Workplace reviews and discussion: 上品綜合工業股份有限公司

1. Claims to be Taiwan’s leading Teflon manufacturer, with operations spanning the semiconductor and petrochemical industries. Plans to go public in three years.

2. The company’s original owner passed away in 2016. The new owner undertook major company reforms, including various organizational changes, the introduction of a new ERP system, and replacing all company computers with Macs.

3. The sales department awards sales bonuses based on performance and individual net value created. Salaries are adjusted annually according to performance evaluations.

4. Business trip expenses are reimbursed based on actual costs, with claims submitted through the ERP system and accounting department.

5. The company has factories in Changhua, Taoyuan, and Jiaxing, mainland China. This year, it plans to relocate and merge the Taoyuan factory with the Changhua facility to consolidate plant operations and increase production efficiency.

6. The domestic and overseas sales teams were merged into a single sales department, with responsibilities divided by industry type. There is also an international trade department dedicated to developing new overseas customers and markets.

7. Salaries are paid uniformly on the seventh of each month, with clear payslips and salary structures.

8. There is an information technology department responsible for computer-related matters, an accounting department that handles collections and expense claims, and an administration department that coordinates interdepartmental communication and personnel matters.

9. Bonuses are distributed during the three major festivals, and employees can choose Carrefour or Shin Kong Mitsukoshi gift vouchers.

1. Although the company claims to be the industry leader, its technology was transferred from Japan and South Korea, so its quality still cannot compete with major overseas manufacturers. It has become one of the initiators of price-cutting competition. Adhering to the idea that something only needs to be cheap and usable, it wants to enter the international market, but its reputation overseas is poor.

2. The new owner took office but disagreed with the various major shareholders below, resulting in power struggles while disregarding the factories’ actual operations. The new ERP system was rushed into deployment without appropriate supporting measures, creating a great deal of unnecessary, repetitive work for both the plant and sales teams. More than a dozen Mac computers were purchased to prevent computer viruses, but they were incompatible with the existing systems and still required simulated Windows environments. It was completely counterproductive, and in the end everyone simply stopped using them; they were left nearby as decorations.

3. Before the ERP system was established, a sales bonus plan was drafted, with the promise that bonuses would be paid according to the performance calculated by the system once implementation was complete. However, six months after the system went live, the owner had not said a word about the bonuses, and there were no salary adjustments either.

4. The new system made applying for business trip expenses much more complicated. Employees have to enter both the invoice number and the other party’s unified business number, and also complete a paper application form separately—for the purpose of creating false accounts. Tasks that should clearly be handled by the accounting department were all pushed onto everyone else. Applying for one business trip reimbursement could take two or three hours without even being completed, and one employee was owed NT$150,000 for a month.

5. Because of the relocation, veteran employees at the Taoyuan factory who cannot move to Changhua are effectively told to leave. The new plant has not yet been completed either. The quality of production at the mainland China factory is also poor, and the machinery has been shipped back to Taiwan.

6. After responsibilities were redivided, coordinating with customers became even more chaotic. If a customer buys two types of products, they have to find two separate sales representatives to discuss them. The international trade department’s role is even more unclear: after developing new customers, it simply hands them over to the sales department. Whose performance is credited in that case?

7. Salaries were originally paid on the fifth of each month. The payment date was changed without any explanation—just changed on a whim.

8. The newly established information technology department is located far away in Changhua, so it is difficult to provide support when offices elsewhere encounter problems. Employees have to find pirated software themselves or pay for it out of pocket. The administration department section manager is difficult to communicate with and speaks very rudely, showing none of the demeanor expected of a senior colleague.

9. The company loves handing out gift vouchers; even year-end bonuses are paid in vouchers.