The advantage is that the company is big enough and has high consolidated revenue, so you basically don’t have to worry about money.
1. The bonuses for the three major holidays are only NT$500. I’ve worked here for quite a while, and it’s practically as if they don’t exist.
2. The year-end bonus is truly commendable, at approximately 1–1.5 months’ salary.
3. As long as your performance review isn’t too poor, you’ll generally receive an annual raise of around NT$1,000.
4. There is another bonus in September, amounting to nearly NT$10,000.
5. In February, there is a NT$2,500 travel bonus deposited directly into your account.
6. You don’t need to know how to do the work, but if you know how to curry favor with your supervisors and cooperate with them in bullying others, you’ll definitely get promoted while barely lifting a finger! The prerequisite is learning how to exploit others—that is, taking other people’s performance and achievements and claiming them as your own! Just piggyback on everything a little bit. You don’t actually have to know how to do anything; as long as you ride on others’ achievements, you have a chance of getting promoted.
7. Remember to appear to be helping the company save money on the surface, and make yourself look as though you love the company—you’re practically a major shareholder of Pou Chen. Whenever someone spends money, scold them, attack them, and smear them! If you do that, people will see it and promote you.
1. It is full of bullying! No need to doubt it! This is how power is used to control people.
2. There are too many shareholders; whenever someone spends a few thousand dollars, somebody starts whining as if their own money had been spent.
3. There are far too many audits every year! The audit departments, trying to prove their performance, come up with strange regulations every year. On the surface they are for the company’s benefit, but in reality they just want to build their own track record, making your work unnecessarily troublesome.
4. Managers here don’t dare make decisions. You have to make everything yourself, which means your abilities have to be greater than your manager’s; otherwise, it’s very difficult to survive because the managers are all incompetent! (With a few exceptions.)
5. Everyone knows who the bullies are, but for the sake of their own promotions, everyone sides with the bullying managers, so there are many small cliques.
6. When a project isn’t won, nobody thinks about simply improving. Their first response is to attack other people and the opposing side! There is absolutely no progress.
7. The salary negotiation during the initial interview is extremely important! You must find a way to negotiate a higher salary. For assistant manager level and above, otherwise it will be very difficult to get promoted after joining, unless you can accept becoming a bully, an exploiter, a shameless piece of trash, and a sycophant.
Pou Chen is a good company. My younger sister was bullied and discriminated against based on gender in the workplace there, and died by suicide.
Pou Chen is a good company. My younger sister was bullied and discriminated against based on gender in the workplace there, and died by suicide.
During the first-round interview, the HR representative was very courteous and did not make me feel pressured.
I submitted my resume one day, and then, more than a month later, they suddenly contacted me.
They originally said we would have an online interview the next day, but then I heard nothing. I was quite upset.
Two days later, they called to reschedule. I thought, fine, I might as well give it a try.
At the end of the first-round interview, they told me they would arrange a second interview and additionally mentioned that there was a more suitable position for me to consider.
Afterward, I declined and said I hoped to proceed with the original position I had interviewed for. HR also said they would keep the original position and continue the process.
And then there was nothing. Honestly, if I wasn't suitable or you actually wanted to recruit for another position, just say so directly. Don't waste both your time and mine.
Could you please be less casual about this? Or is this just a case of bait and switch?
Nothing comes to mind at the moment
If you receive an offer from the Strategic Investment Department at the Taichung headquarters, I advise you to reject it for now—unless you really have... no other job prospects.
The job titles for the Strategic Investment Department on 104 all begin with “經管_,” such as: 經管_產效與成本分析資深管理師(台中), 經管_經營分析資深管理師(台中), 經管_投資專案管理主管(台中), 經管_產業分析暨資深專案管理師(台中), 經管_投資專案評估主管(台中)...
First, let me describe this department’s role within the group as a whole. Basically, it is the senior management’s “Eastern Depot.” Although its work involves reviewing the BUs’ profits, losses, and other performance indicators, the BUs actually do not pay much attention to it, because they usually communicate directly with the CEO about major projects. The BUs also discuss matters directly with the various functional units, and this department is not involved in these areas of responsibility. In an environment where the business units exclude the department, the unit manager’s interpersonal skills and ability to mediate are especially important. However... the manager tends to act superior and is unwilling to communicate more with the business units, resulting in a vicious cycle.
