[Allstaff] Teachers Wages - one other thing!

Mon Feb 18 11:39:22 GMT 2019

Nick

Oh dear, oh dear.

Thank you for your email. I now have a string of messages from staff that are fuming about your decision to speak on their behalf. Would you like me to address your points one by one publicly to clarify, or shall we have a chat tomorrow at work? I'll assume the later, unless I hear from you. If anyone else wants answers to Nicks points publicly, please speak up or come and speak to me this week.

The email was aimed to share the journey we are all on (as I have always done) Staff have been asking me to keep them informed as to how we are doing, my choice to be so open with the whole crew is meant with the best of intentions. I don't see everyone that works here in the course of a week and certainly wouldn't be able to have the conversation 35 times individually.

Regards

James W. Wilford

YMS Group of Companies - Managing Director

Your Music School Canterbury

Theatre Trips Kent

YMS Travel

Tower Works, Simmonds Road, Wincheap Estate,

Canterbury, Kent CT1 3RA

01227 456331 / 07778 446448

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-wilford-70922a69

BNI Member - Canterbury Chapter

________________________________
From: Nicholas Davies <nicholasdmusicteacher at gmail.com>
Sent: 18 February 2019 09:51
To: James Wilford
Cc: allstaff at yourmusicschool.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Allstaff] Teachers Wages - one other thing!

Dear James,
There is one other thing that I would like to see addressed. It is the way student cancellations are dealt with. I agree with the current rule that if a cancellation is made less than 24 hours before a lesson, the customer loses the lesson but the tutor is still paid. I strongly disagree with the policy of holding back the tutors money if there is a cancellation more than 24 hours before the lesson. The parents/students have paid for their lessons and that resides in your bank account. Why are you holding on to that money? If they break their contract and cancel a lesson it should be up to them the reschedule the lesson or lose their money, not the tutors! And if the tutors, for whatever reason, are unable to reschedule the lesson, do you still hold on to that money?
My ideal scenario is that parents pay up front or are simply not allowed to send their children to YMS. If this was happening, I see no reason why we couldn’t all be paid up front and the onus be on parents to rearrange cancelled lessons.
Again, sorry for the public nature of this critique, but we don’t have meetings and there are a lot of very disgruntled tutors.
Peace and love,
Nick

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 at 18:29, James Wilford <jwilford at ymsgroup.net<mailto:jwilford at ymsgroup.net>> wrote:
Sorry, pressed send and didn't mean to......

So, to update you all,
We have been through a very challenging time over the last 12-24 months with overheads and cost of operations being quite high whilst pupils numbers were down plus retail being almost negligible these days. This used to play a significant part in paying for the overheads of the building. Chasing fees is still an issue despite new payment term etc. Going fully online for the processes is proving very expensive and time consuming too. The new IT people have done lots of work on this but it still can't go live.
However, to be more positive, numbers are massively up now and recruitment is going better than ever. There is a need for a few more teachers to join the crew in the near future. I would like any of you that have extra time available to expand your availability so we can fill up your schedules first, then new teachers can mop up the surplus work. We are marketing better than ever, dealing with the customer enquiries with a new system and trying hard to improve the overall customer experience. Please inform Max if you can expand your diary, he is now in full control of diary management.
I was very appreciative of some staff being flexible with payment times over recent months as cash flow is very hard at certain times of year. The new payment terms improve this at some times of year but have made it worse at others. The rent, rates and overheads have continually gone up, so we will have to make an increase to the lesson costs later in the year. I am also fully aware you would all like a pay rise too!!!
This is all in hand for later in 2019 and one of my plans moving forwards is to pay all small wages (less than £250 per month) and half of others by approx half way through the month, then the rest by the end of the month, if I need to split payments. I don't like to hold money in my bank if it can go to you all, which is why I do the split payment some times. It seems crazy to sit on a balance I can't use that can be more use to you than me. An average month's teachers fees is £20-25k and deciding the order to give it out is never easy or fair on people. Holding it all back till every penny is in seems pointless too.
I'll keep you updated on any other big changes as the year moves on. Happy to chat about anything as and when I see you all.
Have a good weekend.

James

James W. Wilford

YMS Group of Companies - Managing Director

Your Music School Canterbury

Theatre Trips Kent

YMS Travel

Tower Works, Simmonds Road, Wincheap Estate,

Canterbury, Kent CT1 3RA

01227 456331 / 07778 446448

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-wilford-70922a69

BNI Member - Canterbury Chapter

________________________________
From: Allstaff <allstaff-bounces at yourmusicschool.co.uk<mailto:allstaff-bounces at yourmusicschool.co.uk>> on behalf of James Wilford <jwilford at ymsgroup.net<mailto:jwilford at ymsgroup.net>>
Sent: 16 February 2019 15:32
To: allstaff at yourmusicschool.co.uk<mailto:allstaff at yourmusicschool.co.uk>
Subject: [Allstaff] Teachers Wages

Hi All

Just wanted to share some info with you all.

So,

James W. Wilford

YMS Group of Companies - Managing Director

Your Music School Canterbury

Theatre Trips Kent

YMS Travel

Tower Works, Simmonds Road, Wincheap Estate,

Canterbury, Kent CT1 3RA

01227 456331 / 07778 446448

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/james-wilford-70922a69

BNI Member - Canterbury Chapter

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