Workplace reviews and discussion: 賞霖創藝股份有限公司

1. Aside from those few managers, staff turnover in the Event Planning Department is extremely rapid. Sometimes, the colleagues around you are gone in less than a week. In addition, given the company culture, experienced employees are not usually hired (and experienced people may not want to join either). Therefore, as long as you can stay and are capable enough, you can basically get noticed by upper management very quickly.

2. The environment is quite beautiful, clean, and tidy.

3. After working here, you will discover how good things are outside. You can’t know how bad something is without comparison.

Points you may need to consider before joining:

1. To "comply with government regulations," the company requires everyone to clock in, but you do not need to clock out. The Administrative Department handles clocking out collectively, so basically everyone’s attendance records will look "fully compliant."

2. There is no overtime pay. You only receive compensatory leave when you work on activities during holidays, but there are many restrictions on this leave. For example, compensatory hours expire after three months; no more than two people in the same department may take leave at the same time; and leave cannot be requested during the week before or the week after an activity. In short, there are many rules governing leave, so most of these compensatory hours are available in theory but impossible to use in practice. I don’t know whether this has changed now, but it was still the case before I left.

3. It is important to emphasize that you should come here to build your skills, not to stay long term. The managers here could be described as permanent fixtures, so the chance of promotion is basically zero unless one of them resigns. But think about it: most tasks are carried out by the junior staff. The managers only need to keep an eye on whether schedules are slipping and step in to handle anything that cannot be kept under control. They do not have to take responsibility; when something goes wrong, the people below are responsible. Most importantly, they receive high salaries while doing so. It is hard to imagine that anyone would want to leave.

4. Because the managers are permanent fixtures, although many tasks are carried out by junior staff, the managers still retain control of the core costs and pricing, and they do not often share this information with those below them. However, cost control is the most important responsibility for an event project manager. This is therefore something you really need to consider carefully. Joining Shangkan can certainly teach you some aspects of running events, but there are certain important skills that you cannot learn here.

5. Shangkan’s largest client is Intel, so the projects carried out each year follow Intel’s marketing plans. Most are primarily in the form of conferences, with a few occasional exhibitions or year-end parties. However, these activities are largely the same in format every year, so after running them for one or two years, you will become fairly familiar with them. The types of projects are relatively limited.

6. Management here is relatively "strict." A morning meeting is held at a fixed time every day, and everyone except the managers must report what they plan to do that day. Before leaving work, employees must also submit a work log describing what they did that day. As a result, the workplace culture is that people generally do not dare to leave early. Even if they finish their work ahead of time, they do not dare leave before the official end of the workday, for fear of being seen as having nothing to do.

7. This company is not difficult to get into. In particular, the résumés of people who are attractive are more likely to be noticed, which means that applying is easier than resigning.

8. Finally, to echo point 3 under the pros, why does working here make you realize how good things are outside? It is because the people at Shangkan are usually recent graduates or people without relevant experience. The owners or managers often say things like, “You really need to appreciate this place. The benefits and salary here are truly beyond criticism; no other company is this generous.” I don’t think Shangkan is the absolute worst, but it is not among the top-tier companies either. As far as I know, not one capable colleague who left here has regretted leaving, and regardless of salary or lifestyle, they are doing better than they were here.