Pros
Smart has a good compensation and benefits package. This includes the variable pay (bonuses). During my stay, the maximum that I got was around 22 months. The lowest that I received was 17 months, which was the time that the company failed to hit its total sales target. Smart also has a comprehensive medical Coverage / HMO extended to dependents. Other benefits are as follows: clothing allowance, rice subsidy, load, christmas package, free movie on your birth month, employee discounts (i.e. fitness centers, concert tickets, phones), outing for the family. Being a leading telecommunications provider, Smart is very much advanced on its technology (i.e. on the tools used to support your function as well as its products and services). Smart is also willing to invest on your training. Since my position was technical in nature, Smart allowed me to attend to training which are relevant to my work. I received 7 trainings during my stay at Smart. You will be lucky if the people within your team are also willing to mentor you for your own development. Working at Smart also allowed me to have cross functional engagement with various teams. My work has allowed me to actively engage and coordinate with Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Technical Teams.
Kontras
High Politics on Senior Management Level. There are constant organizational changes without allowing subordinates to understand the rationale for effecting such changes. Employee movement or progression is slow. No clear succession program should there be any organizational movements. There are also instances where I know people, who have expressed their intent move to a new function but weren't allowed to do so because their line managers prohibit them from doing so; worse, LOIs will be taken against them as their performance appraisals are affected by the end of the year. Needs improvement on work life balance. More often than not, most employees exceed the normal 8 am - 5 pm work hours to do perform things that are not necessarily have a high business impact. Basic pay should be also improved. Other companies offer a much higher basic pay for a similar position. Furthermore, merit increases on salaries is quite low due to its Bell Curve System. Employees within a department are plotted on a bell curve.This system assumes that there is an equal number of people above and below average. I think this does not accurately reflect the way people perform since there are people who are lucky to receive high appraisal ratings and vice versa. As a result, this could hurt the employee's merit increase.