Last postion in the ranking of 8 companies I have worked for
Wofür möchtest du deinen Arbeitgeber im Umgang mit der Corona-Situation loben?
This company deserves no praise - but please let me know, if you can find anyone who can say something positiv apart from the fake reviews. I recommend strongly to talk to a local employee working longer than 12 month for this company, to get a true feedback.
Was macht dein Arbeitgeber im Umgang mit der Corona-Situation nicht gut?
Infomation sharing weak. Just some words to keep employees working: "We need to stay closer together" - no protection, no aim to keep employees. The employee doesn't count for TP-Link.
Wie kann dich dein Arbeitgeber im Umgang mit der Corona-Situation noch besser unterstützen?
First 3 weeks - Corona was just ignored, as the HQ in china had not approved the home office. Afterwards home office allowance from the state locales worked from home, but chinese employees still going to the office without any protection. Expect nothing and protect yourself. No clear plan from the management.
Clear processes and local employees in key functions like HR and Legal. Decision power in the teams, with given budget. To your own protection everything in written.
If you want to make a gift, don't reduce the taxes from the salary payslip. It is not a gift anymore.
Dear Management, we are all humans - please be so kind and behave like one. What you are doing is exploit of human ressources, cheat and trick to maximize your profit. Your highest goal is to keep the control and pay whatever necessary to put the employees down. A balance of happy employees will bring you more, than you can imagine. You can perform even better.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Efficient employees are lured with verbal promises that are never fulfilled. You will notice this relatively quickly in the working atmosphere. Many employees are already demotivated because they have been denied several promises or because their hard work is put down with derogatory statements. After 12 months at the latest, everyone has lost motivation. There is no sign of appreciation. As a rule, employees quit themselves every 12-18 months. Recently, the fixed-term contracts are no longer extended after 2 years because you think cheaper workers could do the job or you simply put it on top of a colleague. In addition, more Asian employees are being hired again. They are not so rebellious and are easier to control. 3 of 6 sales representatives were fired during their vacation. Of course, without notice or real reason. The rest of the sales team is completely demotivated and frightened. Still no communication as to how to proceed. In the end, those who had left the company were replaced by new (cheaper) employees. The company doesn't want to learn from mistakes. Hire, squeeze them out and find a replacement.
Kommunikation
Communication from superiors to employees is unfortunately not very effective. Initial weekly meetings are reinstated after a short time because the manager either has no more time, loses interest or simply has no excuses anymore.
Communication between local and Chinese management should generally be in writing. All verbal agreements are forgotten, ignored or interpreted to your disadvantage. Don't be surprised if you get the same question every week. Either there was a "communication problem", a misunderstanding due to the lack of language skills, or the desired result was not yet achieved by you.
Management does not provide information to the employee, or only in individual phrases that say nothing. One should carry out and not think or express his opinion.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
A cohesion of colleagues can only be seen among local employees. Entire departments are missing at staged team events or Christmas celebrations because you want to symbolize that something is wrong here (e.g. complete warehouse does not take part in the team event, many teams stay away from the Christmas party). The cohesion between the local employees and the supervisor (guess which nationality) is either neutral (because they cannot do anything) or negative. Management's word is not kept. Management expects to be somewhere else soon and is therefore not bound by his promises. If you want examples, please contact old employees - there is no ex-employee I could found, who has positive memories of TP-Link. In bad times you learn to stick together, so the local employees grow closer together. But at the end you are fighting alone.
Work-Life-Balance
To put it in here the words of one Chinese sales manager: TP-Link is looking for people who are willing to work for 3 and paid for half, who can then be replaced after 1-2 years. The workforce itself is not valued or rewarded in any way. Overtime is required and you should also be available on weekends (at trade fairs). Due to legal regulations, the weekend work (Sunday) is compensated with a simple free day compensation (whereby the number in the system is usually incorrect and is added as an accidental mishap if requested). Overtime is not taken into account or compensated for. The official working hours are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with 1 hour mandetory lunch break (even if you don't take it).
