General Dynamics Information Technology Employee Reviews about "benefit"

Pros

It is a decent company with competitive salary and benefits depending on your contract or assignment. If you work in a right team, there is a lot of opportunity to learn and be part of a solid team.

Cons

If you work under a government contract, it may be difficult to move upward. You pretty much follow what is in the contract.

Pros

Nothing much any more. Every year the benefits got cut because their focus is and still is 'returning value to the shareholder.' Stock price buy backs to drive the stock price up as senior management have stock options as the continue to cut everything else to drive profit.

Cons

No career growth if you aren't in the right team (legacy CSRA). Diminished benefits including PTO, education reimbursement, professional development.

Pros

The benefits package is good and they offer a chance take care of your families needs.

Cons

Management cares more about winning new contracts and keeping cost low that they often do not care for the employees they do have working. They require and want experience and training but they are not willing to pay a competitive or fair wage.

Pros

The pay is steady and benefits are ok. Hours are fairly consistent. The facility is ok. Some supervisors are genuinely good at managing, when they're not bogged down in other responsibilities.

Cons

The assessments during the hiring process seem ineffective. Training is inconsistent. Some trainers focus on training employees do the job. Others seem more focused only on getting their group to pass an assessment. Some trainers really seem to struggle with time management (mine did). Our local HR commonly advises employees to call somebody else for benefits and policy answers rather than ask them. Most supervisors are normally loaded down with way too many administrative responsibilities to do much more than point out people's mistakes.

Pros

The only plus is that you have job and it's near my home and benefits are ok.

Cons

This company is not professional at all. they hire anybody as long as they are breathing. Co workers used four letter words at the time and since most of them are kids out high school. They have very little manners, ethics and respect.it's a very discouraging work place to work. They keep changing everything and try to hurt you every way they can so they could fire you.

Pros

Free healthcare if you only take employee coverage, decent pay for high school graduates and good for people of retirement age who are laid back

Cons

Where to begin...started working for the company about 7 years ago when it was Vangent and benefits were great. We got an extra stipend to buy our own insurance. The atmosphere was relaxed and everyone treated each other respectfully. Fast forward to present day, there is no support from supervisors or managers. Most supervisors are uneducated on the policies and systems so if there is a problem its expected you will figure it out on your own. The managers have no clue as to what is going on in the call center let alone what the calls are about. The metrics used to score your performance like attendance, schedule adherence, and average handle time are automatically entered by the system but are never accurate. This has been admitted to call center representatives by upper management but they also informed us nothing would be done about it. To add insult to injury, this incorrect information that is used determines your work schedule for the next 6 months. However there is a way around getting a horrible shift. If you apply for FMLA it's the untouchable key to success. Just go to your doctor and have them write a note saying you can't work past a certain time or that they have to see you during the day so you can't work past 5 pm. Unfortunately for people like myself who would prefer to be honest and not lie about their medical condition, it leaves us with the undesirable shift choices. If there were to be an investigation into the amount of FMLA used it would be mostly for illegitimate reasons. The calls are non stop. For senior representatives like myself we are forced to be on the phone constantly with no breathing room while watching lower level representatives have time off the phone that they are supposed to use for reviewing policies but instead it is used for roaming the call center. This is true for anyone doing training because no one keeps up with the amount of time someone is in the training module. Walk around and do nothing however bill the contract customer that we are doing work, which is actually stealing time and a serious offense. Since there is mass favoritism however, this never gets reported by managers that see it occuring. As senior representatives we also take every call possible from helping lower representatives answer caller questions to irate customers. We are even responsible for calling customers back when the lower representatives hang up on the customer, even if it's intentional. This normally happens around their breaks and lunches so that they can go on time, which inevitably causes us to be late on our own schedule. Even though it has the ability to be tracked, as stated earlier there are no repercussions towards these representatives because the supervisors do not care to do any more work than the bare minimum. The time off policy is standard but still does not make accommodations for life. You only accrue 1 hour and 12 minutes of sick time every 2 weeks. Heaven forbid you or your child are sick. The sites never close during inclement weather, even during Governor declared state of emergency times. You will be penalized for not coming in, however they will pay for upper management to stay in hotels across the street so that they can open the site for business. You will not only be penalized but also forced to use any paid vacation time you have until it is exhausted. You are not allowed to choose to not get paid for an absence if you have the time to cover it. In the site where I work they are basing the pay scale based on the poor city area nearby instead of the affluent area where the center is actually located. This allows them to pay less to the workers (mainly minorities of the African American decent) and then blame it on the Department of Labor when there are no raises. Since this is a government contract, it boggles the mind that they would use such deceptive practices. Along the lines of benefits, the employee only plan is free but to cover a spouse and children it's $460+ every 2 weeks for the HMO and $700+ every 2 weeks for the PPO. Background checks must clear before getting on the phones but this is a recent change. The contract is awarded and kept based on how many people they have in seats, not taking experience, education or professionalism into consideration. This means they hire mostly anyone who applies. So before, many background checks cleared after training and already having been on the phone so because of that sometimes convicted felons end up working in the different sites. Did I mention that we work with people's social security numbers? They are eventually found out but not before they are already on the phone so the damage is pretty much done. There is more I could go on about but I think I've said enough.

