Workplace reviews and discussion: 巨鷗科技股份有限公司

Long post~~read at your own risk~~

Quoting Article 3 of this platform’s posting guidelines: “What you say must be truthful, and you must take full responsibility for the statements you publish.”

Therefore, before speaking, I would like to make the following declaration:

1. As shown on my Facebook account, my name is: 白弘杰

2. 巨鷗 has been my first job since entering the workforce (2008/10/01), working as a “planner” continuously to this day.

3. If the company policies and systems mentioned below are referenced, they come from the company’s various work guidelines and regulations that I downloaded from the company EIP today (2017/09/10). If they are subsequently updated, job seekers are welcome to review them again on their first day of employment.

4. The purpose of this post is to encourage current and former employees to view others’ opinions rationally and accurately describe their own thoughts, because every word and statement can influence each job seeker’s decision about their future workplace!

Pros:

Many people on the pro side have already discussed these points. Moreover, the work guidelines and regulations are all available on the EIP and can be checked at any time from the first day of employment, so I will focus only on the advantages in four areas: “compensation,” “learning,” “activities,” and “training and development.”

1. Compensation

I think, when it comes to money, is there anyone who feels they have earned enough?! I imagine only “people without desires” would say yes, because I still feel short of money even now. But why do I list compensation as an advantage? Because the company’s clearly defined compensation system meets my own need for the money-management principle of “living within one’s means.”

<1> Twelve months of salary

<2> Bonus items: the 159 bonus system, project performance bonuses, R&D bonuses, and a health allowance (NT$12,000)

The eligibility requirements, calculation criteria, and payment timing for the above bonuses are all clearly defined. If anything is unclear, you can proactively ask the Administration Department or your department supervisor. To briefly explain my financial planning:

A. Twelve months of salary + a January year-end bonus (a fixed one month) + the health allowance (NT$12,000) are all items I definitely include in my annual spending plan. (The health allowance can be obtained simply by participating in activities designated by the company, so make sure you claim it.)

B. Performance bonuses in May and September: These coincide with the Dragon Boat Festival (tax filing) and Mid-Autumn Festival, so they can provide timely support in months with higher expenses. I think this is also why the company schedules payments on the 5th and 9th.

C. Project performance bonus: Regardless of position, the amount I (as PM) apply for is divided equally among all project members. However, I do not include this in my spending plan; I treat it as personal motivation.

D. R&D bonus: I am not an engineer, so I cannot receive it.

Therefore, the “clearly defined compensation system” allows me to “live within my means,” which is why I consider it an advantage. If you disagree with my view, and your calculations still show that the salary and compensation cannot meet your spending needs, perhaps you should look for an environment offering better compensation.

2. Learning

By learning, I do not mean how many training courses the company provides or how much feedback it requires us to write. I believe the most effective learning is “learning by doing,” and learning from failed cases (loss-making projects) certainly provides the most benefit. 巨鷗 is an environment that can tolerate employees’ mistakes. Since joining the company, if I have made a mistake in carrying out my work, at most my supervisor has reprimanded me for a few words, and then continued working with everyone to solve the problem. For me, learning from this process how supervisors handle matters and respond to situations, as well as how they evaluate decisions, is what I consider an advantage. However, the prerequisites for the above advantage should be reporting upward properly and keeping informed, for example:

<1> Report decisions upward and communicate in advance.

<2> Never draw conclusions on your own about something you do not understand; always ask proactively.

<3> Read the contractual provisions of the projects you handle carefully, because the company’s position is that avoiding breach of contract comes first.

I do not know whether my description will lead you to consider this an advantage, but I would like to add: ~~everyone focuses on the idea that profits earned by the company should be distributed to employees, but no one mentions what happens when a project is unprofitable. Among the projects I have carried out, there have also been projects with “losses instead of profits,” and the company has never required the project members who executed them to share the burden; the company absorbed the losses. (This is also one of the reasons management costs are deducted before each project begins—this is risk management on the company’s side.) Returning to my own experience~~, thinking about it, these projects also taught me a great deal. Therefore, I consider “learning” an advantage of the company.

3. Activities

Before discussing activities, I think we should first discuss the definitions of “friends” and “work partners.” Some people can clearly separate friends from work partners, but to me, work partners are my friends—friends who share common goals at work. Under that premise, I believe the company’s activities really are an advantage. However, if you feel that friends and work partners must be defined separately, you can skip the following explanation of the advantages, because I also agree that time outside work should be spent with family and friends.

Regarding the activities, I will describe the situation since 2015. At present, activities can be divided into three levels:

Company (Welfare Committee) activities: These mainly include 1. one annual challenge activity, 2. one Hundred Peaks activity, and 3. small holiday activities. I would definitely choose to participate in either 1 or 2, because there is a fixed health allowance the following year. Participation in Welfare Committee activities is also not mandatory; it is entirely up to each individual.

Department activities: The department’s main activities are three events per year, planned and organized by department colleagues. My view is to do my best to participate in every activity planned by my “friends,” but if I cannot attend, I will still request leave in advance.

Activities organized by other departments: In principle, I am even less likely to participate in these, unless the theme is genuinely very appealing to me.

