6 months on…
It’s been 6 months since I came home from Japan. It’s probably safe now to announce the semi-obvious: yes, I worked for NOVA. I didn’t have a pleasant time. This wasn’t because of the students, I might add. I had a great time getting to know them and befriending them, and I still keep in contact with a group of them.
No, what gave me the irrits was the extremely corporate nature of NOVA. And yes, it’s a corporation, with an aim to make profit. But there is such a thing as ethical profiteering, as well as corporate social behaviour. NOVA is an example of why the stock exchange is evil. Before I even arrived in Japan, the share price for NOVA had been dropping. Then in May this year, it was announced that NOVA was expecting a net loss of 3 billion yen (about US$30,000,000) due to expanding the number of branches to the point where each school was fighting not to lose students to another NOVA branch. All this resulted in NOVA trying to save money and make money any way it could, just to make the shareholders happy.
It was simply stupid business management. NOVA had a number of “satellite” schools that were staffed by teachers and admin from the main school in the area. These satellite schools would have a very small number of students, be open only a few days a week and would cost more in rent and overheads than the income received from the students.
Did you ever hear that story about how McDonalds refuses to close any stores? At best, they will relocate them, but never close them down, because it looks “bad” to the general public. Well, NOVA seemed to have much the same policy, despite the obvious losses they were incurring.
The large number of schools meant that they were always understaffed, and would basically hire any monkey who had scrapped through a year of college. The teachers were often disgruntled, due to some of the illegal activities and bizarre policies that NOVA perpetuated, as well as the constant overtime pushed onto them, whatever personal gripes they had with Japan and finally the stress that radiated off the Japanese staff.
My gods, I felt sorry for the Japanese staff. They would sometimes receive the treatment that some students received and get heckled by some teachers. They were under a huge amount of stress to get the numbers of sales up, keep the teachers well informed and the student customers happy. I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with them for the world.
At one point, NOVA announced it was cutting back on all expenses in branches except paper, cleaning products and light fixtures. It went one step further at my school, where the Japanese staff were desperate to get some savings on the books – they stopped providing plastic garbage bags for the bin lining. The teachers were asked to fork up 1000 yen of their own money, per month, to cover the things like garbage bags, pens, paper and whiteboard markers that NOVA would no longer supply.
We told them to go stuff themselves.
One of the Japanese staff ended up paying for it all out of her own pocket.
NOVA did not give a shit about it’s stakeholders: the staff, teachers and students – the people who actually made it operate and turn a dollar. Instead, NOVA milked them all dry to appease the shareholder. Even to the point of illegal activities that are now being fought by the General Workers Union.
Another well-known example is NOVA accomodation. Oh gods. If it wasn’t for the Accomodation section, I would’ve perhaps worked there for longer. Lies, lack of answers, refusal to answer calls, rudeness, avoiding all the issues that tenants may bring up. THEN overcharging them. If you ever choose to work for NOVA, fine. But don’t live in their apartments. It will save you untold amounts of stress and frustration.
I completely understand that NOVA exists only to make a profit, not to provide gaijin with a cheap holiday. But anyone with basic business knowledge can tell you that their methods of operation were on the extremely dodgy side. If you want students to buy more tickets, then make sure that they can use the ones they already have, at the times that they want. What’s that? Don’t have enough teachers to fill the demand of lessons? They all seem to be quitting? Well, maybe you should try and keep your teachers happy with their jobs, by giving them the basic tools and training that they need. Don’t throw them in the deep end. Don’t make life difficult for them back in their apartments. And don’t tell them that they lack company spirit and threaten them with degrading their reports when instead you could be listening to their gripes and trying to fix them.
I’m convinced that the shareholder-over-stockholder nature of NOVA was what caused the awful behaviour I witnessed in some teachers. I met a large number of assholes whilst working for NOVA. But I did also meet the loveliest people. Teachers and students. There are good guys in NOVA and you don’t always have to look hard for them. I’d say that they’re better people than me, because they have more patience and will take being raped anally repeatedly without any lubricant.
When I announed to the students that I was leaving Japan and heading home, they threw me a great farewell party. I was given gifts and told that I was the favourite teacher of many students in the branch.
Damn, that made me feel vindicated. For the last 10 months, NOVA had been telling me that I wasn’t doing enough and had to put up, shut up and get on with it. Keep complaining and they’ll have to downgrade my “company spirit” mark, as if I were still in freaking high school. But I was a good teacher. I knew I was a damn good teacher. That’s why all the people I keep in touch with from Japan are my old students, and none of my old work colleagues.
So, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to say that I will no longer be writing for the Teach section of 3yen. There’s not a lot for me to write now that I’m home, and most of what I could write would be secondhand anyway. I’ll still be around on other sections of the site, so please keep reading. There’ll be a new blogger here before long, with all the latest news, gossip and advice for teaching in Japan, so stay tuned.
Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope I was entertaining and informative for you.
Ja ne.
- 
January 14th, 2007 at 11:42 am
On any journy contemplated, it is best to start with both eyes open.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Forget Nova, you should try teaching kindergarden. Not sure what the pay is but check out these supa gaijin dudes who are more clowns than teachers. They and kids seem to be having lots of fun.
http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/teaching-english-in-japan-video/
but probably gives ESL teachers a bad rap
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:11 am
I’m just saving up my comments for the time when my contract is officially completed and I’m free to rant about AEON without being fired.
