Rumour: GEOS Late in Paying Salaries

I agree, though generally speaking in Australia I think that it was a combination of poor management and inflated wages - 50-odd dollars an hour for lessons?
While reading these boards, Japanese schools are badly managed, but surely a big part of this is the financial situation in the world at the moment?
Out of interest, how many people on this board are actually in Japan?
And have you taught outside of Japan?
Particularly those who seem to have a grudge against English schools.
Not trying to flame, just interested.

The GEOS management style has just never made any sense. For example, take the setting up of one of its North American schools. A teacher was sent over from Japan to start the school from the basics - getting a space secured, buying materials, etc. GEOS sent over its first students from Japan within a month. The teacher literally had no time to get host families signed up and she had to house two students in her own one bedroom apartment. On top of that GEOS headquarters immediately set up a monthly revenue goal equal to established schools. So just weeks of having the school opened, the manager was getting harassed and brought to tears over why she had failed to meet the month's goal.
Which daughter is involved in running GEOS now? Kusunoki had one daughter living in LA during the late 90's and she seemed nice. Kusunoki himself was a whole other story. He used to smoke during meetings without an ashtray in front of him and would have his secretary hold out her hand for him to tap his ashes into. I attended one of the pointless Big Jump sessions. One of the supposed highlights was to go on a cruise on Kusunoki's "yacht". It turned out to be basically just a large fishing boat with cheap plastic chairs on the back deck. One of the participants felt stomach rumblingss shortly after boarding and went to the toilet. The toilet backed up. The look on Kusunoki's face when he saw the crap overlowing was priceless.

This has been going on for years, at least in a lot of the smaller schools. It's been a few years now since GEOS and I parted ways but this doesn't strike me as too unusual based on what I remember. Manager could've been getting flogged for the day at head office, other teachers may not have had any lessons til the late evening. May have even chosen a quiet day for the interviews.

Not that that's anyway to run your business mind, successful schools don't have quiet days.

Out of interest, who was giving the interview?

Link http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GEOS_%28eikaiwa%29&action=hist...

Recent economic woes have lead Geos to be late paying the Japanese staff in August and September 2009. It is further reported that foreign teachers working at the adult schools were not paid on time in October 2009. Geos is currently asking clients to pay as much as 5 months in advance for the following years lessons in a bid to raise the necessary funds to meet payroll obligations. This financial distress has led to many Japanese staff members to resign.

The main evidence for this rumour seems to be regarding the fact that the edit above was removed from wikipedia. The implication being that GEOS did this to cover it up. This edit to the wikipedia entry by spaceporter says that the pay for October was late. However, and this is a big however, the posting was made on the 16th of October, a full two weeks BEFORE the October pay date which is at the end of the month. Can spaceporter actually port through time and space?

I wish I could hear some concrete evidence about this rumour as I am supposed to be starting with GEOS in two weeks.

As for the school closures, they mentioned this at the interviews and said that it was in order to consolidate their business. They said it was wasteful having multiple small schools near each other so they closed those that were not doing as well and concentrated their business on making the good schools better. They explained that it was better to have students travel a few stations rather than try and have a school at every station.

GEOS has schools in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Gold Coast, Sydney (x2), Melbourne and South Africa.

ATM only the Cairns manager remains. Many of the replacements have little or no experience in management - Even the CEO's of Australia and the USA have quit.

tick, tock, tick, tock.................?

Gday I was a geos teacher until about a year ago. I quit because the stupid manager kept putting pressure on me to make sales to meet the stupid sales target.... I didnt respond well to pressue like that so I began to hate the toerag and also there was talk of closing schools and combinig kids and adults, so... I quit with little notice and am now an ALT with cruisy days, better hour, better holidays, better teaching environment and a little bit more pay... PISS eikaiwa off and become an ALT!!
Poor mums and dads.. working hard to pay for little Taro and Hanako to learn english at stupid prices and being pressured into buying shit they dont want or need... I would be very happy if GEOS went arse up... then little Taro and Hanako can find some other cheaper and more satisfying way to learn english.... (exchange programme?)
Goodbye....

