I’ve arrived in Taiwan and am set to start work at my new employer on Monday. But now that I’m making final arrangements for this, the company’s HR has come back with what I think is an odd request.
First off, this is a securities company (i.e., stock brokerage), so the rules may be different than for schools and whatnot.
As part of a laundry list of required documents I need to bring with me on my first day (academic transcript, health check form, resignation letter from previous job), HR is asking me to provide two guarantors, who during my employment term will be fiscally responsible for any misbehavior on my part. One of whom needs to show evidence of real estate holdings or other assets. Both guarantors need to provide copies of their national ID cards.
So, is this something commonplace in Taiwan, especially for securities firms or other related companies in the finance industry?
Does this sound like a government requirement or something mandated by the company’s own HR?
It’s a standard request for jobs outside of teaching. I had the same experience years ago, but the company I was working for provided the guarantors. It’s a very stupid concept, if you want to employ foreign staff.
Hello. I’m a foreigner. A guarantor? You work it out buddy.
After looking a bit online, this seems standard with securities companies. Not government regulated.
However, seeing as you’ve just arrived in Taiwan, it sounds very unreasonable.
How can they hire someone from abroad and expect them to have local guarantors? Are you supposed to pull a couple of people off the street and force them to vouch for a stranger?
You should probably just reply and tell them there’s no way you can do it because you don’t know any people here.
Thanks Fox and lupillus. Actually, since I am coming here on a “joining family” resident visa, I wonder if they assume that I will hit up my wife and parents-in-law for this.
No, as lupillus suggests, I think I’ll tell them that my wife and I are very anti-social and her parents are very poor. Hope that’s not a deal-breaker with the new company, but don’t know what else I can do.
I’ve hired a Hongkie and another one soon. As the senior supervising manager responsible for my direct hire(s), I am the one to satisfy the guarantor requirement. In our (MNC) company, a corporate officer is the one who provided the guarantees (often a senior HR manager or other Sr Manager). I think securities/financial services company, two officers is atypical. We only do one in my company per the government rules governing work sponsored employees.
Even though you came on a JFRV, the guarantee can reasonably be satisfied by the same approach and I’d ask them to consider this.
Ask your boss to be your guarantor. Then he has an incentive to look after you, and help you find your feet in the cutthroat world of business in Taiwan.
I am an HR.
But in my company, the main reason I ask my new-hires to fill out their employee profile with two “reference people” is to verify the reliability of their profile, especially their previous working experiences and achievements.
It is reasonable for a employer to check if his new-hire lies about the resume.
[quote=“kate.lin”]I am an HR.
But in my company, the main reason I ask my new-hires to fill out their employee profile with two “reference people” is to verify the reliability of their profile, especially their previous working experiences and achievements.
It is reasonable for a employer to check if his new-hire lies about the resume.[/quote]
Hi Kate, this isn’t a matter of asking for a reference, it’s asking for two local people to promise to pay for any misconduct on my part. The relevant form I’m supposed to submit is titled “保證書”
This form is not a irrelevent form from a company’s point of view.
It is a way that a company secures its interest.
Many cases happened in Taiwan that the gaurantors paid to death because the gaurantees ran away, but companies still secured their interest.
It is a grey zone here,though, because it is not mandatory.
It will depend on how you talk your employer into accepting your difficulty.
They decided to hire you, they usually will try to keep you because it is too much trouble to find another suitable employee.
It is better to ask for alternative from your employer if you still like to take the position.
That is very much holding a gun to a person’s head, then. In a business basd on risk, it is absurd to ask the new employee to underwrite the company’s losses, which is what asking for a guarantor is doing. If you can’t handle the losses created by a poorly chosen trader, then it’s your problem. After you have fired the trader for poor performance, his/her coverage of the risk should end there.
As for finding a guarantor for millions of dollars that may be lost through no fault of the trader (such as following a stock market collapse due to fraudulent action of a company that was hidden from public notice, eg Enron), any body stupid enough to volunteer as a guarantor should have their head examined.
I think this form is not to ask guarantor to take the responsibility of company’s mismanagement or risky condition.
It works when gaurnatee illegally violates company’s interest.
Here is a case I remeber.
One woman worked for a bank and she took her clients’ moeny and ran away.
She left a mail to her family to tell the reason.
The reason was she had to pay a huge amount of money because she was a gaurnator of a on-the-run colleguewho took money from clients of the same bank.
She was tired of paying so she decided to take the same measure. Take money and run!
Terrible case, and I don’t know who the poor gaurantors of the woman were.
In the US its typical for a company to have employees ‘Bonded’ for reasons of financial concern. Of course the Company pays for this if its a requirement. Covers them and the employees clients in the event of any proven impropriety.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Does Taiwan have ‘Bonding Companies?’
In the US its typical for a company to have employees ‘Bonded’ for reasons of financial concern. Of course the Company pays for this if its a requirement. Covers them and the employees clients in the event of any proven impropriety.[/quote]
I haven’t encoutered any cases about bonding companies so far.
I will check it, if there is any useful information, I will post it.
[quote=“lupillus”]After looking a bit online, this seems standard with securities companies. Not government regulated.
[/quote]
Apparently unregulated but not unlegislated. Articles 756-1 to 756-9 of the Civil Code set the standards for employment guaranty and 739 to 756 for other types of guaranty.