11y
Thank you for taking the time to review. I just have a few comments:
If 15 Paid days off a year and 10 paid holidays off a year are not enough, than there are not too many contract companies that will satisfy your time off requirements. We have even opened the door to use a week of advanced leave as this is a new contract and everyone is having to rebuild their days off balances. For extreme transparency, you may be one of the individuals working the PED operational side and those employees work condensed hours (12.5 hour shifts for 7 days every two weeks staggered "Panama"). These individuals, to explain to those reading these reviews that may not be familiar with that work schedule) are expected to be at work for every hour their team is scheduled to work. So if they want a day off they have to account for 12.5 hours. On the opposite side of the coin though, if an employee takes two days off (25 hours) they can get a full week (based on the panama schedule). If an employee is smart on how they take their leave they will make the most of the work schedule and not burn through their leave too quickly.
This contract was sourced to the lowest price technically acceptable, but it would not have been awarded to an outlier ("lowest bidder by a long shot") due to risk with contract execution. Although it is unfortunate that some employees took pay cuts when this contract (different then the last iteration) was awarded, the fact that there were less senior level billets makes an impact on an incumbent work force (individuals that were previously level III analysts, now having to take level II billets due to the government level downgrade of over 20 positions. This does not meant that an employee is not worth more or not qualified for a level III, it is a mandated change on the force structure. I truly empathize with the impact this has on the individual, and understand if the individual must move on to take care of their families, themselves, and their career. We have made it a point to promote qualified candidates from within to higher level positions as they open rather than backfill them externally, but that is not an immediate fix that can be applied to the 20+ (out of 156) that were affected.
We have not had this contract for more than a year, and no one working on it has been with ZelTech for more than a year so any reviewer stating that for this contract is misleading.
It is unfortunate that you state you have not found anything positive about the company. This company has worked with me as the program manager, on every item I have requested to make things better for the work force. This includes floating holidays, advanced leave, provisional time for early release and application with holiday usage, getting jury/bereavement leave, funds for contractor of the quarter/year and spot awards/bonuses, funds for a summer picnic and funds to bring in food to the operation's floor for morale boosts during shifts working on the holidays (like Christmas/Thanksgiving). You also disapprove of the CEO, who was willing to meet with folks while he was here on a visit, but folks did not want to take the time to do so. I hope that employees on this task take the future opportunities provided to them to meet with the senior leaders that visit in the future.
Christopher Brewer
Zel Technologies LLC
AFSOC ISR PED Senior PM
