Pearson reviews

There are too many high level managers who are too old and have been in the company for too long. They don't understand market needs, employees' needs or how to meet the competition from smaller and more agile companies. Also, the organizational structure is a complete mess. Pearson has created a culture where video meetings have replaced actual work, and where decisions are extremely inefficient. Small and insignificant issues are shared with too many uninformed people, and nothing happens until consensus is reached; as an effect many trivial questions are repeatedly postponed to future meetings. Working within in this culture is frustrating for people who want to get things done, who have the ability to move things forward, who have experience from more efficient organizations and who have visions for the future.

Multiple rounds of layoffs in the past few years as the upper management reorgs and reorgs again. It's a time of disruption and upheaval in publishing, but Pearson in particular has managed itself poorly. It laid off the people actually responsible for some very profitable and well regarded products in the US in 2016 while the execs who totally missed on their growth projections for 2015 remain in their jobs. (Pearson made over a billion US in profit in 2015, but was 25% off its forecast for growth -- hence the stated reason for layoffs.) It wants to be a software company, but doesn't seem willing to actually spend up front what is necessary for enough good tech staff to make that happen.