I had heard on a independent contract you can freely decide how much time to take off and what days or weeks you dont want to work. Is this true they dont push you to work or threats?
And I heard they charge you penalty fees if you are late for a lesson or miss a day. Is this true and how much?
Finally I heard they dont pay for training, is that true and is it legal?
by Clear_Dish9911
12 comments
> I had heard on a independent contract you can freely decide how much time to take off and what days or weeks you dont want to work.
This is true.
However, you’ll need to think of yourself as your own company, so if you don’t open lessons at peak times (evenings and weekends) you won’t make enough money to buy groceries and pay rent.
Also, you have to plan literally all the logistics involved with your move to Japan, including preparing to pay city taxes, health insurance, and pension (these will all be 0 in your first year, but they will be multiple paychecks worth of payments when they hit on your second year).
Also, as an independent contractor, you have exactly zero employment protections.
They carve a huge chunk from your paycheck for late or no show lessons. Basically, if you are late for a lesson, even a minute, you will absolutely feel the pain in your next paycheck.
Nope, no pay for training.
Nova is the worst, and they will micro manage you to death. At this point, being an ALT is marginally better.
Putting it bluntly you can try the hours you want but basically they will want you to do peak hours, if you don’t then don’t expect regular work. As a company they are rated pretty poorly.
They have a very expensive legal team that makes sure that nothing they do is illegal. I assume the team of crack lawyers is also the reason why they cant afford to pay their staff properly.
I’m on normal contract and only work 32 hours per week. My training was paid, and we get a Christmas bonus (20000 yen). Plus 10 days paid holiday. Also you can request more time off non paid if you want. I’ve never been late or missed a day since work starts at 4:20pm and 12:50pm on other days. My experience with nova has been 90% positive so far. I got lucky with my prefecture. My managers are all super great and staff is nice. Only negative is low salary, but if you find a lover to split rent/utilities it’s super comfortable, I travel/sightsee once a month. Even twice a month sometimes. Nova is only good if you have someone to go half and half with you on rent and living expenses.
Out of all the Eikaiwas, Nova is the worst. Working for them is selling your soul to the devil. They’re the definition of a black company.
You can choose your days and times under the new independent contract, and you can even choose your branches and change them every month, but:
If you don’t have regular days/times you may not get bookings. You get paid by the bookings. And if you choose a branch that already has enough teachers on the days you want, then ditto.
You have to agree your schedule a month in advance. If you don’t turn up for a booked slot, it doesn’t matter if you had a family emergency or a car accident, THEY WILL CHARGE YOU. The amount depends on how long you left them to find an alternative teacher. The exact amounts will be in the contract, and yes, they are a lot.
You have to do their training in your own time. If you don’t do the training, you can’t take lessons. If you don’t refresh the training regularly or don’t do training for newly offered packages, you can’t teach those classes. That will hit your earnings as well.
My advice would be to do a full-time month when you arrive, get some regulars/scope out branches and then decide which days and times you want to drop and take it from there. Nova will say that it’s up to you to meet your visa conditions and they don’t monitor your hours in that sense.
This new independent contract has only been in place since April and is the same for Nova and Gaba. It’s hard to tell how it’s going to play out longer term and managers are probably still finding their feet with how to manage the schedule.
If you just want a visa so you can be in Japan and legit don’t care about the salary, it should work for you. There’s also nothing stopping you from looking for a different job when you’re here. And don’t feel the need to be too honest about your intentions, they WILL fuck you over the first chance they get, don’t expect them to treat you well. Fair warning!
Anyone asking about nova has probably done 0 research and their post should be deleted. Admins, do you jobs
Correct. On the current (2024) contracts.
ICs can choose what days and even location they would like to work. however there is a caveat. you can choose a location and a Time but the managers will decide whether or not the time needs instructors or not. the calendar is marked as red if the day is fulfilled or green if it has high demand, you can still apply for the time even if filled, but you’ll have lower chances to aquire lessons; you’ll probably end up with just online only lessons. if there are a ton of teachers showing up, then obviously the chances of you getting less and scheduled will be very low, or even nothing. some locations also include Gaba, so you would actually have to be trained if you wanted to do Gaba lessons as well. which is actually another calendar separate from Nova. typically the schedule is completed almost a month prior, so you would have a higher chance of getting lessons because most students start scheduling their lessons one month in advance. if you appear on the schedule after that time then most of the students have already scheduled so you probably wouldn’t get anything.
as far as penalty fees, yes, there is a fee depending on your notice of intent not to show, being late, or even not going to the lesson. the fee will change depending on the condition. it can range from 400 yen per lesson to 20,000 yen per lesson. you can have a maximum of nine lessons per day. so if you completely forgot about the day you’d be pretty overwhelmed with fees.
Training is paid. Yes, it’s illegal. Since the training is required to be completed on premises they would have to pay you. if training is done outside of the company then no they would not have to pay you.
I work for Gaba and they are owned by Nova now and they’re encouraging us (gaba employees) to also become “nova trained” so we can work at Nova as well.
Yes to all.
1. You have the freedom to choose your schedule. You can work as many or few hours as you want and the days/times you want. If you want to take a vacation for a week you don’t have to ask permission. Your manager will ask you from time to time if you can work certain days or times if there’s a demand but you have no obligation to. However as others have said it’s not that simple. Because you are paid per lesson and not per hour, in order to book enough lessons to make enough money you practically have to work peak hours (early mornings, evenings, and weekends) and you might find yourself twiddling your thumbs mid-day because those are the slow times (since most of your students will be at work).
Also, there is no paid vacation or paid sick days, so if you do decide to take time off, while there’s no penalty you also won’t be paid during that time.
2. Yes you *can* be charged a fee if you are late (if you are late you are not allowed to conduct the lesson, so this is a missed lesson) or if you have to “call out sick”. The fee changes depending on what type of lesson it was and how much advanced notice you give when cancelling. *However* you can almost always have these fees excused. You need to submit documentation online (very easy) and it will be excised. Since they’ve enacted the policy my train was very delayed a couple of times and I had to miss a lesson. I submitted the train delay slip and it was covered. Last week I had to unexpectedly go to the hospital for testing and I had to cancel 3 lessons with less than 48 hours notice. I submitted my receipts from the hospital and it was covered. In these cases you won’t be charged for missing the lessons, but you also won’t be paid anything since you didn’t teach. So, it’s not in your best interest to cancel lessons.
3. Yes, the training is unpaid. Not sure if this is legal. For Gaba we had 3 full days of training, I think it was 10-6, Friday – Sunday, and they were unpaid. Any time you want to do “certifications” so that you can potentially earn more money, you have to take a class from ~10-5 and you’ll only be paid ¥2000 for the whole day.
DM me if you want to see the contract – Independent Contractor Agreement (version 4.0 202404)
Current employee.
If you’re an independent, you don’t get paid for any of the training. After the initial training, you also need to schedule yourself for more unpaid training to have a chance to teach more lessons, such as: online classes, eiken, some pretty mediocre courses called “Own Your English”.
STAY AWAY from Nova
Nova is a truly evil company, run by monsters. The treatment of foriegn staff is nothing like you could imagine. The customers who use the service are just as wicked and couldn’t give a damn about their instructors. To them, the instructors are just consumables. A majority of teachers get sent to the countryside which are full of kids with irresponsible parents who blame the instructors.
It’s not just Nova, the whole English teaching market is exactly the same. Don’t fall into the trap.