Pros

-GDIT leadership completely supports diversity and inclusion with a multitude of programs -GDIT leadership truly cares about the mental health and wellness of its employees with several programs and benefits -GDIT encourages its employees to 'own their career' and has several technical and job specific training programs for professional development as well as an internal mobility program to help employees navigate career changes. -GDIT leadership regularly polls its employees with focus groups and surveys to provide avenues for feedback for desired benefits and programs.

Cons

-honestly can't think of any cons of working here

Pros

GDIT does offer great benefits and your work hours will be decent but your salary will be low. I never had a problem getting time off when I needed it.

Cons

It is a good place to work if you don't expect competency and ability to lead to promotion. The only way to be promoted is to demonstrate your ability to just get along for 10+ years. You will not be appreciated for working long hours, having ability, or getting things done. Best thing to do is just what your told and nothing more, and don't think. This is not a team environment, this is stovepipe factory where all solutions are dictated to individuals who do not collaborate.

Pros

GDIT knows how to work numbers like magic. Salaries in this particular contract are probably above and beyond what would be considered 'fair and reasonable', but there are drawbacks (explained in the Cons). If you are lucky enough to get onboard with a good crew, the overall welfare and moral of the entire site is extremely high. Not that there weren't any hardships in my career so far, but this job, in combination of the site and the crew, is one of the easiest jobs I have ever taken.

Cons

On the other hand, one of the biggest drawbacks is the way GDIT negotiates the contracts. I would almost welcome a cut-back in salary to earn a few more hours of leave. We are provided a limited number of hours of 'general leave', which we have to use for everything, including vacations, sick days, family 'urgencies' (family emergencies are covered under the FMLA, which isn't paid), doctor appointments... Literally everything. You would be surprised how fast 2 weeks of paid leave is used up when you need to use it anytime that you're not onsite when you are contracted to be there. Also, the job is not difficult, and at our site we are not particularly busy all of the time. But if our customer has a day off, why are we still required to work? There are at least 3 days per year when our customer is out of office, which means we have no other tenants onsite, which also means that there is usually no work that can be performed. Keeping us onsite when there is no one else around is a waste of fuel and energy, AND it takes yet another day away from us when we could be using the day to handle our personal business (as opposed to taking leave and handling it when our customer actually needs us). One final note is that the listed job descriptions for each position is not concrete, nor are they final. There seems to be a lot of tasks that get filed under 'other duties as assigned' because they are contractual requirements. For example, technicians and engineers are frequently required to instruct classes, even though there are dedicated instructors. Often the actual instructors are over-tasked, so other personnel usually step up to take up the slack even though it is not in their job description. Since instruction and training is our primary contract focus, everyone, including engineers and administrators, usually end up teaching a class or two just to satisfy the contract. The contract stuff such as the benefits and the job descriptions are not exactly GDIT's fault. This contract that I am currently on is actually a subcontract from another company, and they are the ones that dictate what GDIT can offer us. I haven't worked for any other contract or division within GDIT, so much of my personal experiences may not necessarily reflect 'the norm', but rather 'the exception'. I am under the impression from other GDIT employees throughout the organization that GDIT really is a great company to work for.

Pros

They have very good benefits and do a security clearance that can assist with other jobs in the future

Cons

The hours are not flexible and the scheduling is very strict/rigid