Workplace reviews and discussion: 利晉工程股份有限公司

1. High lunch allowance, provided in addition to your salary; afternoon tea is often provided too—there’s little risk of going hungry.

2. Gift vouchers and gifts for the three major festivals are provided even if you have been employed for less than three months.

3. Bonuses are above the industry average.

4. Colleagues are fairly friendly, but it is difficult to form close relationships.

1. After you join, senior employees may aggressively question you about your salary and job grade.

2. There are senior employees everywhere with 8–10+ years of tenure. Many have stayed in their first job until now and assume that the way they have always done things must be correct. They keep telling you that you can raise any problems, but when you do, they say things like: “The company can’t improve because of blablabla,” or “If there were problems, the company wouldn’t have been established for so many years.” One manager believes that when new hires leave, it is the new hires’ problem—that they treat the company as a stepping stone or have too little stress tolerance—and never considers what problems there might be within the company. There are many narrow-minded people inside, making communication difficult.

3. You have to provide your own laptop and software, and you will be asked to sign a declaration that you will not use pirated software. People there all think it is normal to provide your own laptop and software, making you feel as if you are the odd one out.

4. When joining, you have to provide two guarantors, which makes it feel as though the company is very afraid that employees will do something harmful to it.

5. Before your first day, you will be asked to fill out more than ten pages of documents. Although they are clearly things that should be completed on your first day, you have to complete them, print them out yourself, and bring them over—the company even tries to save on paper and the time spent filling out the documents.

6. On your first day, you have to report to the company’s headquarters in Taoyuan. After listening to HR introduce some systems and administrative regulations, you go on an office tour where you are introduced to everyone one by one as a new hire. In reality, everyone is wearing masks, so you have no idea who is who; there are too many people to remember after the introductions anyway. This procedure feels redundant and a waste of time.

7. The company’s hierarchy is very clear. Everyone at deputy-director level or above seems to have an aura around them, although most managers are quite nice. A small number feel that, because of their job grade, people should listen to them.

8. There are many cliques, and gossip and rumors are everywhere. Be especially careful around a certain junior manager at one of the construction sites who loves chatting with everyone.

9. Many management systems are quite lax, and the manager of one department lacks expertise, so you have to rely on yourself.