Employers find that patience with veterans pays off
Transitioning from military to civilian life is one of the toughest challenges anyone can face.
Leaving the structure of the military is particularly tough for young men and women who served in the enlisted ranks. Many left their parents’ home following high school and moved directly into the barracks.
The military gives service members enormous responsibilities at a young age and rewards merit. It also provides food, shelter and a culture that honors service and work ethic.
When a young man or woman takes off the uniform for the last time, they not only lose a paycheck, but a way of life and, too often, their self-esteem. The grief that follows is akin to losing a beloved family member.
I know because I went through it 25 years ago. I was a 24-year-old sergeant when I left the Army after seven years in signals intelligence.
This Veterans Day, employers should go beyond the routine salute and pledge to hire more veterans. Employers need to train managers to recognize what demobilization requires and how to get the most out of hiring a vet.
“They are searching for a sense of mission, a sense of self again, of camaraderie and belonging,” said Kevin Barber, president and founder of Veteran Energy, a Houston retail electricity company dedicated to employing and helping veterans. “An organization that can create that will have a much happier employee and they’ll have buyin.”
About 53 percent of post-9/11 vets will experience unemployment within 15 months of separation. Veterans in the 18-24 age group experience an unemployment rate of 17 percent compared to the national average of 12.1 percent, according to the U.S. Veteran’s Administration. Former enlisted personnel have a much tougher time than officers.
Texas employers, though, do better than most. The state had
927,000 veterans in the work force in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 38,000 were unemployed. But 13,000 of those were post-9/11 vets, who have a much higher jobless rate of 5.2 percent.
Too many employers talk about hiring vets but fall victim to misinformed stereotypes. The media often focuses on vets who are broken and need our help, and quite rightfully. But the vast majority of vets are physically and mentally healthy and ready to work.
Vets aren’t any more difficult to hire than a civilian, they just have different life experiences, said Ciara Major of SER-Jobs for Progress, a Houston non-profit that helps employers understand vets. Since most managers have not served in the military, they don’t know what they are getting.
“People who have served prefer structure and direct instructions, but they can also be great leaders in the workforce,” Major said.
Military culture in some ways puts a vet at a disadvantage in the civilian workplace. Humility is valued over selfpromotion, initiative is encouraged over inaction, accepting responsibility is rewarded over spreading blame.
The biggest misunderstanding usually involves an employer underestimating a vet’s capabilities and experience, leaving them feeling underemployed and unappreciated. In Iraq, I watched 25-yearold sergeants lead a dozen troops on combat patrols, negotiate with community leaders and make life-anddeath decisions that most civilians twice their age can’t fathom.
“Every one of these young men and women operated successfully in extreme and stressful conditions,” Barber said. “It’s not that employers are talking down to them intentionally, it’s that vets are used to an operational tempo that is much higher than the civilian counterpart that they are talking to. You go from 100 miles per hour to zero, and it takes a toll.”
Barber was an Army military policeman from 1983-1990, and counsels vets that a civilian job will never provide them the sense of duty and belonging that the military did.
“This company is not going to adapt to you, you need to adapt to this company,” Barber regularly tells veterans.
Large employers organize veteran networks where older vets can counsel new hires in making the adjustment. Smaller employers can contact the Lone Star Veterans Association.
“Everyone wants to say they hire veterans and say they will do all this stuff, but they need to put in the extra miles to understand the ethos of the returning warrior,” he added.
Once employed, post9/11 veterans thrive.
They are more financially successful than nonveterans, earning $3,030 more on average in 2013, the last year for which the VA has data. Women, African-American and Hispanic veterans earn significantly more than their non-veteran peers.
A company that trains managers to successfully hire and develop vets is easily paid back five-fold. Others can generate the same kind of return, if they make the effort.