億豐綜合工業股份有限公司

The salary and bonuses are fairly good; at the managerial level and above, there is a chance to earn two years’ worth of income in one year.

If you can work at headquarters, do not accept an overseas assignment—especially not at the Cambodia plant.

1. The working hours are very strange: 0730–1130, 1330–1730, and 1900–2100. In particular, the evening shift from 1900–2100 requires you to be in the office, regardless of whether you actually need to work overtime. Everyone has to go into the office and pretend to be busy. You have no time of your own for further study, exercise, or doing what you want.

2. The company’s promises during the interview that someone would be assigned to clean and do laundry are false. The Cambodia plant manager said that there is no company policy requiring the company to clean or do laundry for you. Therefore, after getting off work at 9 p.m., you have to drag your exhausted body into the bathroom and wash your clothes. On holidays, you have to sacrifice your precious days off to clean the bathroom and toilet yourself, sweep and mop the floors, and tidy your room.

3. When you hear that overseas assignees get 60 days of leave per year, do not celebrate too soon. Sundays and local public holidays are all deducted from your leave. For example, if you plan to return to Taiwan for leave from 2022/9/18 to 2022/9/27, the two Sundays in between—9/18 and 9/25—are also deducted from your 60 days. September 24 and September 26 are local public holidays, and those are deducted as well. Furthermore, if there is a continuous local holiday lasting three days or more, including three days, the company will deduct those days from your 60 days even if you do not take leave.

4. Because the deputy manager of the factory’s administration department has the plant manager’s backing, even managers at the senior manager level or above cannot afford to offend him. No matter how many mistakes the administration department makes, other departments are ultimately blamed. If you accidentally offend this department—or merely ask a simple question, such as what time the company shuttle runs on holidays—you may find yourself inexplicably on their bad side and placed on the plant manager’s blacklist. The plant manager will do everything possible to get rid of you.

5. Many department heads like to take credit or shift responsibility. The good things are all attributed to the manager, while the bad things are all blamed on you. They will also put on the appearance of being a good manager and pretend to speak up for you during performance evaluations, when in reality, if you leave, they will have no one to take the blame. Also, you may be dismissed because your manager’s poor leadership makes you look like a civil servant.

If you are willing to be sufficiently servile, you can achieve financial freedom here. But the prerequisites are that you can guarantee you will stay for more than 10 years, never offend the administration department or the plant manager, and ensure that your good performance is noticed by the general manager.

I’ve heard the pay is quite generous and the benefits are good too, but if you’re considering joining the R&D department, please read the cons or go through the interview before making a decision...

There are two R&D departments, and I think what the previous colleague told me was about a different one. So let me share the terrible experience my friend had there! The manager loved making grand promises and presented many ambitious plans to upper management, but when handing the project over to my friend, provided no funding at all—just a few books in Simplified Chinese and a computer—and thought that was enough to develop something new. When my friend went to discuss it with the manager, the manager actually shouted back, “I didn’t take your money, so why should I care about your work?” The manager’s emotional outbursts and verbal abuse toward employees were also commonplace. Basically, it sounded like a department that couldn’t produce anything. In the end, my friend even developed depression because of this job. It took a great deal of effort to persuade them to resign, and they continued seeing a doctor and suffering from the illness for quite some time..... If you’re thinking of joining this R&D department, you really need to think it over again and again!!

Mechanical Design Engineer

I was asked to leave after three months because I could not go along with the team in doing unreasonable things.

I heard from other colleagues that the company benefits are very good, but I did not get to enjoy them, so I don't know.

The departments outside of R&D seem to be quite good, but perhaps because of that, there are some people there who have little ability yet comfortably occupy their positions.

If you want to work in R&D and have even a little professional integrity, do not go there. The R&D environment here is extremely poor.

What the supervisor said during the interview differed considerably from the actual working conditions. The compensation was also different, with a lot of nitpicking over various things.

Being an expatriate finance executive is quite challenging.

One day off per week, plus local holidays (holidays of three consecutive days or more are deducted from your Taiwan leave; single-day holidays are not deducted).

10-hour workdays (even longer during closing periods).

60 days of leave to return to Taiwan (however, weddings, funerals, and other personal events are all deducted from this allowance. If the number of leave days exceeds the allowance, your salary will be deducted unless you have special circumstances that warrant an exception).

Airfare subsidy (USD 3,900–5,800); any unused amount is paid to you.

In the first year, annual compensation is guaranteed at NT$1.3–1.4 million. Most of it is paid locally, with a small portion paid in Taiwan (so that you retain labor and health insurance coverage).

Starting in the second year, compensation is no longer guaranteed, but profit sharing begins. Unless you do something seriously foolish, your salary will not decrease.

The company places great importance on executives maintaining clean relationships with external vendors. If accepting gifts is discovered, you will be interviewed and there will be consequences.

The company is very demanding about educational qualifications and professional certifications on resumes.