Workplace reviews and discussion: 金器工業股份有限公司

I have worked here for over five years. The information is as follows:

1. The company complies with the Labor Standards Act. Under the law, 1 means 1 and 0 means 0: you will not receive less, but you will not receive more either. This may not sound like a major advantage, but in traditional industries in central and southern Taiwan, compliance with the Labor Standards Act is quite rare.

2. Overtime pay is calculated based on your “full salary” as the hourly wage, rather than lowering the basic salary by devising various allowances and then calculating overtime pay based on the reduced basic salary.

3. Overtime is not mandatory. I may not have worked more than 40 overtime hours in a year, although you can work overtime if you want to when there is additional work.

4. Working hours and off-duty hours are completely separate. Basically, once you leave work, the company has nothing to do with you; senior managers are an exception.

5. The year-end bonus is consistently around two months’ salary. This can be considered both an advantage and a disadvantage: this is a traditional industry, unlike the electronics industry, where bonuses may be around a dozen months’ salary or more or less.

6. Taking leave is easy. You will not be pressed for a reason; just write down a simple explanation.

1. It is a family-owned business. You will come to recognize which people are family members. Although there are only a few bad apples, seeing the work performance of the least capable employees can always be disheartening and exasperating.

2. Although it is a company of 500 people, its systems are not implemented very thoroughly. As a result, less responsible employees may play a game of passing the buck over work responsibilities. The attitude of “it is better to do less than to invite trouble” can lower morale.

3. The more capable you are, the more work you take on, while your salary increases slowly.