Workplace reviews and discussion: 開適室內裝修設計有限公司

1. Colleagues support one another

2. Regular group dinners

3. Regular employee trips

4. Hand-poured coffee, beverages, and snacks provided

<Violations of the Labor Standards Act>

Competent authority: Taipei City; penalty date: 2022/07/04; Taipei City Labor Document No. 11160280741

Kai Shi Interior Design Co., Ltd. — violated laws and regulations:

Labor Standards Act, Article 16, Paragraph 3

Labor Standards Act, Article 23, Paragraph 1

Labor Standards Act, Article 30, Paragraph 5

Failure to legally pay wages for the required advance-notice period

Failure to pay wages to employees on a regular basis, or to provide details of the calculation methods for each wage item

Failure to maintain employee attendance records as required

A truthful account of what happened at the time:

1. No clocking in or out

(Owner: Our company is very flexible; there is no need to clock in.)

(Owner: Employees usually leave work around 6–7 p.m.)

(Owner: We do not often work overtime, but there are exceptions when a project is urgent.)

(Monthly salary statements were not provided to employees.)

2. A responsibility-based work system

(The manager compromised and cut the employees’ scheduled work progress in half.)

(As a result, employees had to work overtime to finish everything in time and meet the efficiency standards referred to by the owner.)

(Employees were still assigned tasks outside their job responsibilities.)

(The accountant was told to oversee construction sites.)

(The project assistant was told to manage the social media accounts and Facebook page.)

3. No overtime pay

(Design work requires discussions with clients, but the owner took up employees’ holidays and after-work hours for meetings.)

(Design work requires site measurements, but the owner and manager took up employees’ holidays and after-work hours for measurements.)

(There was no overtime pay, and remarkably, no compensatory leave either.)

(There were also no project bonuses.)

4. Working on holidays and after work was also considered part of the job responsibility

(Design work requires site measurements, but the owner and manager took up employees’ holiday time for measurements.)

(There was no overtime pay, and remarkably, no compensatory leave either.)

(There were also no project bonuses.)

5. When a photographer photographed the company’s completed projects, employees were still required to go to the site to assist the photographer

(The assistance lasted all night, until dawn.)

(More than 8 hours.)

(Some employees had to come to work the next day after providing assistance and continued working on drawings as usual after 6:30 p.m.)

(This was because they did not want to be labeled by the owner and manager as employees who were inefficient at work.)

(The owner required employees to assist at the site on the grounds that helping the photographer would allow them to learn photography composition techniques.)

(There was no overtime pay, and remarkably, no compensatory leave either.)

(Usually, photographers should have their own photography assistants.)

6. Employees’ reports about the above situations to management were ineffective

(Employees who raised concerns were regarded as difficult.)

(The manager would find reasons to make things difficult for them and dismiss them.)

(The usual reason given was that the employee’s abilities differed from the company’s expectations.)

(The owner did not provide the full severance pay required by regulations.)

7. The owner’s design standards are superior, and the owner has an extremely high opinion of themself

(The owner stated the company’s position to employees.)

(Owner: XXX, even if you leave the company today, nothing will really change.)

(Based on your abilities, there are many people who can replace you.)

(There are still many people outside who want to join the company.)

(After employees interviewed by the manager officially started work, the owner would negotiate down the salaries of new employees.)

(The reason was that the owner felt they had offered too much salary.)