By Vanessa Fuhrmans
After a collective push to hire more than a million U.S.
military veterans in recent years, business is wrestling with a new
challenge: holding on to them.
Hiring initiatives by Verizon Communications Inc., Amazon.com
Inc., Union Pacific Corp. and hundreds of other companies have
helped cut unemployment among younger veterans -- in the double
digits six years ago -- to close to the 4.7% national average,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But many veterans
stumble in the transition to civilian careers, landing in jobs in
which they don't earn enough, encounter culture clashes or struggle
to translate military skills to the corporate world.
A 2016 U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation survey of 1,000
veterans found 44% left their first post-military jobs within a
year -- a finding similar to that of a 2014 Syracuse University
study involving more than 1,400 veterans. The result, company
recruiters say, can mean delays before veterans find meaningful
employment and high turnover costs for employers.
"One of the biggest mistakes employers can make is not
understanding how to take advantage of veterans' skills" despite
wanting to hire them, said Brian Stann, a former captain in the
Marines and head of Hire Heroes USA, a nonprofit that helps
veterans find jobs and prepare for the corporate world.
Some companies are adjusting their veteran strategies to smooth
the entry specifically for those coming into their first civilian
jobs.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. recently launched a pilot project
dubbed "Pathfinder" that pairs newly recruited veterans with a more
experienced veteran peer to guide them through areas in which
company research showed they often need more support. Those include
setting first-year goals and navigating corporate nuances such as
forgoing "sir" or "ma'am" when addressing colleagues and the
how-tos of networking, a largely foreign practice in the military,
where hierarchy typically sets career paths instead.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is rolling out a program for hires
who recently left the service that applies quality-control-like
checklists to their coaching, such as regular chats with a veteran
"buddy" for advice. Later this year, the firm plans to
systematically train human-resource managers on the challenges
veterans face, including, in rarer cases, the stresses of grappling
with physical combat injuries or post-traumatic stress
disorder.
Financial-services firm USAA -- where veterans and military
spouses are nearly a quarter of its 30,000-employee workforce --
began last fall targeting exiting service members with business
leadership potential for specific jobs, such as financial analyst.
The recruits go through a 12-month program covering everything from
how the company's lines of business intersect with one another to
"flexing your leadership style when you don't have your rank on
your collar," said Sean Passmore, USAA's head of military
hiring.
Even well-paying white-collar jobs can discourage some veterans.
"I felt like [my employer] didn't know how to utilize me," said
James Klein, a retired lieutenant commander in the U.S. Coast
Guard. After 23 years with the service, he joined a Fortune 500
telecom company in 2014 but left the next year after his
project-manager position was outsourced overseas.
In the Coast Guard, his work included commanding a patrol boat
in the Persian Gulf. In contrast, much of his 15 months at the
telecom company was spent on spreadsheets and writing
equipment-installment instructions. It was a frustrating comedown.
Supervisors dismissed his problem-solving initiatives -- such as a
proposal to better acclimate new hires -- as coming from someone
who "doesn't understand how things work here," he said.
"In the military, you see a problem, you fix it," said Mr.
Klein, now an operations manager at a Dallas-area engineering and
architecture firm he says is a better fit. "Corporate America
sometimes moves a bit slower."
Before PwC's public-sector group launched a veteran support
network roughly a decade ago, only about 20% of the practice's
veteran hires were staying a year or longer, according to Michael
Donoghue, a PwC principal who helped start the network. Within
several years, that improved to more than 95%. PwC has since
established the network companywide.
The network "is one of the main reasons I'm still at the firm,"
said LaTesha Ford, whose nearly five years as a naval officer
included overseeing care, custody and control of some 600 detainees
in Iraq.
Hired by PwC just over six years ago as a consultant, she turned
to her assigned mentor frequently, including for communication
help. She and her team "weren't clicking 100%," she said, and she
worried she was too short and direct, a style to which she was
accustomed.
She said her mentor from the veteran network helped her adjust
her delivery to a more conversational tone, such as prefacing
requests by asking colleagues about what work they already had on
their plates. "Before, I thought, 'That's flowery -- let's just get
it done,'" she said.
Now a senior associate working on cybersecurity and other
projects for PwC's government clients, she says she gives pointers
to other veteran hires and attends veteran career fairs to help
identify where potential recruits can find the best fit in the
firm.
"We retain veterans a lot longer," she said, "because we try to
put in that legwork at the beginning."
Write to Vanessa Fuhrmans at vanessa.fuhrmans@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 28, 2017 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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