It's been almost a month since joining the new company. After gradually getting familiar with the colleagues around me, I also started to understand what this company is like. When I first joined, everyone was very busy, so busy that I didn't have time to notice each person's years of service; it wasn't until chatting recently that I discovered our company also has a quite obvious personnel gap.
Taking our production control department as an example, the supervisor has been here for twelve years, starting as procurement and production control upon joining and working up to the present; the other two production control staff have each been here for almost a year, while the senior colleague I took over from chose to leave after eight years.
By comparison, our department isn't the most severe.
In the procurement department, besides the supervisor who has been here over three years, the other two procurement staff joined around the same time as me, meaning they've only been with the company for about a month.
Seeing this personnel structure, to be honest, I still silently questioned whether the turnover rate might be a bit high. Is this kind of company really suitable for staying long-term?
I have this concern because of past experience. Over five years ago, the company where I worked as a factory affairs assistant also had very high turnover, so high that whenever someone suddenly took leave, the reaction wasn't worry about them being sick but guessing: "Are they preparing to resign?"
The problem at that company wasn't just people constantly leaving; because so many left, those remaining were almost all newcomers. Everyone was still figuring things out and learning, with no one able to answer many questions or knowing the proper procedures. Cross-department communication became very difficult, eventually creating a vicious cycle. Because of that experience, now whenever I see similar situations, I can't help but become more alert.
However, I'm not jumping to conclusions. After all, after going through my previous job, I've started to realize that whether a company is good can't be judged by just one phenomenon. High turnover might indicate management issues, but it could also be due to organizational restructuring, department reorganization, or a situation like now where several newcomers happen to join around the same time.
My supervisor also told me that this recent period is actually quite abnormal. It wasn't usually this busy; it's just that orders happened to be particularly concentrated in August, and I joined right at the busiest time.
Hearing that put me a bit at ease. At least the colleagues I've seen so far are willing to help each other, and the supervisor is willing to answer questions, which feels different from my previous job where every day was firefighting with no one willing to truly solve problems. So I've decided to observe first and give this company some time.
Actually, everyone hopes to settle down, and I'm no exception. No one wants to keep changing jobs, constantly adapting to new environments and rebuilding relationships. But after my previous job, I understand even more that the prerequisite for stability isn't staying long, but staying somewhere worth staying.
Right now, I'm still learning new products and new processes, and establishing my own work rhythm. I hope my over five years of production control experience will allow me not just to complete the work, but to gradually find more efficient methods, making processes smoother and work more streamlined.
As for whether this company suits me, maybe there's no answer yet, but I want to focus on doing the tasks at hand well, get through this peak order period, and leave the rest to time to slowly verify.