Pros
Please see below for my feedback.
Cons
After being hired as a remote online English teacher (which they call a tutor - so congratulations you've been demoted) there was no one asking me when I could start. This might be the first time in my work history when I have never been asked when I could start or the start date wasn't known ahead of time. I passed the final stage in the multi stage application process, and then out of the blue I get multiple e-mails, each one an assignment I need to complete, all having the same due date of just a few days out. So essentially the start date was immediate, and I had 13 to 15 hours of work to complete (the company's time estimate), over the weekend, over days that weren't supposed to be part of my regular working days. Guess your grandmother's birthday can wait. Guess your second job, which you obviously have if you're teaching for Voxy, isn't important. That top down inhuman arrogant approach, showing little respect for a teacher's time, just continued from there. The actual online training, which is what these 13 to 15 hours were, was a joke. Instead of the company putting in the effort to clip videos of lessons, to show an example of a warmer, or an example of a task, or an example of the session summary, they just included several entire lessons; in other words, hours of unnecessary footage. You had to answer questions all along the way, so they could test to see if you actually viewed the material. I don't need 45 minutes worth of the teacher asking students where they are from or how their weekend was to start a class. We were required to watch a video prior to our second interview, and then that video appears again in this online training. The reading you have to do, and the videos, are all inconcise, and as a result counter productive. That's right: counter productive. If the company doesn't know this, then there is something wrong with management. It should be a line that says "log in here to start your shift" and next to that a link. It shouldn't be paragraphs upon paragraphs that leave you confused, and videos and screenshots. If it really is that complicated just to log in to teach a class, then maybe there is a problem with how this company has organized their system. They also use many different applications, so you're logging in to many different applications. I mean talk about unnecessarily complicating things. You would think for an educational company, that they would know how to train people a little better. Sitting there for 15 hours straight trying to remember every pathway, "File -> Documents -> X4389 folder -> Slack -> group 5 -> list 7 -> etc" and every little detail of every step you need to take for teaching group lessons, and private lessons, and filling in your invoice when the time comes, and to address technical problems and uploading material, and requesting time off, etc, is ridiculous. Tell me which of the many applications this company uses I need to use to log in to teach my first group class, provide me the link I need to access the course material, and keep it simple. If you make your platforms a little more user friendly, you don't need several screenshots, videos and pages of text (13 to 15 hours worth!!) to tell me how to type in feedback post-lesson or to enter an online classroom. With any job, you learn by doing, and probably after the first log in or two, or the first week of classes, you got it. Are they really trying to prevent receiving an e-mail from a new employee with a question or something? And then when it came time to teach my first group class, I was thoroughly confused. I did log in, but it was not user friendly. I clicked the various tabs, I tried to check my note book, I googled different things. Finally I asked where I could log in. And the reply, after the month plus long hiring process, was to let me go. So enjoy that ride if you want. But I was leaning to leaving anyway. I have worked for other online companies, and you know what? You just go to their website, log in with your username and password, click on the button to enter your class, and you teach. Then there is a form when the class is finished to provide feedback. There is no need to search a list of materials - like there is with this company - to choose which courseware to upload for every single class (prep time adding up). There is no need to fill out an invoice and send it to the company every two weeks - like there is with this company. There isn't this micro managing disrespectful treatment by management - like there is with this company. So hey, one perk of teaching, of somewhat being your own boss is gone with this company it seems. If you want to make no more money than other online companies, but be micro managed, spend a ton of additional time searching for courseware material to upload, and extra time to fill out invoices and whatever other BS they'll send you with sudden due dates and overdue notices, then by all means teach for Voxy.