Korean Job Discussion Forums

[alphalfa]

It appears that way for many private language institutes. Owners appear sooo.. dependent upon such fees to maintain their businesses(an assumption on my part). Any misstep by parents and others to delay issuing payment on time can potentially cause some problems for owners.

Let's take the case of issuing salaries on their due date. Sometimes the fee payment schedule is a few days beyond(ahead of) the salary due date.
If the fee schedule is a few days ahead of the salary date and the owner receives all the scheduled fees on time, then there shouldn't be a problem in issuing the employees' salary on time. If the fee schedule is a few days beyond the salary date and the owners require a portion of these fees to pay employees' salary on time, then salary will be delayed.

My point is this- do hagwon owners and other small businesses have contingency funds set aside upon which they can draw from to meet
salary obligations? As workers, some of us 'live from paycheck to paycheck' for basic subsistence, in general. Do(Can) some owners maintain their businesses from 'one fee payment schedule to the next'?

[Derrek]

My experience is that many people here often plan for almost NOTHING, except for certain standardized tests to enter college. I'm not being mean or racist when I say that, either. It's just fact. There is no such thing as "preventative maintenance" in Korea. They really work on a "don't fix it until it's broken" mentality.

So I would guess that a lot of hagwons are leveraged to the hilt just to compete, make the owner money, stay open, and pay employee salaries...

...and in that order!

[superhal]

i didn't think so at my hagwon, because it was one of the larger and oldest ones in that area, something like 10+ years in business, 20(?) classrooms, 10 korean/english teachers, 4 native english teachers. we were lucky i guess, we had this one korean guy teaching the TOEIC who was famous for some reason, so they had to knock down the wall and increase his class size to 50 students. the other korean teachers had a max of like 10, the native english speakers had a class max of 14 (although we usually maxxed out at 8-10). my wongjim had it pretty well planned, although some of the minor things did bother him a lot.

we always got paid on time, all of us got full severance and airfare, and all of us (except the ones who left early or did midnight runs) were welcomed back. he would even give us cash for buying books or treating us to meals.

[Squid]

The OP is alluding to the difference between "good business practice" and "shoddy business practice".

Yes, most hagwons, especially the smaller ones are leveraged too far to meet their monthly commitments. That's why pay is late, or if you're really unlucky, non-existent.

It's a cutthroat business, and the foreign teacher's is a handy one to cut when the going gets tough. That said, anyone who doesn't see it coming is a mug.

[jajdude]

[panthermodern]