They have done it again... The geniuses at head office have come up with another brilliant idea... Students can now book their own lessons on the Internet from the comfort of their own homes... They can do it on the same day as the lesson too...This may seem like a great idea. but so far it has already caused some challenges... For example, every student's number will change, so the new schedule is printed out and all the numbers are entirely different from the ones on the files... This wouldn't be a major problem if every class didn't have 5 students in it... The staff subsequently have to cross reference an old style schedule and hand write all the student numbers on it...
Secondly, if a student books on the same day, there is no system to tell instructors that they have done so... This means that again, our busy Japanese staff have to go on to the computer every interval and check that no-one has booked in manually... As can be imagined, a very inefficient system...
Students can select their instructor also, so any crappy instructors enjoy all your frees, but good instructors will be flat out as they are the most in-demand...
As can happen, good concept, terrible execution... It is the first student focused thing the company has done, even though their motivation was only cost...
Has this caused any teething problems for those in other branches??? What is everyone else's experience like???
6 comments:
There IS a system that tells you about same-day bookings; the staff are just unaware. Click the "system" button on the left side of the screen (it has a picture of the Usagi). Then click the button in the top row second from the left (当日予約). But you're right, the new system sucks and encourages stalkers who can choose their favourite teacher.
Sorry, I didn't read closely enough. Yeah, the staff have to check at every interval. Gomen.
Because the students get to choose the teacher and because there is no way of knowing whether or not a student has chosen a specific teacher, we can't balance the schedule. So far the system seems pretty random. One day you have all group lessons and another day you have all Man-to-Man. If you have the same students back-to-back, too bad. If you want to do a Shift Swap you have to submit it about one month in advance in order to avoid being locked into a fixed schedule. Also, the new system allows students to book more than one non-capacity group lesson of the same level at the same time. The only way to get around this is to stay well ahead of the students and select which Zones can reserve the empty lessons. Let's say there are 4 lessons on a Saturday at 16:05 two weeks from now. One is a Zone G group lesson and the other a Zone D group lesson. On the far left of the screen there are boxes to check which determine which levels you can make the other two empty lessons available to (Zone A, B, C, D, E ,F, G, Kids in Nova). In order to check whether or not those Zone G and D lessons are at full capacity you have to open another screen. Because the program is heavy and the computers are archaic it takes a L-O-N-G time. Ok, let's say those Zone G and D lessons aren't at full capacity. In this case, you check all the boxes except for the levels which have a lesson available at that time. Otherwise you could end up with a Zone G group lesson with 3 students and another Zone G group lesson with only one student. Under the old system it was pretty easy to put students together in one class, right? Not so with this one. You have to cancel all the students' lessons, access their data and return their lesson points and then rebook them all. In order to prevent the system from killing your CAPA you'd have to spend a ridiculous amount of time at the computer and even then it's quite difficult to stay ahead of the game.
Paul, thanks for the comment As I said, a great idea in concept, absolutely destroyed by the awful execution... This capacity thing pr us having absolutely no freedom to change the schedule or do swaps is a disgrace... It really pisses me off... In about 4 weekends time I have very tentative plans to do some Japan travelling...I have to organize the swaps now to get it sorted...
Apparently now there is more flexibility - at least in our area. Students are being told that they MAY get a certain teacher (i.e. efforts will be made to arrange a lesson with a desired teacher) but it is not guaranteed. With that, we can organize shift swaps closer to the day (but not likely as close as the old Nova). I wonder if that also means we can balance the schedule more ...
Meanwhile, we're losing one of our guys. He's being sent to replace someone who just quit at a school that just refused to renew someone because of low CAPA. I've also heard of another school doing the same thing and then turning around and offering a contract renewal only to be blown off. Meanwhile there are supposedly overseas recruitment centres. WTF?
One of our guys asked his level 3 students about their gripes about the new Nova:
1. 5-student classes
2. the internet booking system
keeps crashing and is too slow
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