I quit GEOS about 6 weeks ago and let me tell you, things are AWFUL in this company. I worked for them about 7 months, stayed long enough to get my visa renewed (worked previously at another english school) and to get paid and left with ZERO notice at all...just handed the manager the school keys and my GEOS apartment key about 30 minutes before classes started...she was f*cked.
I had enough of the bullshit....I took it up the anus far to long and left.

The manager at the small school I worked at constantly LIED to me about everything, tried to prevent me from taking any vacations...tried to tell me I had to work at GEOS for 12 months before I could get a vacation....I showed her a copy of my contract and it said 3 months!! The manager was also racist bigot and so was the JET(japanese english teacher), so that didnt help the atmosphere at all.
To make my time at GEOS difficult the manager never told me what was going on in the company....she NEVER got off the f*cking computer and rarley allowed me to get on the computer to do anything. I never knew what was happening, as I could not check GEOS email....and often found myself in trouble as I didnt know the lastest changes in lessons or intensive week, student counseling, and what not. The manager also CHEATED me on my salary month after f*cking month. Bad manager....we lost 60% of our students in 6 months...she blamed me for it and the final straw came when she tried to make me financially responsible for student refunds (highly illegal in Japan). I refused to sign any documents. Im soo glad Im out of that shitty company....it was a nightmare. GEOS is rotten to the f*cking core.

Oh no! Swedish??!! Were they copying the Nova "model"?

(Nothing against Swedes by the way..... or turnips)

bye bye GEOS and Luke are exactly correct. The terribly mentally sick CEO, or as he is fondly know as Dr. Hannible Lecter has, through his insanity, caused all of the good, smart and decent managers in his schools in Australia to jump ship. Even the top. Same in other overseas schools. People with years of experience and knowledge. People who worked hard for him. As I often say, HQ in Japan has lost any and all intelligence, and the only people in charge there and in the overseas schools are pathetic yes-men who have no balls and hollow hearts. Good for nothing, yes-men. I pity them all and thank God every day I got to jump in a life boat as soon as this titanic hit the iceberg. It's just a matter of time before the bow is up and the stern is completely under water. Hey Kusunoki, yes, and your deranged daughter Mariko. You reap what you sow, you sick bastards. Good luck as you will soon be living in a cardboard box in Shinjuku station with the rest of the washed up assholes who thrived during the bubble, and lost it all because they where only hollow corpses like you. What a strange company indeed.

Dear Perth GEOS teacher.....you are happy with GEOS because labor laws in OZ protect you and you have the power of the legal system on your side. We here in Japan dont have those luxuries. Sure there are laws in Japan to protect workers, but they are rarely enforced or just ignored by the authorities....not to mention there are barely any consumer protection laws in Japan either. This where companies like GOES Japan get away with screwing teachers, students, and staff over left and right...and get away with it, and do it with impunity. Japan is NOT like OZ.

We just cant leave our jobs and walk down the street and find new jobs in Japan like we used a few years ago. Some people are just simply stuck until hiring season or lucky enough to land a new job quickly.
We are all real Happy for you in OZ with your Happy job at GEOS....while the rest of at GEOS Japan are threaten and ripped-off everyday of the month....because thats how things are done here....and there is nothing we an do about it.

The labour laws in Australia pertaining
to Teachers are weak and the situation
for esl teachers is not as rosy as the
Perth Teacher states. All teachers don't
have contracts so most are long term
casual staff with NO job security.

The Perth Teacher missed the point,
of course teachers come and go, it's a
revolving door unsecure industry that
doesn't take teachers situations, loyalty,
etc into account. Money is the most
important thing. The point was high level
staff have quit all of them way too young
to qualify for super (I know this) and now
is being managed by a bunch of amature
unqualified ex receptionists or homestay
recruiters.

