Workplace reviews and discussion: 全國公證檢驗股份有限公司

I’ve been at the food laboratory for almost 10 years and left last year. It’s surprising that so many people come and go at this company, yet there are so few reviews, so I’m providing a brief update on the company’s current situation for future junior colleagues~

When you join the food laboratory, you are assigned to a group first. The work environment varies greatly from group to group. The groups that frequently require overtime and weekend shifts are usually those handling government contracts. The Food Additives, Veterinary Drugs, and Pesticides groups are relatively busy; the other groups are more ordinary. Some groups have many long-term employees who teach newcomers by scolding them. If you feel that things are not right after joining, ask HR as soon as possible whether you can transfer to another group. In recent years, many people have transferred groups after joining. Personally, I think the only advantage is that department-level managers generally do not interfere much in personnel matters. You usually work directly with the team leader and colleagues. If you need to take leave unexpectedly, as long as staffing is sufficient, you can submit the request through the online leave system, and managers usually approve it directly. I really can’t think of any other advantages.

The only company larger than us in food testing nationwide is SGS, so there isn’t much to think about if you want to change jobs. Besides, there are only a handful of companies in the testing industry, and the salaries are all roughly the same. I’m not sure how much new hires are currently offered when they join, but in any case, annual raises here are only a few hundred dollars. Some colleagues who resigned and later rejoined were able to negotiate a larger increase than they would have received by staying here. The general impression is that the company treats employees who are willing to stay as easy targets; unless you endure long enough to get promoted, you may receive an extra 3–5K, but that opportunity is hard to come by. Every year, there is an additional month of salary paid in December. Other than that, there is only a performance bonus paid at the end of March, which in recent years has usually been around two months’ salary. When I first joined, I once received only one month’s performance bonus. As far as I know, everyone receives the same number of months in a given year. There is no year-end bonus, so you receive nothing before the Lunar New Year.

Benefits get worse every year. The travel bonus has fallen from the original 6,000 to 3,600. Apart from NT$1,000 for each of the three traditional holidays, the only other benefit is a NT$1,000 Shin Kong gift voucher for your birthday. The contracted provider for health checkups also gets worse every year; originally, checkups were provided annually, but since last year the company has said that, under the Labor Standards Act, they are only required once every three years.

Apart from the team leaders, no one has a designated workstation. You can only rest near the machines, and if you are seen, there are quite a few senior employees who dislike newcomers taking breaks and will make snide remarks about newcomers not being proactive. There is no seating for lunch, so you have to find an empty table yourself.

Whenever the company is short-staffed, it only hires newcomers. I have hardly ever seen anyone with experience join, so whenever a senior employee leaves, there is a long transition period. This is especially true in groups handling government contracts, where the number of weekend shifts increases. Weekend overtime pay is calculated according to the Labor Standards Act plus an allowance of a few hundred dollars.

Finally, I still want to advise recent graduates: if you want a high salary, don’t join this company and endure it. Don’t bring the school-lab mindset of learning more, doing more, and handling more instruments into this job. Even if you can operate all the advanced instruments and perform every experiment, your annual raise will still only be a few hundred dollars. You will merely go from being a newcomer to being a senior employee. When you try to change jobs, you may find that the only place you can go is another testing company. In the end, you will be stuck with a mediocre salary. (According to the annual income tax statement, total annual income is roughly NT$500–800K; for a non-managerial employee, reaching NT$1 million is basically impossible.) You will work overtime on weekends until your friends and family have no idea what you are busy with. Senior employees earning within this range usually complain about the company’s low pay and poor benefits while also complaining that newcomers are not proactive. (If everyone knows the benefits are poor, why expect newcomers to be proactive? They don’t leave themselves either—it’s extremely contradictory.)