Workplace reviews and discussion: 浮雲客棧股份有限公司

The elderly man in the management office was very kind.

If you drive to the interview, you can park underneath the Fuyun Hotel without paying a parking fee, which is pretty nice.

If you have good abilities, the boss does not object to the salary you ask for (although the Hong Kong–籍 COO might be jealous).

The following is purely based on my personal experience~

1. In my view, the COO is someone who can lead frontline employees but cannot lead mid- and senior-level employees.

2. Five or six people have cycled through the position I joined over the past two years, meaning that, on average, someone leaves about every four months.

3. The real reason I resigned was this: During the interview, I thought the COO was very capable, and the president seemed very willing to provide room for planning. However, after observing things for two days, I realized that the COO was actually quite weak.

4. Why do I personally think the COO is not strong? My views are as follows:

4-1. The Hong Kong–籍 COO is still unwilling to accept the changes in Taiwan’s labor environment and continues to manage Taiwanese employees according to Hong Kong customs. In my opinion, failing to recognize reality is a sign of weakness~

4-2. The management style has led to a high turnover rate. A large number of resignations began to occur, but instead of being able to stop the bleeding, there was no response strategy—just relying on time to deal with it~ That is weak.

4-3. Although her title is COO, she only does the work of an on-site supervisor or hotel manager. After two years, the internal systems are still a mess. The company is paying COO-level money for someone who only does a hotel manager’s job. That is weak.

4-4. “Being busy” cannot be an excuse for someone capable. It is merely a matter of planning time and priorities. That is weak too~

She says she is too busy to reorganize the back office, then uses being busy as an excuse to let the people brought in to help reorganize the back office keep leaving....

Either the logic is so contradictory that it is weak,

or her time-management ability is very weak,

or she naively wants to have everything—the horse to be good while also buying it without feeding it early.

The combined scale of the several companies is not large~ It is not some huge, highly structured hospitality and catering business~

Even if the people helping reorganize the back office are busy, they should still squeeze the time out somehow, like creating cleavage by pushing the breasts together, so that the short-term pain is better than prolonged suffering. If she cannot even handle something this basic, that is weak!

4-4. The turnover rate among people she personally interviewed and hired is also quite high.

If this is not because she frequently misjudges people, then her ability to lead newcomers is insufficient, or she tends to put people in the wrong positions. All three possibilities are signs of weakness—it is only a question of which one~

4-5. The three mid-level managers she personally promoted belong to three different companies. None of them is capable, yet she has never proposed a practical talent-development plan. She only chats and complains with the president, as if she thinks that simply placing the managers she promoted there will somehow make them grow abilities on their own.

Either she lacks awareness of the need to train managers for the company~

or she has not realized that her position and role require her to do this~

or she simply lacks the ability to do it~ All three point to weakness~

All I can say is~

It is almost never the case that the average employee strength under a truly strong manager is not strong.

That is a fact ^^

When experienced, highly successful people are willing to work for your company, failing to seize the opportunity or failing to make a proper effort to recruit them is also a form of weakness~

Then, after they come and leave, you say there was something wrong with them~ without realizing that the probability that you misjudged them yourself is quite high~ That is still weakness~

Unless excellent people have a savior complex, they will not waste their career development waiting for you to change or trying to save you. The foundation of every job is an exchange of value—that is a very simple principle.

Understand what “the era of severe labor shortages” means~ That is a COO’s basic responsibility~

Automation does not mean that people are unnecessary.

As long as you need people, you must clearly define what kind of talent you want,

what kind of talent you can attract,

and why that kind of talent would be willing to come and stay.

Therefore, you need to understand that the meaning of a severe labor shortage is this:

Even if you know what kind of person you want,

you must first compete with industries across Taiwan.

Your ability to acquire talent and retain them is one of the indicators of your level of competitiveness.

I also need to clarify:

When I say “weak” and “wrong,” they are not the same thing.