Are all the teachers at your Perth school happy to have the nomenclature 'teacher', but at the same time be using the tactics of door to door pizza salesmen to shift your companys crappy merchandise? Are they really happy doing that?

If that is really the case they are selling themselves short. Get a real sales job. Work for a real corporation. Sell real product.

I work for Geos. Everything in that Wikipedia post is true. The Japanese teachers in my area were very upset, and all the native English teachers in my region were paid late in October. However, we were paid on time in November. I'm worried that it might just be a dead cat bouncing though... Geos is required by Japanese law to hold all tuition in an account, dispersing funds throughout the business each month that a student is with Geos. This way, if a student quits, they will be guaranteed a refund (this is also why Nova got into so much trouble... they didn't follow through on this law). The problem is that Geos is continuing to lose students through contact completions, student cancellations and school closings... which means that the surviving schools are desperate for new contracts since that account is dwindling. By the way, "consolidation" in the eikaiwa sense of the word is just corporate cannibalism for the reasons just mentioned. In the short term, the company can quickly liquidate funds to pay late salaries... However, there will be less money to pool from for the next payday, because a huge percentage of those students will quit, thus sapping funds from the account I just mentioned. If you landed a job with Geos, just use your visa to find an ALT job... immediately.

There is no such thing as a good lesson delivered by a half-wit teacher. Good lessons are designed by the teachers themselves for real people with real needs.

I disagree that GEOS schools have particularly high numbers of students enrolled for the purposes of residency in Australia. Are actually you talking from personal experience here? The vast majority of GEOS Australia students I've met have been short/medium-term international students who have travelled to Australia temporarily to study. Like most schools in Australia, GEOS has a small proportion of students enrolled for residency but far less than many other operators.

It's my understanding that there are three reasons why students might be enrolled at a language school in order to get residency:
1) They are living with a partner who is already a resident and need to stay in the country for 12/24 months to qualify for de facto PR.
2) They are studying to get an IELTS score that will allow them to enter a local institution and study a qualification that will lead to PR through the skills shortage list
3) They are already qualified overseas and need to get a particular IELTS score that will allow then to do that job in Australia (e.g. 7.0/7.5 for doctors and nurses)

In the case of 1) these students usually end up in the cheapest, shonkiest colleges they can find. And despite GEOS's cost-cutting there are still many places which are far far cheaper. The kinds of places which have 1 classroom but 300 students enrolled, students who come in and sign in in the morning, and then head off to work (cash in hand). A lot of these places are rumoured to work hand-in-hand with immigration specialists and some of the dodgier agents who funnel students into these kinds of operators rather than GEOS. In the case of 2) and 3) there are far better colleges with better teaching staff out there specialising in EAP and IELTS courses. GEOS generally gets some of these students but in my experience the serious ones, the ones who actually wanted to study hard and work towards a life-changing goal, were usually the first ones complaining and asking for a refund when they realised the high-level IELTS class they'd been sold was actually full of mute, low-level Koreans who had not intention of taking an IELTS test but wanted "IELTS" written on their leaving certificate.

Yup, fair comment all round. If you lobbed into a GEOS Aus school next week, however, you would find increasing numbers of the category (1) and (2)'s you mention above. Particulary from Turkey, Colombia, Brazil and it looks as if the GEOS marketeers are attempting to mine the Russian market again. And he mute Koreans are not adverse to having PR as a prime goal.

Another interesting shift is that some student or their agents are discovering the asylum seeker route and you can encounter students deep into asylum claims. Now how those folk align, in a scholarly sense, with the "short/medium-term international students who have travelled to Australia temporarily to study" you mention is a story all in itself and one that a few GEOS teachers might like to discuss with you over a convivial beer sometime!

As an aside, as the Japanese and Australian GEOS teachers appear to be finding very common ground on the Let's Japan site, how about some input from other GEOS countries???? How's things in NZ, Pommieland......

