GSA Reviews

Pros

Flexible work hours and location. Lots of opportunities to do new things.

Cons

Still very old school, lots of people need to retire soon to allow for more opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management

Lets do more to encourage more accountability.

Pros

Friendly atmosphere, excellent working conditions, good material support available (i.e. computers, etc.) , interesting projects, pro family policies.

Cons

Stifling government rules and regulations, employees are more experienced than managers, low level of management competence, promotion by clique, little recognition of good work, poor performers live on forever, poor accounting systems, micromanagement by DC.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to work toward a private industry model- outsource core responsibilities less but expect better work from employees or remove them to more suitable positions (out). Encourage retirement of "old boy/girl" network managers. Eliminate "time in grade" as a qualification for technical positions. Recognize and support industry qualifications and designations rather than reinventing the wheel with government washed training programs. Allow Regions to function autonomously, stop "silo" reporting in its tracks-- management should learn how to use available data sources and stop requesting more and more reports from functional personnel. Update computer systems and separate data collection of non accounting information from financial accounting.

Pros

- Flexible schedule
- Great hours
- Mentors

Cons

- Strong bureaucracy
- Negativity brought in by people who want to take advantage of the system
- Mediocre assignments

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, federal agenices have it difficult due to the fact employees take

Pros

Lots of Opportunities to train,
Quick promotions
certifications that's valuable in the civilian world
high dollar projects and rewarding work

Cons

Heavy workload,
make you figure stuff out when your new
frustrating at times
tough getting right answer from management

Advice to Senior Management

put time in to training interns when new,
don't make environment stressfull
reduce projects and hire more folks

Pros

People are nice, professional and, generally, work hard.
Beautiful buildings to work in and visit.
Encouraging senior management.
Some freedom to work on projects that interest you.
Training opportunities.

Cons

Some people milk the sytem for all its worth. There are workers who should have been fired or forced to retire a decade ago that still get substantial salaries.
While promotions are possible, they don't promote before your scheduled time, despite very high quality work.
They employ too many people right now. The same work can be done with 2/3rds of the current work force.
Purchasing and istalling software is a huge nightmare (understandably, because of IT security issues).

Advice to Senior Management

It's unjust and an outrage that some people are allowed to work for such a good organization despite their clearly bad performance. Management needs to grow a back-bone and start enforcing some worker performance standards.

Pros

Flexible work schedule
Early promotions if you come in through the intern program
Tuition reimbursement
Family Friendly
Good Vacation package ( 4 weeks off a year after three years of being with the federal government)

Cons

There are fewer opportunities to move up to management at the regional offices. if you live in D.C, you will have more opportunities; the problem is not everyone lives or is from D.C

Advice to Senior Management

Management should bring more parity between D.C and the regional offices. offer student loan repayment benefits to keep employees with the agency.

Pros

Great benefits. Huge learning opporunity. Challenging and very rewarding projects. There is always lots of work to do. It can be stressful at times.

Cons

Sometimes it is stressful. And there can be difficulty personalities to work with.

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

Most co-workers are hardworking and genuinely care about the quality of their work. Middle managers are above average in many cases within the property management service centers.

Cons

Senior management at the regional level is out of touch with the day to day operations, and does not welcome feedback that is less than positive.

Advice to Senior Management

Streamline operations by leveraging technology. Synchronize data systems and reporting so that employees can spend more time managing projects and interfacing with customers rather than entering redundant information into multiple systems.

Pros

Government experience
Classes and training
Co-workers and supervisors are very knowledgeable

Cons

Monotonous work
No incentive to go above and beyond
Boring

Advice to Senior Management

See what each employee would like to specialize in, and offer training

Pros

flexibly working hours
liberal leave
top 10 places to work in government
room for advancement

Cons

not promoted based on merit
work with a lot of incompetent free riders

Advice to Senior Management

continue to train, grown, and learn and develop your leadership skills because government is behind the curve.