employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

EF (Education First)

Engaged Employer

EF (Education First) reviews

3.4

61% would recommend to a friend

(4,608 total reviews)
avatar

Edward Hult, Ph.D

61% approve of CEO

47% positive business outlook

EF (Education First) has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 4,608 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The EF (Education First) employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Educación industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

5K reviews
2.0
Sep 29, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I am writing this review to inform anyone who is thinking of working for EF Tours Canada, about all the wonderful and not-so wonderful things about working here. Think of this as a state of affairs on the workplace so that if you are interested in working here, you can make an informed decision :) - Travel is exciting but EF doesn't spark that excitement in its workforce - I drew most of my value by building and maintaining relationships with AMAZING educators across the country. I still talk to all of those educators. - If you have no friends, EF will provide a roster of people that are friendly - Travelling once a year is cool, demanding on the ground but an experience nonetheless - Unlimited sick days (depending on your manager, that flexibility is different) - Quite generous vacation time compared to other workplaces - Travel makes the sales role easier to undertake, no sales experience does not influence how well you do in this position.

Cons

- No diversity as a result of non-inclusive hiring practices - If you've got a lot of education, don't waste your time here. Education is not leveraged here, it is hard to feel like you add value because the tasks you do have are very procedural and even if you go above and beyond, upper management will strip you of your experiences when looking at career growth. They will say things like, you have to find your own replacement. My apologies but when you raise the bar where it's never been raised, this becomes impossible even though "Nothing is Impossible" is a core value. - Management is non-existent and the same people get promoted. After 3 years and multiple complaints, it took EF 3 years to change my direct manager. One manager in particular, as we let go of over 50 people, got promoted 3 times into 3 different managerial positions. Then you find yourself having to applaud upper management's decisions when you don't feel good about them. - If you're a Yes Man, this is the place for you. EF rewards a culture of sameness by its standards; and gets uncomfortable by people who are movers and shakers. EF hires people based on how well they can assimilate to internal culture. EF does not keep its most passionate workers and doesn't understand that people who are passionate about education and travel, will seek the same opportunities but at a competitor. - Pay is well below average. American tour consultants get paid 55,000USD to start and in Canada, it's 37,000. - Human Resources need to revamp EVERYONE who works in this department. Some issues that are illegal in nature were brought up to HR and employees were told to look the other way. If you have self-respect and want to work in a healthy environment, this may cause issues. - If you are francophone, they will segregate you from the anglophone consultants. They divide everyone and dissolved the only francophone team they had and as a result lost all francophone tour consultants - There is no continuity regarding student and teacher success. Stop paying out for useless things and pay your people more, spend less on useless luxuries.

avatar
EF (Education First) Response
4y
Thank you for taking the time to leave this comment. We take our Human Resource policies and practices seriously here at EF and want to ensure you have a place to communicate directly with our team. Please email our team at HR@ef.com to discuss this matter further.
1.0
Dec 16, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

New friends found in fellow Tour Consultants are the only benefit of this job!

Cons

Where to begin... You will be treated like a child. Micro-management from sales trainers, managers and directors never stops, was only worsened by COVID. The pay is comical and insulting. 40k is not enough to live off of in Boston (or Denver for that matter). You will likely respond with a comment about how there is 'bonus potential determined by the sales growth and market potential of my territory'. To that I say, WRONG. The sales goals are arbitrary numbers that directors create, many times that are based on how much they like or dislike you. For context, I was liked by my director and the top performer on my team, exceeding sales goals by double digits. Sold nearly $4 mill in a single year, but made under $55k. I was told by my director that "I was getting a good deal from EF" when I received my well deserved bonus check a month late 3 times. Currently pushing sales people to leave the organization because it is cheaper for them to push them out then pay their severance packages when they fire them in the coming months. To my friends who are still there-- I hope you are able to open your eyes to what MORE is out there professionally for you. There is so much amazing sales talent at EF and I wish I could shake each of you to encourage you to go unlock your full potential elsewhere (while making the salary you deserve!) And it is not just about the money. I could go on about the lack of diversity, cliquey culture, office politics, profit driven mission, poor quality product and senior management that lacks empathy for their employees, but I will digress...

1.0
Aug 4, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- You can choose your own hours - Some students are really nice

Cons

- Inconsistent hours of working. You may be available for 6 hours a day but only get given 3 hours, all with annoying gaps of 45/60 minutes in between. - Lots of students fail to turn up to private lessons and teachers only get paid a fraction of the full hour if this happens. Students who consistently do this aren't punished and the company offers little support to teachers who experience students doing this - The pay is really low and they expect you to answer emails and spend time writing reports for each student after the lesson which is time consuming and further reduces the rate. - When you enter a group lesson you have no idea what level or topic you're teaching until you enter the classroom at the same time as the students. This means you feel pressurised and often have no idea what is coming up in the lesson. - The lesson content is also really difficult to follow when you have limited time to prepare for what you're going to teach. The target language for the lesson can only be found on one or two particular pages and there's no way that teachers can look ahead or check the teacher notes on other slides during the lesson. - They operate a bonus system based entirely on student ratings for the lessons you teach. These ratings are completely subjective and if a student doesn't like you for whatever reason, they can affect your monthly average rating with a low score which affects your chances of receiving a bonus.

Viewing 37 - 39 of 4,608 Reviews

Glassdoor has 6,453 EF (Education First) reviews submitted anonymously by EF (Education First) employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if EF (Education First) is right for you.