Master Deck for Veteran Employee Network Resource KitSeptember, 2015

About this Kit

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This Resource Kit is meant to inspire your veteran employee resource group (ERG) to take an active role in the recruiting, retention and development of veterans in your company. It is based on research and best practices that the Families and Work Institute (FWI) has collected and recognized over the years.

To learn more about our current VET spotlight recognition, please visit www.whenworkworks.org.

As a corporate member of FWI, you are entitled to use any and all of these slides in any presentation, as long as you give FWI appropriate attribution. FWI is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing research for living in today’s changing workplaces, families and communities. More info at familiesandwork.org

Table of Contents

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This master deck is divided into the following topics:

• Military – Civilian Transition Landscape

• The Role that Veterans Networks Can Play

• Examples of Veteran Supportive Employer Practices

MILITARY-CIVILIAN TRANSITION LANDSCAPE

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Unemployment Rates for Civilians and Veterans

5Source: U.S Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statisticshttp://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t05.htm

Civilia

ns ove

rall

All veteran

s

Gulf War

II ove

rall

Gulf War

II men

Gulf War

II women

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

6.8% 6.9%

10.0% 9.6%

11.6%

5.4%4.5%

7.2%6.2%

11.2%

Oct-13Oct-14

2012 Unemployment by State

6The Annual Employment Situation of Veterans (2012)Prepared by: Institute for Veterans and Military Families, Syracuse University

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Employer Challenges in Hiring Veterans

47.7%

22.8%

16.4%

10.0%

2.6%

Challenges in hiring veterans (MFRI-SVA 2012)

No problemsSkills missmatchEducation mismatchLegal hurdlesDisability or Absences

Source: Hitt, S.F. (2012) SVA Leadership Institute Overview. Purdue University’s Military Family Research Institute (MFRI) and Student Veterans of America (SVA). https://www.mfri.purdue.edu/resources/public/presentations/SVA_Inst_Intro_2012July20.pdf

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Employers avoid hiring veterans

Employers think veterans don’t have adequate skills

Finding comfort in non-military environment

Employers don’t understand or are insensitive

Lacking required education

Competing with candidates in workforce longer

Explaining how military skills translate

Current economic situation in the U.S.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

24%

28%

30%

31%

43%

46%

60%

62%

Greatest Veteran Challenges in Finding a Job

Source: Veterans Employment Challenges; http://www.prudential.com/documents/public/VeteransEmploymentChallenges.pdf

General Issues Affecting Veteran Transitions to Civilian Employment

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• Civilian employers and veterans are struggling with how to systematically overcome the following transition challenges:

• Translating military resumes into civilian skill sets

• Developing civilian job search skills and networks

• Creating and branding veteran supportive workplaces

• Bridging military/civilian culture gaps

• Connecting recruiters with military talent pools

Issues Affecting Women Veteran Transitions

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• More work hours than civilian women but less pay than military men

• Active duty women are 3x more likely to be divorced than men (3% vs. 9%); more single parenthood and opportunity for work-life conflict

• Complex medical arrangements (VA can’t provide family care, and is working on full access to gender-specific care)

• Since VA systems are not calibrated to support families, they must navigate multiple government and military networks for support.

• As of 2009, women veterans were up to 4x more likely to be homeless than nonveteran women and 23% of female veterans in the VA’s homelessness programs had children under 18 years old

Sources: Mulhall, E. (2009). Supporting She ‘Who Has Borne the Battle.’ Washington D.C.: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

VETERAN ERGS

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What benefits do Veterans ERGs provide to organizations?

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• Identifiable employee community for recruitment, retention, sales and branding purposes

• Clear point of contact for formal and informal cross-cultural exchange

• In-house subject matter experts

• Opportunity for cross-departmental collaboration and creativity

• Benefits of informal mentoring and sponsorship networks

• Humanize work, improving relationships and engagement during and in preparation for active teaming

Veteran ERG Value Proposition

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• Repeated, positive opportunities for veterans to self-identify

• Standardize involvement in strategic and creative processes

• Imagine greater than identity groups to behaviors and experiences (e.g., heavy machinery)

• Include military families and veterans in company activities

• Connect with local commanders, bases, and community programs

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https://www.ebenefits.va.gov/ebenefits/jobs

Help them:

• Evaluate veteran resumes

• Post jobs

• Attend military career transition job fairs

• Connect them to resources on the military experience

Act as a Resource to Your Recruiting Team

Beyond Recruiting

15Source: 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW), Families and Work Institute (FWI)

• Consider opportunities to build civilian/military partnerships that help the business

Example: Bon Secours expanded neurology practice to address PTSD

• Expand focus to onboarding, retention and development

• Streamline processes for entry (e.g. paperwork and certification resources)

• Skills training and relocation adjustment support for military spouses

• Coordinate with other diversity efforts without loosing sight of community specific concerns

• Join with women’s networks on programming for women veterans

Growing a Veteran ERG

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• Be patient: Innovation is both unpredictable and iterative

• Maintain a diverse mix of HR and business goals

• Take credit for all ideas emerging from member collaboration; not just in community ideas

• Create a mission that applies even if there are no current, major military actions

• Integrate with other ERGs and activities; don’t stand alone

EXAMPLES OF VETERAN SUPPORTIVE EMPLOYER POLICIES

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Enhanced Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)

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• Includes specialized supports for problems unique to veterans such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress around caring for a veteran, military reunions and subsequent deployments.

– Cornell University (education services; 10,460 employees in Ithaca, New York) is currently restructuring its Faculty and Staff Assistance Program (an EAP) to include a counselor who will have special training in issues facing veterans, including PTSD.