The above may sound like a lot of activities, but returning to my original idea—“going out to have fun with friends”—when the company or department colleagues invest resources to plan activities, and there is even a subsidy after participating, why not?

4. Training and development

I think most companies, when recruiting talent, hope to find people who can be “effective immediately”—people who can generate value as soon as they join. Of course, this company is no exception. However, I believe the company really invests a great deal of resources in training and development. Every year, it not only has a “talent development” project to consider course planning and optimize 巨鷗 employees’ competency gaps, but has even purchased a system to manage training courses. Naturally, after attending courses, employees must submit corresponding feedback according to the course level. Some people may find writing feedback troublesome (myself included), but I think writing feedback not only forces us to review the course; on the other hand, the company also uses the feedback to evaluate the quality of future training programs and compiles feedback presentations for other employees’ reference.

Many people on the con side have already discussed these points, but some shortcomings involve personal feelings and interpersonal relationships. I will not elaborate on those aspects, because I was not directly involved and it would be inappropriate to speculate about how people felt at the time. Therefore, I can only discuss the three areas I have experienced from working as a “planner” to the present: “project-based company,” “workload,” and “ways of communicating with clients” (P.S. If you are not applying for a planning position, you can skim this and jump straight to the final paragraph):

1. Project-based company

At present, the company still primarily undertakes projects, most of which are government tenders.

Since these are projects, the pressure most often comes from having to complete them on time, with the required quality, and within budget. Moreover, because they are “government tender” projects, execution may sometimes be constrained by sudden policy changes or the ideas of senior officials. Therefore, employees who have contact with clients (mostly people in planning positions) often develop a certain feeling at the outset: pressure coming from all directions. It may stem from the schedule and contractual execution requirements, from officials at the client organization, from internal supervisors, from the engineering side that cannot be controlled, or from other uncertain factors.

I admit that I also complain because of these different pressures, but my view is that after grumbling, we still have to solve the difficulties we face. No matter where you work, as long as you are executing projects, there will inevitably be internal and external pressure—and once you get through it, it becomes your own experience.

2. Workload

For project-based work, the standard for determining how much work there is often depends on the executor’s feelings and assessment. Therefore, although some comments consider the heavy workload a disadvantage, on closer examination I think it should be understood as a gap between decision-makers and executors in their perceptions of the amount of work. Consequently, I instead think the disadvantage is that the company is still working toward establishing clear standards for defining workload and improving communication and consensus between levels. For example:

A. People in planning positions sometimes feel that, besides producing work deliverables during working hours, they must also deal with clients’ unexpected questions or communications. There may also be gaps between management and employees regarding expectations for work output. At this stage, the company is still exploring these matters by accumulating experience on the execution side and building team rapport. Therefore, a “planner who does not proactively ask the supervisor about their expectations” will either take unnecessary detours or fall into a negative cycle.

B. For technical positions (engineers), the company’s introduction of the Kanban method has gradually established a shared definition of workload. However, the method is still in the stage of team adjustment and system optimization, so different parties may naturally have different opinions. (At present, improvement mechanisms are discussed through biweekly meetings.)

3. Ways of communicating with clients

Since most clients are government agencies, everyone can imagine that communicating with government bodies requires trying every possible method to get clients to respond quickly and obtain their decisions promptly. Therefore, in addition to phone calls, email, the customer service system, and official documents, people in planning positions currently also try to obtain the client’s LINE contact and establish group chats. However, as someone who cares very deeply about clients’ feelings, regarding LINE I can only say that it has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that you can obtain a client’s response quickly; the disadvantage is that client feedback and revision requests also arrive very quickly. At that point, it creates a kind of pressure that follows you around: responding too late is not good, but responding immediately may disrupt your own work arrangements. Still, perhaps other people do not find it much of a problem!

The advantages and disadvantages I have described above are purely my personal views. If you think the advantages I wrote about are disadvantages, or that the disadvantages I described are simply terrible, I would also fully respect your opinion. After all, no company’s conditions can satisfy every employee one hundred percent. But why do I keep emphasizing that these are my own views? Because I think that on this platform, in addition to describing advantages and disadvantages, people should also explain their own thoughts and evaluation criteria, so job seekers can understand why something is considered an advantage or a disadvantage. Perhaps that is what it means to report the facts and speak responsibly.

A “choice” is not only about positively obtaining what you want; it also necessarily involves corresponding effort (or sacrifice).

“Choose the company you love, and love the company you choose.”

If joining 巨鷗 does not turn out as you hoped, I recommend that you go through these three steps:

Step 1: Raise the issue with management, hoping the environment can change.

Step 2: If the environment still does not change, try to change or strengthen yourself to adapt to it.

Step 3: If you still cannot accept it, then accept the facts and happily move on to find an environment that suits you better.

If you skip Steps 1 and 2 and go directly to Step 3,

it seems that this environment has given you no motivation to change it or change yourself for it. This means you truly dislike the environment.

In that case, I wish you the best of luck in quickly finding an environment where you genuinely want to grow together with the company!

P.S. Since I wrote this article intermittently, please forgive me if any wording is imprecise or inappropriate, and go easy on me.