Despite some serious issues the GEOS Australia schools are still based on fairly robust financial principles (unlike the Japanese schools which are a pyramid marketing scam, but that's already been mentioned enough above). A lot of the GEOS Australia schools were acquired from other providers rather than being greenfield sites and have operated with a fair degree of success for nigh on 20 years in some case. In fact, I'd go as far as saying without overseas interference from a madman most of the GEOS Australia schools would be tremendously successful.

Let's be clear here.. the thing that is crippling most of these operations is the cost-cutting that's being forced on them by Japan. This is losing them good staff at all levels of their operations across Oceania. They're also losing Japanese students generally (as are most Australian schools) because Oz isn't the go-to destination for Japanese people anymore and less and less Japanese people are choosing to study overseas anyway. Many of the GEOS overseas offices have also closed as victims of cost-cutting, and all those agents aren't getting those huge commissions they've gotten so used to.

This last point is the thing that will hurt them the most. Agents will continue sending students to mediocre schools if they are rewarded for doing so. But with El Presidente's cost-cutting in full effect GEOS just can't afford to attract the students like they used to. So they go with the option they DO have left: cut prices to the bone and cut costs across the board. Unfortunately, while this may attract more students in the short term it also send some very bad messages out to the industry (and especially the agents).

'byebyeGEOS', I've worked in all levels of the ELT industry in Australia for many years and I don't know what a Commonwealth producing notice is, could you elaborate? And I don't believe the government is in any position to shut English schools down unless they are in serious breach of industry regulations. A couple of schools (mostly vocationally orientated schools aimed more at Indian students) have gone under in the last few months, Meridian College being the biggest name. When this happens other EA members and CRICOS providers (these are organisations in Oz that regulate and represent the ELT industry) are required, under law, to offer places on similar courses for free wherever possible. The government also has a fund that it uses to help with refunds pre-start students and other associated costs. So if GEOS were to cease operations worldwide overnight the government would probably have to step in and find places and/or refunds for all those thousands of students. It's not about losing face, it's just in the government's best interests not to have to spend that money unless it has to.

And if you think GEOS are bad, try going to some of the schools that the government DO hunt and shut down. The student-visa farms with 600 students supposedly all studying full time, run out of a one-room office. Vocational colleges where students are supposedly studying cooking with no kitchen on the premises. The thing the Australian government is shitting itself over most right now is not the actions of one half-baked Japanese company but losing the hundreds of thousands of Indian and Chinese students spending millions upon millions of dollars a year in VET colleges and Master's degrees.

Hang on, isn't this an Eikaiwa site? Guess it's time for me to shut up...

I've been told by an "insider" that is now an outsider that the Oz campanies have been sucked dry by Japan. The issue with this is that all of the revenue received for future weeks has been already taken away. This means that the schools rely on getting us much revenue in as possible to pay for the past's and the present's debts. If the future has a downturn - then they cannot pay for the past or the present. This will catch up with them at some stage - just see the GFC of the last 2 years and the ponzi schemes that existed. If an exGeos staff member is correct - the Japanese operations have sucked about 10million from the accounts. They are hedging everything on the future being very rosy to build another base were they are safe. The managers have left as they can see that there are major issues and they do not want to be tainted with the gunk from GEOS.

Now your assertion that the Government will come riding in as a white knight is not correct. Student Visa holders will be placed in other schools under regulations. Unfortunately 1/2 the market is not student visa holders. They are going to be fending for themselves - unless the government decides to do something - which it probably will to protect the industry.

You are correct that the Government will retract the licence of the schools and fine the directors if they believe the schools are unable to provide services to the students (ie the fees have been used for other purposes). The Gov has the ability to issue a production notice which requires the school to provide any documentation it wants. The Gov will only do this if it has grave reservations about a school. A production notice is akin to a royal commission in that he has the ability to ask for anything - and to withhold has very serious consequences for schools and directors.

