Job security that comes at the price of progressive thinking and upper management stuck in its old ways
Pros
1. Stable employment and job security. 2. Location (Chevy Chase). There are many shops and restaurants in the area. The building is metro-accessible. 3. Training. Depending on the department, you will receive sufficient training to perform your job. 4. Profit sharing. Employees qualify for it if they are employed for over a year by March. 5. Ability to transfer to a different department 6. Professional and hard-working team members
Cons
1. Attendance policies are very strict. GEICO uses timecard systems to track the time even for IT employees. You would have to report to work on snow days regardless of the fact that the emergency state has been declared. Some managers allow remote work on snow days. In addition, everyone has to maintain high dependability score (97%), meaning that you can only take about 8 days off per year without giving an advance notice. It can be very stressful for the employees with young children. 2. Remote work is not allowed. Only a handful of employee work remotely. Others can work remotely once in 2 weeks in certain departments. The prerequisites for being able to work remotely once in 2 weeks: owning a Windows PC and scoring over 97% on dependability. In the same vein, you won’t be able to access your email or IM from your phone. Your work PC is normally a desktop, not a laptop, which limits your productivity tremendously. 3. Limited vacation and time off. With under 5 years of experience, everyone gets 2 weeks paid leave, plus 4 floating holidays in addition to 6 federal holidays. Other companies may offer either half day on before large holidays, such as Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving in addition to 10 federal holidays. Every 5 years of service grants you extra 5 days off. Overall, the leave is very strictly partitioned. For example, one can only use 12 hrs of sick leave a year. To use more than that, be ready to ask your doctor to fill out 6 pages of paperwork. Another example is that personal leave requires you to disclose the reason for it. 4. A new open-floor set up does not allow for much privacy. The company is trying to streamline the workspace and make it more collaborative by placing more desks in a small space and lowering the cubicle borders. The result is a workplace where it is tough to focus. It doesn’t help that the number of conference rooms is limited.