Workplace reviews and discussion: 智擎數位科技股份有限公司

(Because of a new feature, the previous content was automatically assigned to Chitchat. I’m putting what I replied “okay” to and what I had originally drafted back together into one post and adding more details.

Some things I’m sorry to describe vaguely. Anonymous is anonymous, after all, and if I explain certain details too clearly, I could still be recognized.)

Taking both the pros and cons into account, I do not recommend this company.

Here are, reluctantly, a few pros:

1. Labor and health insurance—the “basic bottom line.”

2. The company’s new workplace has a very artsy, trendy, café-like atmosphere.

3. The company uses a relatively American-style management approach, and it is true that the work is based on a responsibility system.

4. Employees must purchase and provide their own computers. This does not have much impact on editors who work from home or teachers who are constantly traveling around (?), and you can use a computer you personally like, haha. Some people like this and others do not, so I’ve listed it as a pro and will leave it to job seekers to decide whether they consider it positive or negative. I’m not sure whether engineers must provide their own computers or whether the company purchases them; anyone interviewing for an engineering position may want to clarify this point.

Taking both the pros and cons into account, I do not recommend this company.

Reasons, listed below:

Cons:

1. There is no genuine annual leave (because the company is understaffed and has no sound coverage system, you still have to work from home while taking annual leave. Even if you want to travel abroad, you have to set aside time to work during the trip).

2. The boss does not have a background in English-language teaching and is not well versed in it (this is subjective and reflects the shared opinion of me and other editors), but frequently interferes and comes up with ideas that are highly impractical from an English-teaching perspective, leaving employees exhausted because they can only carry them out.

3. Year-end bonuses are extremely small, and some editors have received no year-end bonus at all (one person worked up to the position of editor-in-chief yet received zero year-end bonus). As a result, the monthly salary may look decent at first glance, but when the poor year-end bonus is factored in, the average compensation is not actually higher than elsewhere. Salary should be evaluated based on annual pay, not monthly pay. (At a normal company, year-end bonuses start at a minimum of one or two months’ salary.)

4. There has never been any overtime pay. The editorial department used to use a clock-in system, and later switched to working from home; there was no overtime pay during either period. Working from home makes it even more difficult to calculate the actual hours spent working.

5. Decisions often change from one day to the next. After something has been decided in a meeting, the boss may change their mind directly one or two days later (sometimes after only half an hour), making a sharp 90-degree turn and wasting everyone’s meeting time as well as the time spent preparing for and responding to the changes.

6. The boss frequently criticizes current employees and speaks negatively about former employees in front of staff. Sometimes the boss tells A bad things about B, or tells B bad things about A, driving wedges between colleagues. Personally, I find this offensive and unnecessary. (Holding a special meeting to speak badly about a former employee or an employee who is not present is also a waste of time.)

7. Meetings take a long time and produce no tangible results. (This can be considered together with points 5 and 6 above.) Meetings mostly consist of listening to the boss chat, speak badly about employees who resigned voluntarily, make grand promises, or present unrealistic plans. If the result obtained in an hour is something that could have been resolved in three to five minutes, then the meeting was inefficient. (When the boss makes grand promises, they only mention the pros. If an employee raises points that should be considered or brings up the cons, the boss spends another five to ten minutes criticizing that employee for being so negative and raising cons.)

In addition, a one-hour meeting (when it could actually be resolved in half an hour or 15 minutes) inevitably cuts into the time originally allocated for work. If the workload already tightly fills one person’s entire day, inserting a one-hour or longer meeting is effectively making the employee work overtime. (Which brings us back to the issue of there being no overtime pay.)

8. The other benefits are very ordinary. The three traditional holiday bonuses are sometimes provided and sometimes not. In addition, this company—as many companies in Taiwan do—uses a relatively low basic salary to calculate labor and health insurance contributions, which means that “labor pension contributions are also lower.” You can confirm this by checking your own labor-pension balance.

Finally, I’m listing these points only as a reference for job seekers. Whether you accept them and whether you choose to join are personal decisions.

The purpose of this comment is not to attack the company, but to provide a reference for job seekers and give the company an opportunity to see its own shortcomings. (If this were not anonymous, who among the current employees would dare to speak up and make suggestions like these?)

If the company can reflect and make changes as a result, and genuinely take care of its employees as company assets (rather than treating them as enemies or disposable chopsticks), that would be a win-win for both job seekers and the company itself.

We’ll see how wise the company is.