. We used to have an army working campus and winning business. Does Craig and Andy work campus? VP’s of divisions (remember them) used to work campus. Marketing people were very involved with events, campaigns and especially working campus. Editorial worked campus looking for authors. Product specialist new their disciplines and were road warriors. Regional VP’s worked campus. Shocking they aren’t much now. Reps were on campus four days a week. Is it just not worth it anymore to travel and work campus? No one at Pearson seems to be doing it much anymore.
@3vpq+1lLL5QQm. Agree. But if you notice any time a public company makes a statement, especially earnings, etc they always start by reading a "Safe Harbour Statement."
Safe Harbour is essentially a license to lie. It basically says anything you say...predictions, estimates, and assumptions could be wrong and therefore no one can hold you accountable.
CEO's have zero incentive to tell the truth except to their attorneys, boards and CFO's.
This is where culture comes in, and Pearson and every company that has been built by buying and packaging up multiple companies has none. Employees need to be able to believe what CEO's and leaders say. And its a CEO's responsibility to be honest and transparent.
There are companies that operate like this. No company in this business that I know of, especially Pearson, Cengage, Wiley, Ascend, McGraw operate in this fashion. Its what happens when you are a dinosaur in a dying business. It becomes a death struggle for survival and all typical norms that should apply, dont.
@3yiy+1lLL5QQm PARCC executives are doing well! They were so controversial yet they remain so paid in current positions.
@3vpq+1lLL5QQm True. The shareholders & the board reign supreme as does ABs personal salary, bonus & perks.
Out & out lying is still not a good look. TBH it's reprehensible & CEOs of more visible companies get called out on it from time to time.
It does serve as an excellent reminder not to believe anything the company says. We all know that but reinforcement is good to keep from growing soft & complacent regardless of division & role.
Its unfortunate but Andy's responsibility, like it or not is to the board and shareholders. He couldn't care less about employees. No CEO does.
Pearson spent roughly $1.3bb on the Embanet and College acquisitions and turned them into complete dumpster fires. They both have two go down as two of the worst acquisitions in business history.
One could argue that eCollege is THE worst. Pearson spent 24X ebitda on eCollege and $500mm and within 5 years essentially shuttered it. I was inside one of the above acquisitions and I can tell you that the sellers still laugh about how clueless Pearson was.
BTW virtually all of the people on the Pearson side of that deal are either fabulously retired or still making huge money. One is the CEO of UMASS Online and another is the President of Wiley Higher Ed.
If you think the system isn't rigged, look no further.
Grannie was correct.
Seems so shameless that AB could look directly into a camera watched by thousands of employees either live or through the recording & say that knowing it was false. I guess that why he makes the big bucks & I never will. Difference in conscience.
My Grannie used to say "dont trust what they say, trust what they do."
If you believe one word out of AB's mouth, (or any senior leader) you are just a su---r.
A little more than 1 week earlier AB claimed in the Around the World that the review was ongoing. Did not mention that there will be a change soon. If you don't work in that part of the company or adjacent, you would never know that it was a fine deal.
A good move AB made for himself was removing the Ask AB function since he would be asked quite a few questions that he would not want to answer.
From the article: "in short this is somewhat of a distressed sale. get this mess off our hands, you make the big cuts to get it profitable, and will make money only if you can turn it around."
edscoop.com/pearson-offloads-opm-business
They announced it internally via pearson in the news email. That's how they told us. Burried in a news letter no one reads.
Was there an announcement about this that I missed?
Is this official? POLS is sold to whom?
Pearson are now leaving Regent to turn the business around, probably by massively reducing the workforce and overall employee benefits, i.e., pensions etc. It is win win for Pearson, they do not have to make any unpopular decisions that Regent are prepared to do, this way it attempts to protect the Pearson brand! Only time will tell...
@1ftl+1lLL5QQm Keep dreaming. No one is going to invest in completely retooling the business. There's no upside.
It will get sold to private equity which will strip it to the bone. Do you think its bad now? Wait till the vultures in that realm get their hands on it. See Learning, Cengage.
Why does anyone need "authoritative content" when you have Chat GPT, who just scored 90% on the LSAT.
Content is the only thing these dinosaur companies had. They are all textbook companies (who reads a textbook these days?) trying to brand as tech companies.
But anyone with half a brain knows publishers have not been able to make any transformation in the delivery of content and assessments. Its still a textbook with some fancy bells and whistles.
Those who elected to stay in the business are either too lazy to look or to naive to grasp reality.
There is a real scenario where Pearson ceases to exist. Thomson Learning's been gone for over a decade. No one even remembers it. This is what is going to happen with Pearson.
POLS 2022
Revenue: £155m, Loss: £26m
I'm surprised anybody bought that part of the company.
If your in POLS, don’t expect any severance if you’re laid off now.
@ruc+1lLL5QQm Courseware is not a growth market— it’s a death spiral and yet that’s how our leaders tell us we will get through this.
And yet billions are being pumped into colleges undertaking digital transformations is Pearson anywhere to be found? Nope we sold our only C-Suite value offer (POLS). While I do think areas such as Workforce Skills and the acquisition of Credly show promise in the direction that education is headed, Higher Ed is not part of that and I absolutely see a sale ahead.
Oh and whomever said the pay is abysmal— that’s because they say we are in the higher Ed market which has different salary bands than tech. But anytime there’s a call to action they tell us how we need to be a mature software company. Double Standards which are really the standard for Pearson.
Two groups of people would be very happy if Pearson was sold. Students and instructors. Finally our instructor resources, student resources, registration process, support, customer service would be improved so they are easy to use and find things. We talk about improving our products and customer experience but we haven’t done the simplest things to improve the experience for our users. Does anyone work at this company anymore?
How long before all the stock images of fake students on POLS disappear?
Every now and then, I would run one of those pics through TinEye. It would be on sites by other companies.
No originality. Just a lot of wammen, smiling and in their burqas. Working on their grievance studies degrees.
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Better start downloading those one crm contacts and calling the comp! Pearson execs going to sell you out? Beat them to the punch. : )