Finally, I would like to share with all interviewees that you should pay particular attention during the interview to a manager, 蘇X琳 (Vxcky), also known as the department’s HR representative. His usual goal is to recruit people first, so he will not tell the truth during interviews, and he also does not want the hiring manager to be too realistic, because that would affect his KPI. Therefore, do not take what he says too seriously. In addition, his job in the department is to distribute his work to everyone or simply increase their workload. That way, if he fails to meet his KPI, he can shift the blame by saying that someone else failed to meet theirs, which prevented him from completing his... You should still be especially careful around this person.
Interviewed with the company behind the leather goods brand. It appeared to be fairly large-scale, and the environment was decent.
The interviewer’s makeup was extremely heavy, and her false eyelashes were so conspicuous that they were distracting. She gave off a somewhat condescending impression.
Here you can experience:
1. Management that spends all day talking nonsense and feeding people inspirational soup
2. Regional and factory OMs who manage factories but don't even understand shoes
3. Salespeople who accept orders without calculating the manageable capacity
4. A DC center that requires problematic shoes discovered during development to be handled through mass production
5. A DC center where the quantity transferred from development exceeds the quantity developed
6. A technical department that cannot handle abnormalities and instead requires production to deal with them
7. Costs that are calculated incorrectly, yet they keep insisting there is no problem (for multiple styles, make one pair and accompany it with another)
8. Factory-affairs managers who only manage on-site shoemaking supervisors from the office
9. Brain-dead management that can only shout “Production Control! Production Control!” whenever any abnormality occurs
10. An organization that aggressively pushes SAP, causing problems with the factory’s daily operations, yet still tries to save face by drawing the organizational chart as if everything were perfectly complete
11. If I went on, there would be too many advantages—listing 30 of them would be no problem
Long live Nanshan
There are fairly established procedures, and the interview environment at the head office was good.
It felt like a routine question-and-answer session, possibly because I was applying for an overseas assignment and the head office’s HR staff were not very familiar with the local work.
The company has ample resources to leverage, and if you want to learn, you can still acquire knowledge through your own methods. Regarding overseas assignments in the footwear industry, Pou Chen provides labor and health insurance benefits and takes care of its employees; working overseas allows you to save money.
People who work diligently do not necessarily have opportunities to advance, while performance bonuses are distributed according to job grade. Those who cannot get promoted become discouraged, making their efforts seem pointless.
Outdated systems, a culture of flattery, an accountability-based system, and KPIs are completely useless (people take turns bearing the blame). Some people work eight hours a day, while others work only three. At Pou Chen, shamelessness is unbeatable. Don’t work hard without complaint—it will only hurt you. Upper management will never see your efforts; even if you work yourself to death, it still won’t be yours.
Leave quickly.
A place where you can draw a stable paycheck and retire without doing any work.
I came from Pou Chen’s HR department.
Internal conflicts alone consume a great deal of working time. After the “Iron-Blooded Princess” took office, the culture basically became one where doing nothing means making no mistakes, while doing more means making more mistakes and being immediately beheaded. Managers who originally had fighting spirit have already stopped doing anything, and the other managers who took over merely occupy their positions without taking action, doing everything they can to get money from suppliers. Senior managers are basically incapable of doing anything beyond talking, and they do not understand the professional aspects either.
If you have many ideals, ambitions, and passion while working at Pou Chen, it is easy to lose your motivation after seeing these situations (especially overseas, where this is even more obvious).
The capabilities of mid-level and frontline employees are relatively sufficient, but in recent years, the turnover rate among capable young people has been increasing. Instead, some people who are less competitive in the workplace continue to stay.
No matter how capable frontline employees are, they can only bear the unfair KPI system and slowly wait for opportunities to get promoted. However, externally hired parachuted-in personnel who know nothing can negotiate very high salaries as soon as they join the company. My suggestion for anyone who intends to stay at Pou Chen is to first resign, gain work experience at another related company, and then return to apply. You will definitely be able to negotiate a higher position and salary than peers who have stayed at Pou Chen continuously.
1. Benefits for frontline employees on overseas assignments are better than those at most traditional manufacturing companies
The premise here is that this applies to people who have just graduated from university.
From what I have heard, I have not yet found any company willing to offer better salary/daily allowance/round-trip airfare/labor and health insurance than here.
If I am mistaken, please forgive my limited knowledge.
2. Which unit is good? Development & Tech within the Business Division Development Center.
If you want to learn practical skills,
then go to the Development & Tech (Technology Transfer) department in the Business Division.
You can basically skip the others.
As for panels or molds, those are too technical—you should not expect to master them in two years.
Unless you personally see a panel or mold and know exactly what I am talking about, you do not need to go there either.
I think that if you work in development,
and can “seriously learn” and stick it out for three to five years,
you really may have a chance to move to the brand side. (It would be best if you could gain some exposure to costs and procurement.)
