Pros
I'm trying to be as fair as I can with my review, so here goes. 1. Workaholic haven. If you like handling a lot of tasks, this is your place to "work". 2. If you like movies, drama series, varieties, especially the Korean ones, you will like this company as your job will be mainly pertaining to them. 3. Some Korean higher-ups in this company are nice and friendly. They sometimes give you chances to advance in this company rather than belittling you. Some of them will nurture you if you're willing to learn. 4. They are one-upping the technological advancement in post-production. No kidding, their cloud-based subtitling software is easy to use. But sadly only a handful of Koreans can give us runaround of how it works well in English. If you want to learn on how they really works, they will try to explain it to you, if they have time. 5. New projects, new clients, meaning: New people to be connected with. This will be useful in the long run in this line of business. You can expand your list of network and colleagues. 6. The company is getting better than it used to be back in 2012. This is quite a huge step forward. Bonus. David Lee is a cool CEO. He's open to discussion and easygoing person. Easy to talk with, but also assertive. Sadly, he's not always available to talk or chat, but when he is, take your time to discuss anything with him.
Cons
1. Some of our staffs do feel burned or overworked due to hard-working attitude this office oozes. Rather than being hard-worker, some people would rather to be a smart-worker, but that's not always the case. The hard-working nature comes from the delay from the upstream (in terms of workflow, the delay in materials, errata, revisions and such), and they rarely meant their apologies and repeat the same mistakes over and over again without any penalty or whatsoever. Solution: Enforce responsibilities to the staffs, especially to the ones who are not following the deadline. Do not protect the ones who are always sloppy, messy, and late in terms of working quality. 2. Due to either weak management or weak personnel, the blame game is quite strong in this company. In a relay race-like workflow, one has to be fully responsible of their own task, and not giving the "ah, leave it, let the other branches sort this issue out"-attitude. Solution: Stop the blame game and do your own job well. Be open to criticism, opinions, and suggestions. If the other branches are doing so, fix their mess and report to the higher management. Higher-ups should follow up this issue by warning the ones who clogged the workflow and propose a solution for the issue. 3. HR is basically someone who recruits, trains, maintains, hears any complaints from staffs and reports or addresses the issues accordingly. Unfortunately this position was non-existent when I first worked here. And now we're in the stabilizing stage of the company's growth, we have an executive for HR, I see that HR is not functioning neutrally to the role, and somewhat biased as in the closer you're with HR, the more HR protects or listens to you. I've seen two or three staffs got scolded and reported for being late, but not the others who happen to be close with the HR. And I still question the decision of keeping a bad editor just because the bad editor is always on-time, even though the quality of the editing is not enough. Recruiting seems sloppy, as in, we got nothing more than what already applicants stated in their CVs. The quality of the new recruits are also questionable even though they are much more "experienced" or even coming from other "better" companies. HR couldn't assess their behavior, preferences, and ultimately their characters well. It's as if HR was recruiting just to meet the quota or deadline given to them. Also, in interview stage, the HR didn't give a flexible option to negotiate your salary if I heard that correctly, as your salary is given based on "how long have you worked"-experience, not achievements. Solution: Being biased is a common mistake in any working environment. Start maintaining neutrality in working environment regardless of your relationship with other staffs. Listen well and address issues accordingly, and avoid being emotional in assessing issues. In recruiting, the interview stage is there for you to assess applicants' characters well, not just asking silly questions like "how much salary do you want?" or "when can you start?". 4. This one is in line with previous con. The (local) higher-ups seemed to prefer recruit new people for higher positions rather than training the internal staffs so that they are able to take the posts. Solution: Devise a training program so that internal staffs are not left behind with the growth and progress of the company. 5. Some editors (be it junior or senior) rarely listen or respond to feedback. Even some of them are taking it personally, and reports to HR, which makes it look unprofessional and childish. Solution: For editors or senior editors who are doing the same mistakes over and over again, listen and apply every feedback given by your higher-ups. Don't make it personal. This company is where you work, please focus on your work only. Feedback exists because we made mistakes, and we want to avoid the same mistakes, right? Please accept the feedback wholeheartedly and apply them in your next work. 6. No clear communication between managers and (local) higher-ups regarding new projects that burdening the staffs. This is a dangerous issue, as without clear communication, one couldn't know what the others are doing. I have seen overlapping work between a few staffs because of miscommunication. Or one time, Manager A feel robbed because his staffs are taken away by Manager B without their consent and is approved anyway by higher-ups. Solution: Please establish a clear and concise communication between all of you managers and higher-ups. There are so many viable options or mediums for you to do so, why not use one of them? Or even, just talk in person. It's that simple. 7. No increments for loyal freelance translator. I for one, feel really sorry for our long withstanding quality translators. I feel even more sorry to see their rates are the same with bad translators. Also worth noting: almost no significant increments for long withstanding in-house staffs. Solution: Create a grading rates system (e.g.: new translators/unproven translators got X-2 USD, good translators got X USD, best translators got X+2/5 USD). This will spur the translators to be better at what they're doing rather than translating sloppily and ignoring feedback from editors. 8. Not really a con, but the compensation and benefits in this company are quite mediocre, just barely there. Salary package (including taxes, meals, transports or parking fares) is among the top seven in post-production business. But the numbers given by them are based on how long have you worked in the business outside of this company, rather than how many contributions you give to the company. I have seen a new manager given higher salary than the previous one, but under-deliver and resigned just within a month or two after signing the contract. Not fair? Maybe. But that's how they glorify people with overboard certifications or experiences without any character or capabilities to take on tasks given by the company. Solution: Qualified people who graduated from overseas academies or universities won't even bother to look for work in their own country, if they do, it means they don't fit in overseas job market, or in other words, unqualified or can't do anything right. Just because they are graduates from overseas, doesn't always mean they are better than the locals who attend local colleges or universities. I have seen this a lot happening, overestimating someone from overseas, but they under-delivered in the end. One up your recruitment plans and systems, be more careful in recruiting. Surely you don't want any pup in a poke to work for your company and causing a mess in near future.