There are similar issues; I’m often hassled by the management, who are in complete denial about the reality of their teachers. They seem to think all teachers come to their company to stay, when in fact, most finish up the year and go back home. AEON should accept this and cope, instead of encouraging teachers to lie to headquarters about the reasons they came to Japan (i.e. “I came to teach, not to learn about Japan” – so you don’t come off as curious human being with feelings and interests in your reviews)
Similar problems with office supplies; I’ve been hassled about using necessary tape and normal paper to prepare classroom materials.
But, like you said, what gets to me is the corporate nature – selling students materials they don’t need after counseling sessions designed to encourage the sale, entire campaigns devoted to profit and not students’ needs, weekly meetings going over trivial figures foreign teachers have no control over…
But the students are good. They’re human, and they keep me going. If it weren’t for them, I would have quit already.
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:44 am
I must say, since I started learning Japanese a good seven years ago, I have never ONCE heard a single good thing about NOVA. I have, instead, heard countless stories about how their treat their employees like shit – long hours, bad conditions, etc.
Reading your entry really hits this home for me. It’s good to know that what I’ve been hearing for several years isn’t just the rumour mill doing overtime.
I’d never recommend to anyone that they work for NOVA. If they’re considering it, I’ll make sure they read this.
Thanks for the entry!
-BG
March 7th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Hi
I had acutally applied for NOVA a while back cause it was listed in the co op program within my university. I was actually looking to look up about how their interview process might have went and/or any tips
Do you think you can email me or something? I never realized or saw NOVA as the kind of company you have described and now I’m very curious as to the on-goings of it.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I worked for NOVA for 5 years in multiple schools and on the whole I had a good experience. The company sucked but I met a lot of cool students and staff and tried not to take the BS too seriously. I am a laid back kinda guy so I just played the game enough to be on the good side of my bosses, but if any of them stepped out of line I told them. I saw the good and bad of NOVA but left just before all the “stuff” hit the fan. My advice to anyone that is going to go the NOVA route is to “USE THEM” not let them “USE YOU”. Get out of the NOVA apartment as soon as you can and keep your eyes out for better working conditions. If your time at NOVA is good then stay. If they start to hassle you it’s time to get out. Of course you have to have a little money in the bank and be ready. So if you decide to use NOVA just know what to expect and that you should keep your ear to the ground. If anything I hope this little problem helps fix NOVA but knowing the company….I WONT!! I think it’s a good time to open an
English School, just go in front of a NOVA School and steal their students. ;-)
August 13th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
It’s funny. Why don’t we hear about the wonderful, selfless actions of normal, everyday people on the front page of the news?
The same reason you never see a blog written by normal, hard-working people who don’t complain just to hear themselves speak.
I have worked a lot of hard jobs in my life, and working at Nova doesn’t even enter the top 5.
Let’s set a few things straight:
1. At Nova, you don’t have to work overtime if you don’t want to. You can run out the door at 3 minutes after that lesson bell (and most people do).
2. The pay is comparable to alot of young business men in Tokyo. I am a recruiter now and i know the salary of most professionals in the IT market.
3. Most of the complainers were the ‘disgruntled’ teachers and now that I am in the recruitment industry, I can see that no matter where you go, there will always be whiners that demand all kinds of things that they feel is their right to have. English teaching is a job, and it is not supposed to be a holiday. If you want to have fun, go get drunk, go to the beach, or do what you want to do on your days off.
4. Days off: You can ’swap’ days off with other teachers giving you a long weekend if you like. You get a good amound of paid holidays (and unpaid if you ask) to take anytime you like. This is much more flexible that most companies in Japan. I know. I hear from engineers and sales people in Japan that work more hours in one day that most ESL teachers work in a week. And without OT pay.
I am an ex-Nova teacher and I don’t think it was bad at all.
I must say, though, that the pay is much better in recruitment. But to do this job, you have to be dedicated and passionate about hitting numbers and pushing yourself hard. You have to be good in the face of stress; keep your head down and work hard.
That’s my 2 cents.
Glendon
January 17th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hi,
I’m a Journalist in Ontario, Canada. I’m writing a feature on teaching abroad I would like to talk to someone who taught ESL in foreign country and had a negative experience. If you or anyone you know would be willing to talk to me about it, please contact me at this email.
I am very interested in your story.
April 6th, 2009 at 3:53 am
NOVA does sound like a horrible company but that fact can’t be blamed on the corporate system. Companies are ultimately created to make money for shareholders but cutting costs and retaining employee talent are both important to achieve that goal. Treating workers like crap and not paying for anything was their desperate and doomed way of keeping jobs. The inflexible labor market in Japan prevented employees from voting with their feet.
What NOVA should have done from a business perspective was to fire a whole lot of people – something that workers wouldn’t be happy about either.
The problem is not that NOVA made workers unhappy. The problem is that NOVA doesn’t know how to run a business.
The employees themselves can complain about NOVA all they want but they can’t find a better alternative in the job market, then their criticism of NOVA as an employer is pretty moot.