EF Education First Employee Reviews about "low pay"
61% would recommend to a friend
(918 total reviews)
Edward Hult, Ph.D
68% approve of CEO
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- "The company is great for people right out of college and that have an interest in education and travel." (in 307 reviews)
- "Salary is low and at times managers can be unrealistic team and individual targeted goals." (in 409 reviews)
- "Poor management and lack of decisiveness from managers that have been stagnating in their roles for too many years." (in 229 reviews)
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Found 918 of over 5K reviews
Updated Nov 29, 2023
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Reviews about "low pay"
Return to all Reviews- 2.0Oct 14, 2019ESL TeacherCurrent Employee, more than 3 yearsShanghai, Shanghai
Pros
I was lucky enough to have good management and a given Z visa. Management is professional and honest and there are no last minute changes in your schedule. My school was clean and modern. HR does a great job with visas and helping teachers with whatever problems they have in and out of school. With regards to the training, its actually good and useful. The best thing about it are the vacation days, I think its the best compared to other training centers out there. There are also chances to move up the ladder.
Cons
1. On paper, we work 40 hours but in reality we work a lot longer than that just to plan classes, write progress reports, manage wechat groups and find time to prepare for classes. Sometimes are are too many meetings in one week that takes away time from teachers. 2. Summer hours are grueling with a 6 day work week and without incentives or extra pay. We have to plan for both summer classes and regular classes. During this time teachers morale usually drops and will look for other employment opportunities. 3. Halloween and Christmas events are good for the students but bad for teachers, it can be tiring. More hours have to be put in at work just to decorate the entire school and find time to prepare for classes. Teachers have to learn to dance which isn't even part of teaching. The staff spends more time at work during these events and are not paid overtime. Little to no budget just for decorations and costumes that teachers have to buy with their own money. 4. Teachers are not dancers, not entertainers, not singers and not performers on a stage that's not related to teaching. 5. We are told at the last minute when public holidays are (new years, national week etc.) and its too late for anyone to plan anything even though I can tell you when the next holidays are years in advance but EF wont tell you until flight tickets become unaffordable due to the holidays.
3
EF Education First Response5yFirst of all, thank you for your 3+ years of commitment to EF. We are happy to hear that you have benefited from good management at your center and value the training and development you have received. We know that teaching can be a very demanding job. As a company, we are continually looking at ways to reduce the amount of administration. We would be interested in learning more about your EF experience over coffee or lunch. Please feel free to reach out to me at Mario.Bermeo@ef.com (Teacher Welfare).
- 2.0Feb 27, 2018Back Office Operations TraineeFormer Intern, more than 1 yearLucerne
Pros
Large company exposure - good for a 3 to 6-month after graduation learning experience. A very diverse and friendly mix of EU nationalities. (Some may like it) Thrown into the deep-end with exposure to big hospitality companies. Weekly company events to chat and mingle with a lot of different departments.
Cons
The business structure is flawed, it is a 'linear approach' but no one takes initiative in fixing simple problems that people with less authorization need to fix, senior management doesn't have the willingness or effort to help their clients. Repetitive to the point that you're a robot. The pay is too low for the workload that is covered and general living costs. Productivity, innovation and developing a better system in place is frowned upon and criticized, while brown-nosing or being quiet will earn you brownie-points and a promotion. The IT system is very out-dated and bespoke to the company, meaning everything is manual and tedious.
2 - 1.0Mar 15, 2021English TeacherCurrent Employee, more than 1 yearOxford, England
Pros
My colleagues at EF are fantastic!
Cons
The pay is terrible for the amount of time and dedication we put in as teachers.
3 - 1.0Aug 20, 2019Travel Support AgentFormer Employee, more than 1 yearToronto, ON
Pros
A good company for your first job if you're super young, and if you don't need money and are looking to make a lot of friends. Good training, because they are preparing you for levels of abuse you can't imagine. Nothing can prepare you for being in the call center at this company. There's a beer fridge open for a few hours on Thursdays and Fridays, which we desperately needed after the abusive phone calls all day, all week.
