General Dynamics Reviews

Pros

They are a company that has positions world wide. They have offer a good medical/dental/vision/legal benefits package. There are a resonable amount of positions that allow for company growth. There is an option to buy leave in your first 5 years of employment. Afterwards you get the 3rd week free. A lot of the people you work with are good people. Managment has the ability to work with you in situations if needs be.

Cons

The downsides are that sometimes work is too demanding. You have to do so many things outside of work to progress that it's like you are still at work even when you're not. Management can be overbearing at times with their will. The base salary isn't quite where it should be but the difference might be made up in contracts where you receive housing. However not all contracts receive housing.

Advice to Senior Management

Think more about the needs of the employees.

Pros

A global equitable salary policy. A benefits package that is equitable to most companies GD's size, to inlcude a generous PTO allowance upon hire.

Cons

General Dynamics is a "product" driven comany yet many of its undertakings are geared towards the "sevice" industry. A product management paridgm is difficult to maintain in a service environment making it difficult to meet goals and standards. It also doesn't lend itself to internal placement of personnel when the shorter service contracts expire, or are lost in a competition, giving employees the impression that they are always living on the edge with GD. Additionally the lack of a focused internal placement of employees left without positions drives a negative connotation of GD as a whole

Advice to Senior Management

GD managment is out of touch with the needs of the folks working on the front line. It's time to look long term at a good in-house training practice that keep folks up to speed on/in thier fields as well as new ones that they con move to at a later date. GD should look at "biting the overhead bullet" and making a commitment to people in an effort to keep what they have and get the cream of the crop in the future.

Pros

There are many opportunities to grow and learn. The environment is very stable. There were never any worries of lay-offs or closings or anything like that. The employees treated each other with respect. Management is very concerned with the employee's well being. The work-life balance is great! The benefits are very good. The feedback given on performance reviews are helpful. The communication about the happenings of the company are spread throughout. Employee morale was very good.

Cons

The pay is a little on the low side. And I wouldn't call the technologies used "top of the line", in fact they might be a little dated.

Advice to Senior Management

Take some lessons from Google on how you design the company infrastructure.

Pros

Large Co with good reputation

Cons

Very unfair integration of aquired companies. They aquired several companies and have integrated them into one unit on the cheap. 2 years into it and calendars don't mesh. Takes 2 months to get an expense report reimbursed, 3 months to replace a 5 year old laptop. Strict adherence to salary guidelines regardless of performance (supervisors 2 levels up recommended an 8% increase, VP of personnel dropped it to 2.5% because I was in top 80 percentile for location). I am incapable of dropping performance level to reflect what this tells me GD thinks of me, so I guess I'll start looking.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward those who do the work, not the "good old boys". VPs that won't help because"that's not my job" are worse than useless.

Pros

Recognition, the good outcomes always have a name associated and a good project completed is published.
Oportunities for advancement are always open and your supervisor is also your mentor and counselor.
Good humor is always present, even at high stress times (we think humor is the last thing we'll lose).
Morale is high and cooperation is widespread. Doors are always open for help. Past experience is valued and also shared.
Even though vacation time is rather limited, personal needs are contemplated and there is no preset limit to those needs, as long as your direct supervisor approves.
In short: a great place to work inside a great company!

Cons

long hours sometimes, weekends included

Advice to Senior Management

a pension plan to match other divisions

Pros

They respect and give incentive to each employee, the company vision is driven from corporate down to each employee. Anteon offers a wide variety of information technology and engineering services that help our customer do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and from the corporate level on down the old adage of the "Customer is always right" helps define that through out our organization. The real philosophy impacts the employees because the corporate definition of customer also includes the internal ones, this fosters respect for your fellow coworkers. There is competition between business units but respect for each other is foremost.

Cons

Many locations so hard to make sure that each employee is performing to excellence or when they encounter a problem to assist in resolving the issue.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep talking to employees and let the information flow.

Pros

I worked for a small group who was formerly part of a smaller company that GD had bought out. Within my immediate circle of coworkers and management, we were well taken care of. Concerns were always addressed and time off was given without hassle as long as the job was being done and the client was happy. We also regularly got together for lunches to touch base. I was very well-trained on the job and given plenty of time to acclimate before "thrown in." There was an overall sense of comraderie and openness that made it almost a perfect work situation.

Cons

The benefits weren't the greatest, but probably comprable with what most of us are getting nowadays. Aetna PPO... very limited on who you could see. I think that it's quite possible that outside of out little corner of GD, there were the typical politics and dog-eat-dog sort of corporate issues. If you can, stick to the Anteon crew. That's the name of the company my program had come from. This was a smaller company and GD basically just absorbed all the same people. We provided orientation courses to different agencies within DOD. It was a well-respected program by its clients.

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

Advancement is great ,the company looks after its employees.Great work and home life balance.

Cons

The downside to this company is their referral program that helps them recruit employees into the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Look for new talent within Senior Technicians

Pros

Great place to work if you are just coming out the military. I would say 6out of every 10 employees. Has served in the United States armed forces. So if you like working with military personnel than you would enjoy working for GD.

Cons

The corporate nature where the company is first in all case. General Dynamics likes to pigeon hold you in your current career track. They will not support training if you plan to start a new career track. They are a very conservative company when it comes to salary.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more personal and support growth more. Support employees ambitions to try new careers. Take care of your stakeholders because you never know who will be a force of influence in the future.

Pros

The are many knowledgeable and competent technical people. Mid-level management and project managers do a good job bridging the gap between technical teams and upper management. The work is interesting and a good customer base exists to support future funding.

Cons

Senior management is completely inept and support for technical people is non-existent. Benefits are consistently and continuously reduced or eliminated. Employee morale is incredibly low. Knowledgeable technical people are running for the doors due to incompetent upper management. Upper management sees no reason to keep these people in the company. They are trying so hard to be exactly like all their competitors that there is nothing that sets them apart in order to attract the best talent.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to rationalize your reduction of benefits as being competitive when you are really just interested in cutting expenses at any cost.