Part 6, Advanced Civil Construction, 台科大高等土木施工學教材(2022) 

MT KAO (Blog: http://mtkaoforum31.blogspot.tw/)

(mtkaoforum31@gmail.com)

3. Remuneration, Feeling of Fulfillment, and Chances of Promotion in Different Entities

1) Academy: 

a. Nationalization and bureaucratization of educational institution.

-  In medieval Europe, universities meant a place where students from everywhere were welcomed. They were taught the arts and had at least one of the higher faculties (theology, law or medicine), by those with a master's degree. So, the term was studium generale as the aim was to provide students and the general public academic foundations in line with the humanistic roots.

- And the changes begun from Germany in 19th century, the academic study was considered more essential than to disseminate the knowledge to students and the general public as Von Homboldt maintained in his Berlin University. 

The capitalist American went farther to introduce the ideas for universities and the colleges to become“technology research center” either by accepting chunky donation from privates or obtain funds in collaboration with big companies for programs. As the result, the “university” actually is “multiversity” and become kind of “knowledge industry” entice the talents and transform them to be “useful” in the market.

- As it evolves, there’re many academic communities of different scientific subjects established in the universities. The institutes have to achieve the goal assigned to them in the research program and so require the combined effort of various faculty members for minimal multiplicity. And it means the organizations have to be sizable to include scholars of different disciplines; specialists, technicians, and in some cases, the managers.

And because only the government can pay the money to sustain an organization of meaningful capacity, the nationalization and bureaucratization of the university is unavoidable. Then the autonomy of faculty is gone that the professors has to respect the imposed hierarchy, follow the government procurement law, honor the quantified evaluation system. And it means, the young men decide to work in the academy for life needs to know everything about scholar’s recruitment, pay, and promotion as many of the civil servants do.

There can be countries with thrive industries and successful businessmen granting huge sums of money to the university. For all their best intension or pragmatism to inspirit innovation, the receiving parties may proceed to employ needed people for the advance study programs not related to teaching and study. In addition to the salaries and bonus given to the scholars and specialist, tools, software and apparatus required to advance the innovation can be paid, thus facilitate the general study as well. 

Therefore, the conventional boundary between the ivory tower and the outside world is blurred. Lucky or not, the campus grows and aggrandized; but it looks as if it were a technical center of big company, buoyed, motived and boosted by the same market force plumped the industry.

 

- Cambridge and Oxford could be the last to insist its tradition that the university should bend on the “liberal education” to nurture the gentlemen. But in 1956, the UK government astonished that the country lagged much behind the US and Soviet Union in technology and science; had to issue a whitepaper for higher education mainly to accept the promotion of Colleges of Advanced Technology (CATS) to university level. 

The UK faculty leaders shared the government’s view realizing the fact there should be scientific culture in addition to the humanity culture, and the “Argument of Two Cultures” had to come to a hold. 

- In certain countries the university can be supported by charities, donation and wealthy alumni just like the universities and graduate schools in the American Ivy Leagues so as to be free from the government interference. 

b. Fate, connections, and politic may play part in the assignment and promotion of faculty positions.

- In theory, the assignment and promotion in the public faculty will be fair because the qualification set for the contested is stringent and people responsible to smack the decision are supposed wise and objective in such an independent organization. But in practice, the odd is high that the un-qualified may win out as they know how to use the connection and politic skillfully. So, for those who expect the meritocracy will prevail in keep the academic body lean and competent can be disappointed.

The other side of the coin is when universities are funded by public money the regulations for personnel management are rigid, and less influenced by the powerful or the unprincipled. 

- Sometimes, the faculty may have their unique requirement for particular topics for researches, they may recruit scholars who would provide talent at that special moment and then they may start academic career; it’s the fate. The opposite also is true when an eligible can’t be picked over years just because lack of luck.

c. Inspiration, heart and soul are still required in developing scientific and engineering theories.

- People get fame in academic career may claim later that there’s no coincidence in his success and tell the young man to work hard because scientific and engineering theories can only be accomplished through endeavor. It’s true but not necessarily that the hard work will invite the success. Young starters have to learn that the aspiration is required in the process to initiate an idea, fill the void and perfect the defect. 

- in develop some theory in their career, often the people will place their attention more on time and effort they’ve spent over the issues and await the aspiration come to add favors on the plain calculation. It’s not realistic and people has to have heart and soul if they want to do scientific study. 

- People who are mediocratic actually shall avoid to pursue the academic achievement. 

d. Limited monetary remuneration augmented with infrequent plaudits complete full reward scheme of scholars.

- Monetary remuneration is limited for people working in academic. There may be something in compensation for the low income, that is the feeling of fulfillment and achievement. 

A real scholar will feel happy when he discovers or believes that he will be able to offer next generation people a branch of knowledge, though may not be perfect or permanent, even the plaudit is short and rare.

- However, the modern university may change. As we said, it will change to “knowledge industry” in collaboration with companies thirsty to find collaborators for technology improvement. We’ve witnessed big business pour in chunk of money to finance faculty in an unprecedent manner. 

The law also modified to allow people other than pure wonks join the faculty to conduct researches; and the pay is not subject to any limitation. Bonus and other incentives are offered to the people who’re supposed to be acclaimed for their virtue.   