Update August 2019: As flexible working hours, you can now see the selection starting between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. instead of at 9 a.m. The promised "time recording system" has been in "test mode" for 12 months. Data is recorded, but no one is allowed to look inside or over hours are ignored - It is a system to push for more working hours - very unflexible system at all. Promises over promises are made, but no change viewable.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
There is just one who can decide, where you have to apply for everything - yes everything - 5€ for a pen, travel requests, vacation.... From his own statement he told me that also he has to get approval for everything from China - if this is true - then there is not a single person who gets trusted by this company management. Promises will not become true - even the highest manager of the company promised to hire a local HR person - after 12 month not covering this function a very unprofessional employee (guess nationality) is handling local HR. Same for legal - chinese employees are cheaper than a german lawyer. When they say trust me or trust the company - the company is definitly not trusting you or providing any kind of future to you.
Interessante Aufgaben
Do not be fooled by the options shown. Daily business is required here and all exciting activities are denied to you because of budget cuts (the budget did not really exist, by the way, it is just fake).
Watch out for everyone with customer contact. You will be blamed for delisting or poor sales. Priority is given to outrageous demands of the management or promises not kept. You can then solve this interesting task with the customer without being helped. You should also prepare for legally inappropriate tasks. After further interesting trade fair appearances with 9 days work in a row / 14-17 hours a day, you will gratefully get a vacation lock because the department is understaffed. Even the director level is not allowed to make decisions of € 50 and must obtain approval from the management.
You are welcome to bring in ideas and show them in detail. After that there is a rejection or no answer at all.
The tasks are mostly translations of given texts, communication at local level or crisis management. Everything without decision-making authority, everything has to be approved beforehand.
Gleichberechtigung
There is no equality. Women in particular should think carefully about whether they want to work here. As of August 2018: there is only one female local employee. The remaining female employees are Chinese, who are hired for a minimum wage of 6 months under internship contracts or very low rates. After that, you will be put under visa pressure and forced to accept minimum wages so that your residence status is extended. In some areas (e.g. finance), you can simply exchange directly after 6 months. The status Chinese to local employees should not be mentioned at all. There is no local employee with decision-making authority, but also no chinese.
As of August 2019: The local female employee has given notice and is leaving the company after 1 year. The chinese female employee should stand up and quit. I have never seen such despicable behaviour against women.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
There are only a few older colleagues. The entire Chinese management is not older than 35 years (average 28 years or younger). Dealing with the elderly is just as disrespectful as with all other local employees.
Arbeitsbedingungen
Open-plan offices from the 70s with old carpeting and simple office equipment. TP-Link changed their office location, but not to improve the poor quality of facilities - the same Office style seems to be in Düsseldorf office again - this company is not changing. They do everything to avoid a works council and hold employees down.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
There is no environmental and social awareness. There are enough documented examples of this.
The Christmas tree was disposed of in the household waste (with all the jewelry) - the photo is available on request. There is only one large bin for all waste, dirty or broken toilets are the norm, since waste is disposed of through the toilet. Due to the culturally familiar crouching position during bowel movements, Chinese employees like to step on the toilet seat with their shoes. This breaks, then either or is filthy until the next cleaning service.
Instead of fixing the defect, the toilet seat is then fixed with adhesive tape or left for a few weeks until there are enough complaints.
A new idea to separate yellow bins and residual waste is going great. The yellow bags are then disposed of in the large bin in the yard with the residual waste.
The election of a works council was massively attacked at the first employee meeting. The clearly formed Chinese team of young executives wanted to stop the election immediately and not even convene an election board. Talking about bad works councils or unnecessary costs of a works council should intimidate those present.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
One fixed salary + bonus nothing more all included.
Sales people: Car or car allowance
PC Hardware = ok, but Microsoft Office not for all available
Smartphone = own brand neffos - a reason not to join - call drops daily, device quickly broken. Cheap quality - good is good enough.
Image
Better than it should - TP-Link is seen as cheap network manufacturer. Claim: Good is good enough and if you hide the network router noone takes care as long as it is working. Big projects fail. Please inform yourself at a local employee, who works longer than 12 month at TP-Link (hard to find, but they can tell you the truth).
Karriere/Weiterbildung
No further promotion - sometimes there is a fake title promotion, but normally management doesn't want it. Definitly not offered you have to fight for it.
No further education plan - even if you have some good ideas - as long as it cost something it is rejected. No future plan for anyone. Do your job and wait for your replacement. There is still no local HR person, who can even prepare for that.