香港商赫士盟食品企業有限公司台北分公司

Although the company posts full-time positions, everyone is required to start as a part-time employee after joining. It takes about one to two months to learn a station well enough to serve dishes. After passing a written test and an on-site assessment, you can be transferred to a full-time position. The starting salary for full-time employees is approximately NT$25,000–26,000, rising to around NT$30,000 once you are fully qualified at all stations. If you want to advance further, you can only wait for management positions to open. Management vacancies generally depend on whether the company plans to launch a new brand; otherwise, openings are rare. There are basically no special benefits—mostly the meal provisions and dining discounts common in the food and beverage industry. The advantage is that, because the company is under the large Hsu’s Group, you can enjoy dining discounts at most of the group’s restaurants, except for certain partner restaurants such as RAW and Le Palais.

At work, efficiency is emphasized, and almost all tasks have SOPs. As long as you follow them, there generally should not be any problems. However, if you do not understand something, you must ask the shift leader or another colleague, because if you make a mistake, you may be required to pay for it. In addition, every six months, the company hires people to conduct surprise food safety and sanitation inspections. If the standards are not met, the manager is required to write a review report, so managers are especially nervous during this period. These inspections are very troublesome; if you end up working there, you will understand. Full-time employees are also required to share responsibility for full-time duties and tasks during inspection periods. Since there are many types of duties, I will not describe them separately, but they are basically related to restaurant operations.

Working hours are recorded in whole-hour and half-hour increments. Therefore, if you unfortunately finish your work after the hour or half-hour, you can only accept the loss and absorb the extra time yourself. If business performance is good, there is a monthly target bonus, but it is not much—around NT$500 to NT$900 (I have never received more than that). The three traditional holiday bonuses are generally company vouchers, which also have expiration dates. Do not expect much from the year-end bonus, because most supplies have to be shipped from the United States. Although sales are impressive, profits are relatively thin. Moreover, aside from specific holidays and peak seasons, business is generally not very good, so last year’s year-end bonus was only 0.2 months’ salary (I heard this applies after completing one year). As for leave, you receive the number of days stipulated for the year. The company will not take away your leave, and even if you do not take it, overtime pay will be provided instead. If necessary, you can schedule days off on weekends, provided there are enough staff. The schedule is posted weekly, so sometimes the following week’s schedule is not released until Sunday. If you need to take leave, it is best to inform the manager in advance.

Overall, it is a decent company. However, if you want to improve your cooking skills, you will not learn much here. If you want to work for Hsu’s Group and do not care whether you can improve your cooking skills, I would recommend working at NAGI Ramen, because the items are simpler and the profits are higher, so the bonuses tend to be more substantial.