4y
It's very disappointing to read such a negative review filled with false information.
We apologize in advance for this long response, but it seems necessary to address each topic discussed in this lengthy review.
Benefits: Yes – SMS does offer a great medical insurance plan with low copays and an employer sponsored HRA insurance plan through Cigna for all employees across our 26 different states of operation. We vetted each work location with Cigna to ensure there were plenty of primary care and specialist doctors available for our employees and their families. We also offer a service through Health Advocate to assist employees with finding a doctor, resolving a claim, and seeking additional medical or insurance advice. They have always been able to help an employee find a doctor or facility to address their medical needs.
Outdated Policies: SMS policies such as Paid-Time-Off (PTO) are benchmarked for our industry and company size each year. Federal contractors cannot count service on the same contract the same as SMS tenure unless it’s an SCA covered contract. This would cause high benefit costs and be unfair for newer government contracts. We also max our PTO accrual at a certain point based on tenure because we do highly value our employees’ mental and physical well-being. Having a maximum accrual level encourages employees to actually use their PTO instead of continually working with no time to rest. Our PTO policy is fair, allows for rollover hours and new hires start accruing more PTO than the industry standard.
OT: The definition of overtime is time worked in a week over 40 hours. If an employee works over 8 hours a day supporting a customer contract and compensates that time by working less the next day, it’s considered “comp time” and we do not reduce an employee’s PTO balance. This is a standard practice and has been a policy for many years with SMS, well beyond the 3-4 years noted that the reviewer worked for SMS.
Training: Most companies have a period of obligation after paying for a large training expense in which they must remain employed with the company or otherwise be obligated to reimburse the company for all or part of the expense. This prevents an employee from taking advantage of a company and leaving soon after receiving training with the company gaining no value from the investment. This is a standard practice and most employees appreciate that SMS pays for training classes, materials, exams, conferences, etc. to encourage professional growth and development.
Onboarding: SMS does not do anything illegal or forceful in any of our practices or policies. The individual writing this review does not know or fully understand the government regulations and is making assumptions. Additionally, we never have and never will “force” a candidate to provide us information. When SMS wins over a new contract, we do our best to offer fair compensation to as many incumbents as possible. Initial offers are based on our negotiated rates and the individual’s qualifications and experience. We try to work with any incumbent who wishes to join the company. During this process, if an employee is already making substantially more than our offer, we ask them to provide documentation to validate the amount. This is a fair practice and helps us do our best to match the compensation, when possible, to incumbents who seek to be paid above their rate and benchmarked compensation.
Recognition: SMS has no limits on recognition and in fact just rolled out a new recognition platform to encourage more internal recognition and allow employees to redeem points for items such as gift cards, charity, or SMS swag. Hard work at SMS is well recognized and rewarded through evaluations, compensation, and recognition awards.
401k: SMS does have a short vesting schedule of 3 years for the employer match. Again, this is below the benchmark standard of 5 years. Additionally, any individual can check our public 5500 reporting to see that we changed our 401k provider in November 2021 for the first time in 7 years because our provider was not meeting the needs of our employees. This was a well-researched and a beneficial change for all employees. This is just another example of false information in this review.
Advice to corporate headquarters is always reviewed. We offer numerous ways to address concerns through Human Resources or our anonymous Ombudsperson survey and always attempt to find a resolution or compromise of the issue. While we welcome suggestions from employees, the fact is that we cannot satisfy the needs and wants of every employee.
None of the information in this review is reflective of SMS’ true culture and business practices and I only hope those reading this review understand these are the words of a very upset, but supposedly still current SMS employee.
--- Melanie Shipley, Vice President, Human Resources