Given the recent dearth of Indian enrolments at VET's - the numbers are down alarmingly as a consequence of the visa tightening and the adverse publicy - more likely the visa tightening as everyone knows in the industry - you don't do a cooking degree to become a cook, its for PR purposes - what's the percentage of graduating indian students plying their new trade - less than 5% it seems based on anecdotal evidence - i mean when was the last time you saw a indian cook in a restaurant (that wasn't an indian restaurant)? The trainers are all upset - they love teaching students that want to learn - not just be there to tick a box.

later

It's a shame how one poster, such as Thorn, can stuff up an important thread and an important website. So, Thorn, here's your new equation as a Christmas present:

G+0 +AWAY= A+GOOD+IDEA

Lets all make a News Years resolution,
to ignore all Thorns posts in 2010.
Post yeah if you agree.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Mr X, this guy just likes winding people up for kicks on web forums. He's managed to wind up everyone on here, including the webmaster, not to mention other forums as well. He'll keep going at you and try to provoke you if you respond to him. Best ignored.

Hey Thorny/Dicky,

You just can't get me off your mind can ya babe? If you have to go hunting for me on the Internet, and get all excited about my new vacuum cleaner sales career, then that's fantastic - I never realized I was so important, or that you were so turned on by hoovers.

To save you time and trouble, I think I might start an online blog detailing everything I've done, replete with Coburg pics and Rainbow vacuum cleaner memorabilia, just for you to masturbate over. Hell, I might even mail you my real address, then you can come over and spy on me for real, and get it out your system once and for all.

What say you Dicky, are you game?

Read the two above posts and understand them as being from GEOS Corporate web writers trolling and spoiling and attempting to diminish the on-going impact of this site on outsiders' appreciation of the company.

That's an interesting idea, but I can't imagine anyone at GEOS actually being smart enough to pretend to be morons in order to damage this site's credibilty. Moreover, right now I don't think they need to bother. In the absence of any more news, confirmed or otherwise, about falling sales, school closures, lay-offs, pay cuts or late salary payments, people are naturally going to start talking about other stuff. Until something actually happens with GEOS I can see discussion on GEOS-related threads either drying up or becoming irrelevant to the actual topic.

This site is pathetic, full of paranoid
gaijin who are either bitter about the past
or wishing they could have control over
their future.

I won't be back my time is to important
for this bitter twisted gaijin living in Japan
crap, Good luck to you all.

Oh come on Dicky, what d'you mean "Whoever you are?" It's your best friend Coburg of course! You and me have got such a strong bond going with each other, no matter how much you try and deny it. I think you've got a soft spot for vacuum cleaners as well, hence your envy of my new, illustrious career.

Whatever the case may be, do get in touch should you be needing any complimentary vacuum cleaners for your NGO. I hear the Africans, like you, are quite partial to a bit of sucking action (for lots of money of course).

Certainly his antics on here get in the way of information about Geos coming out, which will please Geos head office no end.

See what I mean???

That's because he is simply a programmed corportae troll. Time for site moderation.

So there you have it people - as I said, as soon as you question Thorn, you immediately become an eikaiwa stooge, an online nutjob, or a whacko psycho sicko stalker with a weird Thorn obsession.

If you're being stalked Thorn, it's for very good reason, given your online stalking of various other posters from Japan/eikaiwa-related forums, not to mention your inflammatory comments to various people on here, including the webmaster.

Anyway, here's to more of the same from Thorn - please continue, while the rest of us get on with something useful. Enjoy yourself.

I'm not knocking anyone who says eikaiwa is a huge scam. It's true because so many people are spending huge amounts of money on a service that's basically going to do them no good whatsoever, even when there are good lessons, good teachers and (rare) good supervisors. However, this is a comment thread about GEOS. If anyone wants to make comments about eikaiwa in general, they could join the LJ forums and post them there.

Thanks for this invaluable GEOS information.

I can now go into my New Years Eve Celebrations, feeling good about myself.

Thanks a million.

Good to see someone is making an effort, to STICK TO TOPIC.

Hmmm.....

THORN

So pointless....just GEOS company posters happy to ruin LJ site.

