Workplace reviews and discussion: 宜得利家居股份有限公司

Logistics is the department with the best work atmosphere. Shipment volumes for the next 2–3 days are prepared in advance, and overtime is only added when absolutely necessary.

The head office has company vehicles; employees can take the high-speed rail on business trips, and business travelers to southern Taiwan can stay at business hotels.

Compared with Taiwan’s retail industry, the store work environment is relatively clean and comfortable. Uniform styles are generally updated almost in sync with the Japanese stores.

Overtime is calculated by the minute. Unless there is a special reason, employees are expected to clock in and out exactly on the hour.

Overall, the system can be described as bureaucratic. Issues raised by junior employees are often brushed aside, and only when something really goes wrong does the company begin reviewing whether improvements are needed. Because the organization is relatively large, people who do not fit in are very obviously sidelined when bonuses are distributed. Rewards are not necessarily proportional to actual hard work and effort.

In fact, veterans with sufficient logistics experience know that there have been serious warehouse process deficiencies that resulted in the loss of a partner, and that some areas were once ordered to suspend operations. For some reason, the records of these violations cannot be found. The company did make many improvements afterward, of course because an incident occurred and a comprehensive labor inspection forced it to improve. However, it still did not show a friendly attitude toward employees. Those in power still have a bureaucratic mindset; to reduce unnecessary expenses, employee sentiment and talent loss are minor concerns to them. Store-level managers bear the responsibility, so working at the store level is nothing but hardship. Since the benefits for full-time employees are not particularly outstanding, some part-time employees are even more senior than full-time employees. If you expect this company to feel like a Japanese company, I do not recommend trying it. Put bluntly, it is a company with a Japanese exterior and a Taiwanese core.