Veteran Unemployment

Introduction

The rate of veteran unemployment has been declining with time as many military veterans find jobs in governmental organizations and private firms. The decline can be attributed to a commitment by many companies to hire the veterans especially the young ones leaving the military service. The veterans face challenges while trying to fit into the civilian work environment and corporate managers find it hard to retain these employees due to culture change. The first article shows that unemployment is declining as it is easy to hire veteran employees but retaining them becomes a challenge and many leave their first jobs. The second article explores the declining unemployment among veterans and how they are adjusting to the civilian workforce. The third article described the reducing veteran unemployment and how managers should retain these skills in their organizations.

Article 1

The Wall Street Journal article shows how it is easy to hire military veterans but hard to keep them. After business started accepting the call to employ over a million United States veterans, they are left are struggling with the new challenge of retaining them.  The various initiatives by large firms that have assisted in reducing the unemployment level among young veterans by almost 4.7 percent have not helped these on how to operate civilian or private field (Fuhrmans, 2017). Most of the veterans experience challenges when transiting to civilian careers and normally get into jobs with little returns and experience culture clash in the new working environments.   These individuals also struggle in translating their learned military skills into the business world.  The veterans delay before finding meaningful employment and those entering the job market do not stay for long and employers incur high turnover-costs (Fuhrmans, 2017). 

A major reason the given is that some employers do not understand how they can utilize the skills of these veterans despite their desire to hire them.   Even the high-paying jobs can turn off the veterans who feel that their employers are not taking advantage of the skills they possess.  The military career has taught them to fix problems whenever they see it, but in the corporate world, such opportunities are rarely provided.  Some firms have chosen to adjust their strategies for hiring veterans so as to ease their entry especially those entering civilian jobs for the first time. For instance, J.P Morgan Chase & Co has a pilot project – Pathfinder – whose focus is pairing new recruits with veterans that have more experience to offer guidance through areas where support is needed (Fuhrmans, 2017).  PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP program involves coaching using checklists similar to quality control frameworks, which also train personnel manager on challenges veterans encounter and how to handle them.  This system has helped many veterans to retain their jobs in comparison to just about 20 percent that was previously staying one year or more. Mentoring of veterans and having a strong network will help them not only get quality jobs but also keep such jobs (Fuhrmans, 2017).

Article 2

The article highlights the decline in the rate of unemployment among the veterans and how these individuals adjust to the civilian working environment.   The unemployment levels among veterans who have been in services in the era after 9/11 was 5.8 percent by 2015 in comparison to 1.4 percent in the previous year (Strauss, 2017).  Despite the decrease in the rate of unemployment, the veterans face some challenges as they transit from military services to the civilian job market.  The major reasons the veterans have declined or failed to go after some positions while looking for work are disappointments on salaries and benefits granted, and lack of sufficient education or training to do the work.  While this may surprise other job-seekers, the veterans were used to receiving benefits such as housing and adjusting to such expenses may take them some time (Strauss, 2017).

 In addition, other veterans joined the military services with no college degrees and this may cause problems when evaluating job offers where such qualifications are needed.  However, the experience acquired in military service may not be directly equal to job requirements but can offer skills basically attained during college education. The veterans also normally lack the confidence to sell them during a job interview, since such practices are not needed in military services.  In addition, hiring managers lack an understanding of the experience earned by the veteran in the military and how their skills can be transferred to the corporate world (Strauss, 2017). In a survey, 37 percent of participants felt that their military experience was undervalued by the hiring managers which can be attributed to employers' failure use similar criteria to people with college education.   Among those who found work, majority faced few opportunities for advancement; others felt they did less meaningful jobs in comparison to military jobs and others field overqualified for positions offered.  To be positive about the civilian workforce, the jobs they get have to stir their passions and allow them to advance which requires learning how to networking with mentors and peers.  Employers have to learn how veteran experience can be translated into skills necessary in civilian workforce (Strauss, 2017).

Article 3

The article explores the better ways in which veteran employees can be retained in a company.  According to the author, there are many individuals who are living the military every year with the majority of them looking for meaningful work. The unemployment level has declined over time as many veterans find jobs in governmental organizations and corporate firms partly due to initiatives like Veterans Employment Initiatives and Hiring Our Heroes (Watson et al. 2017).  Many corporate employers have accepted the call to reduce veteran unemployment but despite such efforts, almost half of these employees decline their initial post-military positions each year.  In addition, just about 2 out of 10 will stick to such positions for over two years.  The major reasons veterans give for leaving such positions include meaningless work, not having career advancement, few opportunities for professional development and different work culture.   This means that a major cause of unemployment among veterans is leaving such jobs and difficulties employers' face in retaining the veterans.  The veterans are required to dramatically change in terms of habits, practices, expectations, and terminology since they are used to the corporate language, they may appear less competent and managers may find it hard to connect with them (Watson et al. 2017).

In order to retain the veteran employees, they need to have strategies that address their needs for training, growth, and inclusion. The managers should embark on educating the people involved including leaders, managers and even recruiters about the military culture.  By learning the military culture, they are able to anticipate communication and language gaps and then come up with effective means of reaching common ground (Watson et al. 2017).  They will also learn how to design program for integration and on-boarding that are aimed all veterans.  This also involves assisting veterans in building and sustaining connections with others within an organization and looking for ways to connect daily tasks to the general purpose.  The firms need to effectively integrate veteran employees into corporate life, with the major point being a focus on open and honest communication about the existing gap between civilian culture and military culture.  The workplace should not make veterans under transition feel that they are a burden to the organization and managers having false assumptions about such employees (Watson et al. 2017).

Conclusion

 The declining rate of unemployment among veterans can be attributed increased employment by private firms and governmental organizations. Some employees are unable to find job opportunities immediately to after leaving military service because they lack confidence on how to sell their skills as a civilian workforce. The various initiatives established have enabled most of the veterans to find work in the private sector, but almost half of them do not keep such positions. They find that the private sector has a different working environment which makes their transition process difficult and they opt to leave. The veterans feeling of meaningless roles, undervaluation of their skills by employers, lack of opportunities for advancement in career and culture clash are the major reasons for not keeping their positions.  For managers to retain these employees, they should learn how to utilize veterans' skills in their workplace and provide an environment that encourages employees' growth and development. Closing the language and communication gap among between the veterans and employers should be the focus of hiring organization.

References

Fuhrmans, V., (2017). Hiring Veterans Is Easy. Keeping Them Is Hard. Retrieved from: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-battle-to-keep-veterans-from-quitting-corporate-jobs-1490702401

Strauss, K., (2017). How veterans adjust to the civilian workforce. Retrieved from: https://www.bloomberg.com/diversity-inclusion/blog/veterans-adjust-civilian-workforce/

Watson, K.W., Perry, M., Ripley, B., Chittum, R., (2017). How Your Company Can Better Retain Employees Who Are Veterans. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-your-company-can-better-retain-employees-who-are-veterans