Glad to see we're back on topic. Hopefully Thorn will follow suit and put a sock in his puppets.

Only value probably left in the company are school not in Japan. We learn some about Australia situation. Any posters working in other countries able to say what is happening? Are Senior Management there moving out?

GEOS Managers? From what I have been told, they are dropping like flies. Yup, like rats leaving a sinking ship. Yup, that's the word on the streets.

THORN

I think this site did a very good service in informing people that Japanese staff had been paid late several times. I believe kids teachers were also paid late too.

Any potential GEOS teachers who read this information - and it was accurate information - would quite rightly have had second thoughts about working for GEOS, and instead looked for a more reliable company to work for, eg one that was paying its staff on time, and not closing down schools. Quite a shame indeed.

GEOS management could have posted their side of the story on here in order to dispel these facts rumours, but they didn't. Obviously they couldn't deny them. Instead there were several very suspect postings from people saying things like "it's not in instructors' best interests to quit", and all that kind of gobshite.

Now enrolments are up - well that's a surprise, seeing as April is the busiest time for English schools. Good God GEOS, well done!

Of course, people like yourself would prefer the facts rumours be buried, in order to create the illusion that everything's "fine and dandy", when it quite clearly isn't. Sorry, but you're doing a disservice to all your current and potential staff with that kind of attitude.

Hang your head in shame.

As per Simon Clegg's comments from the following 2006 thread;

http://www.japan-zone.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/tokyoguy/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=116...

"Geos is a large corporation headed by Tsuneo Kusunoki but effectively owned by (I think) Daiichi Kangyo Bank."

Then follow the Wiki links;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai-Ichi_Kangyo_Bank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuho_Corporate_Bank

So ... based on the above information, it would appear GEOS is in fact controlled by Mizuho Corporate Bank.

Does anybody know if this is correct?

GEOS is dying.

I am a former teacher with friends still in the company.

Managers have been paid late a few times already. Head office staff have, in some cases, not been paid for up to six months(!) and been asked to hand back previous bonuses to help keep things afloat.

Teachers are the only staff in the company that they are scared to death of not paying because us foreigners are not shy about complaining if they do.

I reckon GEOS will go bankrupt in 2010

Everyone knows you are Thorn, Coburg, Max, Mackorello, Mr X, Julia, and a whole host of other names, that have trolled and flamed many posters on here. Don't think that posting under yet another ID is going to fool anyone. If I were you, I'd give up on your online finger-pointing obsessions, stop frittering your life away in the glass booth, quit talking to yourself under your various sock puppet identities on eikaiwa message boards, and get a life before it's too late.

Yeah Managers have been experiencing late payments and possibly head office / publishing staff have had to suck it up for a while but this, in my experience, is just another example of how big nastybollo** eikaiwa companies treat their homegrown staff. As previously mentioned-any teachers get paid late, especially for consecutive months then, essentially that is it! GAME OVER and good riddance. However, it is more worrying that the company are raising the CS and monthly targets to unfathomable amounts in order to cover their negative cashflow. Basically GEOS have a target and an expense target, obviously the target is what they want staff and teachers to aim for but it is basically astronomically high and probably could never be attained. However, the expense goal is essentially covering the running costs of the school, which of course includes WAGES!!!!!!!! Speaking to people "in charge" regarding the expense target - if you don't attain that figure then could it mean delayed or partial salary payments? Their answer - not really but the school manager hasn't been paid for almost 2 months!! Indeed it is time to seriously consider effing off!

Its gonna be a good summer

The impression is very much that the number of loss-making schools at GEOS went from difficult to manage to almost crisis point. I wouldn't be so confident either that some overseas operations aren't actually a cash drain on Japan operations.

GEOS is by no means alone amongst the existing eikaiwa in refusing to believe until a real cash flow crisis comes along that it can be necessary to downsize sometimes in order to achieve longer term growth.

How many GEOS schools are currently operating in Japan? Does anyone here have the exact number?

It would be very interesting to find out how many have actually closed during the past 12 months.