2) Professional entities such as architects and consulting firms

a. The professionals don't produce, manufacture or build, they offer design report and solutions based on expertise that can hardly be quantified; so, they receive bonus and prize based on subjective review in addition to the fixed salary.

People who’re admitted to big architect and consulting firms are expected to listen to the orders and to begin as a simple part of complicated machine. Remuneration wouldn’t be high as the company consider you gain more in learning as new comer.

Promotion, or work adjusted for next stage seem to be taken grant; but mainly depend on your altitude. 

b. Managers of architects and consulting firms are critical to create a sound work environment for efficiency, recruit people of high talent, take the lead in competition, recognize and reward those who work hard with decent pay, and find the new customers and win their trust; so, they deserve high income.

Even though the market is not small in some of the countries, the architects and consulting firms would have their fix clients. The relationship cultivated are between, in most of the cases, the institutions and not the individuals. It’s very apparent in Taiwan, and the individuals have to be careful in asserting their business credit.

 

c. As a trend and also out of necessity, capital gains such as profit, dividend, interest, rent and royalty are offered to the employees in the form of company stock, partnership, or special agreement.

When the majority of shares held in government or big organization, the persons in custody tend to be more conservative and the not the persons running the company lose an effective tool to manage the company. It’s the situation for the two biggest civil engineering consultants in Taiwan. 

d. The rates and prices of consultancy contracts are low by international standard, so that the professional’s pay is restrained in Taiwan. 

The professionals, especially those in the consultant firms, have to work long time to get enough money compared to the engineers working in the other countries. The difference in annual remuneration between the senior and junior engineers are not so much and it decreases the incentives of the employees. The reasons are again, partly due to the government’ holding of the shares for big consulting company. The small, private and localized consultant firms always submitting low price is also the reason that the professionals in Taiwan don’t have good income as their foreign counterpart.  

The civil engineering consultants always require top talents, but, many of them ceased to work hard for the nature of the company and the difficulties to draw a smooth and reasonable clear path; many of them are said to have early retirement. Recently, it’s improves at least for the employees as demand is increased.

3) Construction firms

a. Contractors command more resources than any other players in the industry and the pay difference among their staffs is significant and decided by project profit and loss.

For the same project, different managers will significantly make the resulted profitability completely different. Therefore, the bosses will carefully choose the manager or won’t delegate any power to the under in the case of small company. And for big project, it requires good manager(s) and qualified staff to work around the clock. There’s nothing but to offer strong incentives as the boss is concerned. 

And it means, a devoted and smart employee will be able to distinguish himself in the construction firms. 

b. In Taiwan, the owners prefer low cost and hasten progress. So always construction companies are put under extreme pressure to meet contractual requirement, and only staff (leading by a relentless boss) can withstand the grinding work condition will get higher pay and the employment, not much to do with their proficiency, not mentioning feeling of achievement.

c. Reformation that allow the constructor to do the works in design and build has been introduced to the market, and now that the industry is less fragmented so the construction firms can grow and allow the professionals either technical or managerial developing their skill and climbing the company ladder. 

d. Specialty contactors if have more control on expertise shall be more dominant as the nature of the works now are more than simple concrete pouring and rebar binding when economy evolved and the project more complicated.

4) Government Employees 

a. In Taiwan and many Asian countries, the government employees are prestigious and respected despite its low salary and limited power. The reasons may be the employment is permanent and the work isn’t manual. In the case of civil engineering, the mandarins are responsible to certify the progress in every stage and accept the completed stuff of the project, highly influential to the public works and the contractors. So, can be the top choice of graduates.

b. But as the economy grows the government enact many laws and regulations, which aren’t flexible in nature for implementation but the civil servants need to follow. In addition, the politicians, media and public frequently overrule the professed opinion; making young engineer uncomfortable and hesitate to go after the government posts. 

c. At the time when resources were scarce, only the government would be affordable to import construction technologies and appeal to the talents to work for big projects. It’s attractive for engineers. Now that working for private companies could get even better access for modern technology under more discerning evaluation. The incentives for young talents to work for government are drastically reduced.

5) Bosses or self-employed

a. In a market-oriented economy, the individuals are free to exercise will and power in their own enterprise plus that the sub-let system in Taiwan will allow new comers to deliver the works easy; then the threshold to start construction business looks low. Many young people thus select to become entrepreneurs before they can learn something as other’s employees.  

b. A contractor needs capital, follow engineers, business connections, access to resources required for execution, and above all a mentality to lead the teammates you want to summon for successful performance; therefore, it requires years of experience. But the rigor and aggressiveness to found an enterprise will only attached to a young brain, then you’ve to determine whether to be boss or self-employed at early stage of your life.

c. However, construction people often risked to become accomplices of authority, super or sub tier contractors stealing public money. The temptation are overwhelming: providing bad material, not build according to the drawing, faulting the contracts. The bosses always excuse themselves for the need of survival. But actually, they like to enjoy lucrative contracts and believe they’re well protected. But in the long run the systematic fraud could be exposed and the professionals forsaking ethic principles would be sacrificed. 

Unlike many developing worlds, Taiwan escaped endemic corruption during and after the days massive infrastructure projects are under construction. If you want to be a boss in Taiwan, the risk is smaller.