Cons
Cult-vibes: forced to smile, ride the office scooters, not each lunch alone, forced to participate in scavenger hunts, encouraged to scam parents. Pays less than minimum wage, even for bilinguals. You only get to travel for free as a Tour Guide, so in the Agent role and the TA role, you don't get to travel. Be careful; they pay you once a month but don't warn you. Sometimes they pay you late, and you can go 6-7 weeks without a paycheck. The tour contract and payment plan are confusing on purpose; you realize after a few weeks that it is a scam. Parents are required to sign it to book a tour, but then about 90% of parents end up paying huge late fees. If you don't pay your late fees, the child can't go on their trip AND you don't get the money back that was already paid towards the trip. They could very very easily make the contract and payment plan clear and easy to understand, but they don't on purpose. This is how the company makes money, it is their business model. The fees DON'T go to collections, and the Agent is able to waive ALL of the fees if they want to. The fees lead to a lot of negative calls, about 90% of calls are fights with parents. This takes a huge toll on the Agent, probably why the company encourages drinking from the beer fridge on Thursdays and Fridays. The parents are just regular (dumb) people who mostly have never traveled and don't understand how it works and are relying on a tour company to take care of the travel for their child, and then they get trapped with hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars in fees. It's exploitative. The parents threaten you, abuse you, scream/cuss at you, threaten to come to the office and find you, tell you terrible stories about their child being gang r*aped to gain sympathy/get fees waived, this is nonstop all day and all week. There's high turnover and a high rate of sick days and mental health days. Even if you don't normally call in sick, you will at this company, everyone does and it's an infectious mindset. Because of the high turnover (most people would just stop showing up) and a lot of sick people, there's a lot of work that falls on the remaining people. Lots of work + below minimum wage pay + constant verbal abuse and fighting = a terrible place to be. I wouldn't recommend anyone who is sensitive or with depression, anxiety or PTSD work here. Every single person on the Traveller Support Team cried at one point, some had to go home. Some never came back. There's no reason anyone should work here and go through that abuse for less than minimum wage; you can work at Starbucks for more money and less abuse. A lot of employees felt tricked by promises of travel and a cool Google-like place to work, and soon realized we have to endure insane amount of abuse for just $2300 a month.
5 - 2.0Sep 19, 2022ESL TeacherFormer Temporary Employee
Pros
- great students - experience teaching students from all over the world
Cons
- management does not communicate with you at all - the pay is severely low for the job responsibilities and the time you spend worming outside of classroom hours - the circumstances are not as advertised
- 2.0May 2, 2015Online English TeacherFormer Employee, less than 1 year
Pros
Training is easy and helpful with lots of good information that you'll have to refer back to after you begin teaching. The students are respectful and a pleasure to teach for the most part.
Cons
The pay is terrible and the company is also in violation of several wage/labor laws. They will deduct money from your paycheck for hours that you have already worked if you miss a class or are late turning in grades, even if your absence is warranted.
14 - 1.0May 10, 2020TeacherCurrent Contractor, less than 1 year
Pros
-Work from home -Great starting point to grab a job in the online teaching field to add to the resume -Meeting different people of all ages from all around the world. -24 hours to fill out feedback allows for flexibility- especially if teaching late. -Picking up extra hours last minute or quick sub out system.
Cons
-They are very outdated. They are significantly behind in the virtual learning world. Their powerpoints are minimum material and it looks like it hasn't been updated since the 90s. If a student is a beginner there is no way they are able to complete the class well as the slides give no help- they are all open ended. Apparently a lot of students make fun of this- EF should really correct and get with the time ASAP -The pay is very low compared to other companies to offset teaching from multiple countries. This is understandable for operations if it is a beginner teacher, but not experienced. There should be more incentives or guaranteed hour compensation. Starting at $12 an hour then being expected to custom do classes with last minute assignments is not logical. In addition the Student Cancellation policy with no pay to the teacher is very off putting. Hours are not guaranteed here and it wastes time. A student can cancel up until the class and you have planned your whole day around the schedule. You get paid nothing when this happens. At one point you could have thought you would work 10 hours of private lessons and it ends up being 4. That is unconscionable and EF is taking advantage of the teachers here. -Having to fill out an invoice instead of an automatic system that updates daily? How is this still a thing in this century? Fix this and you would save time for everybody in the long run. This should be a seemless process at this point. You aren't paying for the time to track this and then go back and forth with somebody about the accuracy. If you are able to tell somebody their hours work then the system should already be doing this on it's own.
2 - 2.0Aug 11, 2021English TeacherFormer Contractor, more than 3 years
Pros
Flexible schedule, remote, able to interact with people from all over the world. It is a good job if you are in school and need extra money as you are able to create own schedule.
Cons
The pay was not enough for the amount of energy and time put towards the job.
- 3.0Dec 20, 2020Program ManagerFormer Employee, more than 3 yearsBoston, MA
Pros
Passionate co-workers, fast-paced environment, great location in Boston, and obviously travel.
Cons
For a company that prides itself on “company culture” and being part of the EF family - the pay is remarkable low and layoffs came a mere few weeks into the Pandemic. For how hard people work for this company, the overall structure allows for most to be easily dispensable.
1EF Education First Response3yThank you so much for your candid feedback. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed your EF coworkers and the working environment, but it's disappointing to hear that you didn't feel valued as an employee here. The unprecedented nature of this pandemic and what it meant for our business led us to make some difficult decisions that impacted our company's best asset: our people. We strive to create an environment where everyone feels like a valued member of the team. We also review our compensation structure regularly to ensure we are offering a competitive package, with industry leading benefits and perks. Wishing you the best of luck in all your future endeavors, and thank you for the time and work you committed to EF.
- 2.0Mar 8, 2015University PathwaysFormer Employee, less than 1 yearOxford, England
Pros
It was nice to work with students from various countries and cultures. Lots of nice colleagues, a couple of which I'm still friends with today.
Cons
Low pay for the type of work I was doing and did not reflect the qualifications I had. The workload required extra hours and overtime was unpaid. The company focused on profit with a seeming lack of awareness, offering students things which could not be delivered, putting us in a difficult position.
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