• PTSD is a type of anxiety disorder that can occur after seeing or experiencing a traumatic event involving the threat of injury or death. PTSD is neither an automatic result of military experience nor unique to veterans.

Financial Well-Being Support

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• Includes pay advances, no interest loans and financial advice/planning to weather changing circumstances and establish a firm financial foundation for civilian life.

– Capital One (financial products and services; 27,000 employees in the U.S.) maintains a Disaster Recovery Grant that can help employees deal with sudden misfortune. After employees file an application describing their needs, Capital One usually responds and provides any awarded funds within 72 hours. The granted funds are not a loan so recipients do not need to worry about paying the money back to their employer.

Workplace Flexibility

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• Includes a variety of options about when, where, and how employees work to better manage their professional and personal responsibilities. Veterans confronting complex military benefits processes, seeking treatment for injuries or psychological trauma, or readjusting to child/elder care responsibilities will benefit from these programs.

– Booz Allen Hamilton (business strategy and technology consulting; 25,000 employees globally) offers job-sharing, flexible scheduling, part-time employment and child care services to veterans returning from deployment so they can better manage their responsibilities.

Additional Leave beyond FMLA and USERRA

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• Includes additional sick or vacation leave to pursue care or paper work and manage separation and reunion events.

– Homefront Health Care (long-term home health care; 117 employees in Providence, Rhode Island) offered an employee, whose son was injured during military service, an extended leave and other employees were allowed to donate their own accrued time off to further extend the employee’s paid time away from work.

Child Care Support

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• Employer-supported child care (i.e., regular, sick and back-up care) is an important benefit for all employees but may have special value in the woman veteran population.

– Scottsdale Healthcare subsidizes sick-child care and back-up child care assistance as a low-cost benefit for working parents when a child is ill or when regular child care options are unavailable. Scottsdale Healthcare also has an on-site child care center for children up to age 5 and provides free child care referral services.

• Employers with large veteran populations have established veteran affairs liaisons and coordinators who provide assistance with filing military benefits forms and accessing other services.

– Columbia University (education services; 7,738 employees in New York City, New York) employs a Veterans Affairs Officer to provide support and resources to Columbia’s veteran populations: both students and staff.

Veteran Affairs Liaisons and Departments

• Some veterans will not be able or ready to engage in full-time work all at once. They may need more time to effectively reunite with family, complete a therapy, or otherwise reintegrate into civilian life. Phase-in programs allow veterans to begin working part-time and increase their hours over time to full-time work.

– Nelson Laboratories (a microbiology testing lab; 385 employees in Salt Lake City, Utah) allows returning veterans to work part-time as they readjust to civilian work.

Phased Transition

Civilian Training on Military Talent• Includes veteran and military specific training for civilian

recruiters to make them better seekers and judges of military talent.

– Charles Schwab & Co. has implemented its Forward March: Taking the Next Step With Schwab program, a strategy centering on providing expanded training for Schwab talent advisors and hiring managers in working with service members and their families. The training is focused on helping to translate military resumes and spot key talents and strengths most transferrable to the work done at Schwab.

– Military Job Skills Translatorshttp://www.vetsuccess.gov/military_skills_translatorshttp://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/skills-translator/

Engaging with Active Duty Members

• Includes the provision of services directly to military members on local bases before they transition. By connecting with veterans before their transition is complete these organizations can deliver advice and mentoring to large groups of future veterans to better prepare them for their transition.

– Northrop Grumman’s Talent Acquisition representatives create customized workshops for service members to address transitioning into the civilian workforce. These workshops include “How to Work a Job Fair”, “Corporate Cultural Awareness” and “Networking for Career Development.” These workshops are presented on military installations and at various conferences and recruitment events.

• Relocation is a common requirement for continued advancement in military positions and veterans and civilians married to active duty members will benefit if their civilian employers can accommodate multiple workplaces over the course of their employment. Relocation and remote work arrangements, streamlined job transfer policies and multi-location employment postings can also enhance veterans’ abilities to stay with their civilian employers.

– Skylla Engineering Ltd. (engineering consulting; 17 employees in Houston, Texas) allows veterans to work remotely so they can remain employed while furthering their military careers.

Relocation Support

• Some of the issues women veterans face is due to a lack of consideration of their unique perspectives when setting up systems and branding of those systems. Efforts that integrate gender issues rather than try to be gender neutral will have better overall effects.

– Cornell’s Military Personnel and Veterans Find Success at Cornell video was developed with the special needs of all veterans in mind, and features two female veterans who stress Cornell’s support of family and children, career development, leadership development and Cornell’s strong, tightly knit community. The video also highlights transferrable skills, continued education, with a special focus on women veterans, to support our continued special recruiting efforts.

Active Inclusion of Women’s Voices

• Employers can share their resources (financial, material and intellectual) to create or enhance events that specifically address the issues facing women veterans.

– JPMorgan Chase has partnered with the New York Mayor’s office and other major companies to host a day-long symposium for women veterans since 2012. These symposia are tailored for women veterans and cover such topics as resume writing and interviewing skills, dressing for success, money management and networking.

– JPMorgan Chase partnered with Syracuse University to host the Women Veterans Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-Wise) conference in June 2014. The conference provides women veterans the tools to become successful entrepreneurs.

Sponsor and/or Staff Women Veterans Events

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• The When Work Works Award recognizes model employers of all types and sizes across the U.S. for their innovative and effective workplace practices. The Awards are part of a research-based initiative to highlight how effective and flexible workplaces can yield positive business results and help employees succeed at work and at home.

• Check out the 2014 winners at:http://www.whenworkworks.org/be-effective/2014-when-work-works-award-winners-state-by-state

• Apply online at: http://www.whenworkworks.org/apply-now

THE WHEN WORK WORKS AWARD