When I say someone is weak, I am simply sharing my evaluation of them in my mind; it is not the same as insulting or belittling them.

It is only because, among the other COOs I have witnessed, I classify her as being at the strong, average, or weak level.

In short, to me, evaluation is merely a matter of degree or level; it carries no implication of insult or belittlement~

When you want someone who can deliver immediate results, that person is also waiting for you to provide an environment in which they can do so. If you do not first prepare the rules and systems, yet still demand a COO who can deliver immediate results, I also consider that relatively weak thinking and logic~

Because “immediate-results capability” is called that for a reason~ It does not mean the person understands your company deeply enough~ But for them to demonstrate that capability, your systems and operating procedures must be easy for them to find so that they can put it into practice!

Do not bring in a newcomer to help you establish rules and systems. Newcomers themselves need time to learn and figure out the rules and systems. If you have a COO, they should be able to direct relatively familiar internal partners to establish the rules and systems properly, rather than making a newcomer do it. This is extremely basic; if they do not understand it, I also think that is very weak~

To sum up everything above~

In my judgment, the COO is not very capable and seems like a beginner. I feel that during the interview I misunderstood the illusion that the COO was very strong~

Once I became clear about what I wanted, I left~

That is all from my personal rambling. Just take it as after-dinner conversation XD~

A side note~

I wonder whether a COO who came from a sales background would understand this~

In this era, offending one employee means offending the 500 to 1,000 online friends around them on Instagram and Facebook.

No matter how much the second generation tries to market the company~ there will always be a chance that someone will come out and criticize it~ Believe it or not ^^

Often, all it takes is one comment:

“I personally don’t believe that a company that treats its own employees like XXXX~

can really provide XXXX-level service or food to its customers~”

And that is enough~

Honestly~ I feel that over these past two years~

The COO and president of this company have experienced the pressure of employee turnover and actually need psychological healing without realizing it.

To some extent, the turnover rate is the result of their being trapped by certain shadows and pressures that they cannot resolve themselves, projecting them onto many people and producing the same outcome.

(When several different and unrelated samples in the same environment produce the same result, but you criticize the samples instead of examining the environment, that is truly, truly, truly weak.)

Experienced people who do not want to get caught up in a quagmire of psychological pressure will leave quickly.

Those without experience will try to endure it and see how things go, until they discover that their own mental health has also become unhealthy, at which point they decide whether to leave—or simply get used to it.

Resilience is related to ability, but they are not absolutely correlated~ You need to understand this ^^

The workplace is the workplace—it is a place to make money or exchange work for a sense of achievement.

The money has to be good enough for it to be worth enduring the pressure.

A sense of achievement is difficult to satisfy; if you do not need the money, there is no reason to stay and fight to the death.

If you spend the same amount of time somewhere, there is no reason not to love yourself more and go somewhere that can satisfy you to the same degree, or more~

Managers who are unclear-headed will keep saying that their subordinates lack ability, but have no action strategy.

Managers who lack ability will join the executives in criticizing employees for lacking ability, while being unable to require the managers beneath them to plan and manage properly.

But when someone asks you to give more to the company, they are usually thinking very clearly: they want to be able to keep making that money for a little longer~ ^^

In this generation, employee growth and change are often not produced by punishment, but by encouragement.

Senior leaders with too little experience will not understand this ^^

What I have described is what I experienced at Fuyun Liguan. It may not be the same as other people’s experience,

but going through it was very good for me, because it made me feel extremely happy in my next workplace.

I felt happy to be developed and nurtured.

I felt happy that my supervisor had the ability and time, and was willing to understand the difficulties I encountered.

I felt happy that the company provided the knowledge required for my position instead of making me constantly learn how to operate tools.

I felt happy with the way my salary and benefits were provided.

I felt happy that, when I first joined a workplace, I was guided instead of having to figure everything out on my own while waiting to die.

All of these kinds of happiness became tangible to me elsewhere only because Fuyun Liguan was unable to provide them.