If you asked a member of the VSRA about the state of our workforce, they’d likely respond similarly to what one of our most trusted ship repair leaders, Joe Yurso, says, “We’ve got an aging workforce, and we’d better become more attractive to the younger generation.” With over 15,000 Veterans transitioning from the local Hampton Roads bases each year, the solution seems right in front of us. Still, attracting Veterans into the industry is not an easy task, and the VSRA Vets Survey revealed that some companies are more successful at capturing this resource than others.
The good news is 85% of the member companies who responded said they “actively recruit U.S. Military Veterans.” The companies were also asked to identify which of the 22 most popular Vet hiring organizations they used and whether the results were significant. The organization that received the highest ranking was the Virginia Department of Veterans Services with 11 companies stating that they successfully used the service to hire Vets. The next three were the Association of the U. S. Navy, Wounded Warriors, and Virginia Values Vets (V3).
Not surprisingly, the most successful method of recruiting Veterans was “word of mouth referrals.” John Andrews, of Norfolk’s Veteran Services and Military Affairs office tells the story of two servicemen recently leaving a Veterans oriented job fair. When he approached them to gauge their experience, they both said that they “couldn’t find any opportunity that they’d qualify for.” John immediately went and introduced them to two different companies, and both of them were later offered positions. John explained, “They didn’t have any connections, and what they really lacked was the ability to network and leverage referrals.”
Companies were asked to share best practices for successfully hiring vets outside of the programs, and 32 of the respondents provided the benefits of their experience. Several of the responding companies listed multiple sources and indicated that it required posting, networking and supporting several Vet transition programs simultaneously. Connecting with Vets through the Transition Assistance Program (TAPs) and the related military focused job fairs were among the most frequently leveraged and widely used. Like most profitable ventures in the open market, it takes a multi-pronged approach combined with persistent execution of a long-term strategy.
In 2011, the unemployment rate for veterans aged 18-24 outpaced civilians almost 2 to 1 (Veterans 30.2%, Civilians 16.1%). So what do the Vets think when they are transitioning to civilian life and what’s important to them? The 2012 Prudential Survey on Veteran’s Employment Challenges polled 2,453 veterans and soon-to-be veterans in an online survey. The respondents identified “finding a job” as the greatest challenge in transitioning to civilian life.
The VSRA survey revealed that member companies hire Vets primarily for their technical skills and proficiency, combined with the maturity, discipline and work ethic common among prior service employees. Veterans are also valued by VSRA companies for their ability to understand and follow the complex regulations and procedures required to succeed in ship repair. The Vets are trying to find companies like those in the VSRA, and our member companies are looking for employees with the skills of veterans.
In the Prudential survey, more than half the Veterans surveyed (53%) said they would be “very likely” to use a program that provided assistance in translating military skills to their civilian equivalents. And, three-quarters viewed potential employer programs as being important to their success. However, only 19% of the VSRA companies surveyed said that they “enrolled more than 50% of their Vets in an apprentice program when they hired them.” And this may be a call to investigate the programs our companies offer. Our aging workforce might be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it demonstrates that this is an industry you don’t want to leave. It’s an industry you’ll want to retire from, and like the fabled “golden-handcuffs,” it provides compensation and benefits at a level that ensures employee retention, and the benefit of long-term employee satisfaction. But this carries the risk that we might have overlooked the need to welcome these veterans into our companies with robust apprentice programs that accelerate their value to the company, while simultaneously addressing the unique support needs of veterans returning from the long wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Prudential survey concluded, “Veterans are looking for employers to provide career opportunities, but also health and transition support. So to be considered a veteran-friendly corporation, at least some of these benefits and support services may need to exist.”
There is the joke about investing in your employees that’s enjoyed a recent resurgence. Two C-level executives are discussing the high cost of investing in their employees training. One asks, “What happens if we spend all this money investing in our employees and they leave for a competitor?” And the other replies, “What happens if we don’t and they stay.”
Despite the challenges of reaching veterans and building successful apprentice and transition programs, our member companies hire over 1,200 veterans each year. The VSRA President, Bill Crow, asks, “How does this number affect the VSRA leveraging this success to attract more talent, and enlist more veteran transition agencies to bring skilled employees to our industry?” With the survey revealing that over 50% of our veterans are being hired into trade positions, how do we leverage this with the trade schools and community colleges to encourage veteran students to select a tradesman skill?
A successful survey yields as many questions as it does answers, and the recent VSRA survey on veterans has already provided the associations leadership with ideas and solutions. The Transitioning Vets Series will continue next month with an interview of Rear Admiral Dixon, and subsequent articles will address the programs that ranked highest among our member companies. As we face a long and arduous campaign to solve our declining workforce, we could most certainly use the tenacity demonstrated by our veterans returning from a 10 year war.
Marcus Boggs is a VSRA member and government contract specialist at Wells Fargo Bank.