But the prerequisite is:
You have to join the Development Center from the beginning, because you can forget about transferring between units.
Also, make sure you are certain that you want to pursue this sunset industry...
3. Recognize the realities of society early
4. Oh, if you want a retirement-style job, you can come here lol
Some managers viciously badmouth employees just because they want to transfer to another unit.
Employees in various testing departments are asked whether they have told him the truth.
They even call people on holidays to ask them to do things that are not urgent at all.
They are inefficient and incompetent themselves, yet blame others for not working overtime.
Other than the units mentioned in the pros section, you can basically skip the rest.
And for those who want to join:
Listen and observe more; when there is no need to speak, stay quiet.
Submitting your résumé internally through someone you know makes it easier to get an interview.
Flattery culture
Many factions
Everyone is a parachuted-in senior executive
None
Job rotations happen incredibly quickly. I had been there for less than half a year when I was transferred to another department. There was no actual change in duties—only the department’s name changed, and the boss was fired and replaced with a new one. Another six months later, the department was dissolved, and I was transferred to another business unit.
Pretty great, right~~~ You get to learn a lot of things!!
Hahaha
You're overthinking it—there really aren't any. Don't be young and jump into a pit of fire by joining Pou Chen.
A building supervisor and executive manager, also from Feng Tay, could be forgiven for not understanding quality reports, but she surprisingly can't even understand the English word "other." With an annual salary of 2–3 million, everyone, isn't Pou Chen an easy place to make money? This company claims to promote a KPI evaluation system, yet it has produced a manager like this. The next position above executive manager is deputy assistant general manager, and she could even serve as the OM of a factory. She only knows sewing; she doesn't know molding or cutting. What she relies on is her older brother being a senior executive at Pou Chen. So if you have a relative here, you can rise to prominence.
There are imperial relatives everywhere.
Basic benefits are provided, but forget about the three traditional holiday bonuses and year-end bonus.
The hierarchy is clearly defined, factions are everywhere, and there are many unspoken rules
The hierarchy is clearly defined, factions are everywhere, and there are many unspoken rules
The hierarchy is clearly defined, factions are everywhere, and there are many unspoken rules
KPI performance evaluations operate on a rotating basis. Simply put, after being promoted, you must receive either “Failed” or “Need improvement” in the next evaluation.
As long as your direct supervisor gets to save face, your days will be peaceful. If you fail to read the situation, they will destroy you. They would rather force you to resign than keep someone who can actually get things done.
This is a company ruled by power. Whether you can do the job is one thing; whether you know how to deal with people is the biggest factor.
The upper management may want people to work seriously, but lower-level supervisors disregard everything and insist that you bow your head and act like a submissive lackey. They would rather keep you under constant scrutiny than let you stand out. This company is rotten to the core. Unless it is uprooted, there will only be more tragedies for future job seekers.
This is not entirely their fault either, because this is how Pou Chen has operated in the past. As the saying goes, people treat their future subordinates the way they were treated in the past. Unless they can put down the sword and resolve to do their jobs properly, I personally really do not recommend it. There are plenty of better jobs outside; there is no need to stay at Pou Chen just to earn this empty credential of experience, because you will not learn any professional skills—only how to endure humiliation and compromise.
1. The dormitory meals in Vietnam and Indonesia are both quite good.
2. The salary is average—not high or low. If you are posted overseas, you can save money.
I joined the company through its management trainee program and was posted overseas. The following is provided for reference:
1. Overseas assignments are all based on a responsibility system. People with a sense of responsibility work themselves to death, while those without one have an easy time.
2. The planning for the so-called management trainees is terrible. Headquarters and the business units keep passing the buck, and even when issues are raised with headquarters HR, the answers are just bureaucratic platitudes.
3. Many of the company’s internal ways of thinking, systems, and processes are extremely outdated.
4. If you are in a product development unit, you can still learn something. If you are in an administrative support unit, it feels like there is more factional infighting to watch.
The overseas food is okay. It’s a good place for young people to develop patience.
A culture of flattery and slacking off, with KPIs rendered ineffective. Don’t even think about bonuses or promotions—no matter how long you stay and endure, they won’t be yours. There is no system at all; everything is decided arbitrarily by people. Many people only care about leaving work on time, and getting them to complete the business they are responsible for is practically impossible. It’s a good place for young people to develop patience, but I don’t recommend staying too long. Once your brain is ruined, you won’t be able to leave.
If you're on the development team, it's a decent place to practice your English.
If you want to stay in Taiwan, the compensation is very average, the personnel system is extremely rigid, and no matter how capable you are, it is very difficult to get promoted. Not to mention that the salary increases associated with promotions through the earlier job grades are basically negligible. The company is sharply factionalized, and frontline employees often end up as casualties of conflicts between managers. The KPI system is extremely laughable: even performance that is difficult to quantify must be quantified. Managers have no choice but to set very abstract evaluation criteria for you, and in the end, the score is still entirely up to the manager, completely contrary to the spirit of a KPI system. The company frequently rotates managers, and turnover is also high. There are countless cases of employees going through five or six managers in three years. As a result, departmental and individual development strategies are often completely overturned by a newly appointed manager before they have even begun to show results. Even if you perform very well today, there is no guarantee that your manager will not be replaced tomorrow, favor their own people, and marginalize you as a holdover from the previous administration. The company is extremely superstitious about managers who have worked across many departments, have experience both domestically and overseas, and are considered to have “comprehensive experience.” It ignores the fact that wherever these managers go, turnover immediately soars, the department’s atmosphere rapidly deteriorates, and after two or three years they pat themselves on the back and leave, leaving a mess for their successors to clean up. Such people are widespread in the company’s mid- and senior-level ranks, and they usually rise smoothly through the ranks. If you are looking for somewhere to coast comfortably into retirement and no longer have any expectations regarding compensation or passion, it is an acceptable place. But if you are still young and want to properly develop your abilities and build up your qualifications, think twice.
None
HR is only responsible for recruitment; the company’s senior executives are basically all headhunted. Internal promotion is highly problematic: frontline employees are worked to death, while upper management cannot hear the voices of frontline staff. If you want to coast toward retirement, don’t fantasize; if you want a promotion, don’t even dream of it. You can only gain experience.
Interviewed for the Taichung management trainee position in 2014:
1. The overall process was well organized, with two interview stages.
- The first stage consisted of a group task and presentation in the morning, essentially responses in the style of a business competition; in the afternoon, there was an individual presentation in a group setting, introducing the company, followed by a brief interview.
- The second stage consisted of an English interview and a group interview. The English interview included a written test and an English conversation. For the group interview, each group had three candidates and 7–8 interviewers; each person had 15–20 minutes. The focus was on cooperation and your ability to work well with the company.
Because my grades were not considered outstanding, despite having extensive extracurricular experience, HR also felt that I placed too much emphasis on having fun and was extremely unsuitable.
The company primarily relies on overseas assignments (most of its factories are located abroad). The hierarchy is clearly defined, factions are everywhere, and there are many unspoken rules. If you choose the right side, everything goes smoothly and you rise step by step; if you choose the wrong side, you face constant turmoil and have no hope of promotion. KPI performance evaluations use a quota-based system. The most common situation is that immediately after receiving a promotion, you are bound to receive a “Failed” or “Need improvement” rating in the next evaluation. Over time, bad money drives out good, and people who consistently maintain good performance often cannot stand those who slack off and muddle through. Those people may appear to be promoted because of their high loyalty, while others leave or change jobs out of frustration at having to bear poor performance ratings themselves. There are plenty of such cases. The group is very large, but there are few internal transfer opportunities because direct supervisors are highly self-interested: if they cannot have you, they would rather destroy you. They would rather see you resign, and HR has limited ability to intervene or help facilitate transfers. The reality is that HR has little power; authority still rests with the heads of the various business groups. Nevertheless, this is still the Shaolin Temple and Wudang Mountain of the footwear industry. If you can calmly devote yourself to honing your skills for a few years, regardless of workplace politics and personnel disputes, the experience will benefit you wherever you go.
Clock-in and clock-out regulations are designed to evade inspections, and frontline employees who report overtime may be singled out, causing them to hesitate to report it.
Most overseas senior executives are slacking off.
In recent years, the company’s poor performance evaluation system has caused a culture of flattery to flourish throughout the organization. If you are good at ingratiating yourself, flattering others, and playing political games, this company is a good place for you to develop. If you are someone who works diligently and keeps your feet on the ground, you can only be a workhorse and will never get ahead, so I suggest finding a more down-to-earth company instead. The待遇 for newcomers is decent at first, but later on it’s... Best to just gain some experience. Although it’s fairly easy to get by here, there isn’t much room for development. Be careful not to stay too long and end up adopting a civil-servant mentality that causes you to lose your competitiveness in the workplace.
A bunch of senior managers who trade on their seniority. The more the system changes, the worse it gets. The salary is still fairly decent for the central Taiwan region.