Companies go beyond gender diversity, eye veteran hiring

Two years of Pandemic would long be remembered as the years of disruption for businesses, forcing the business leaders to reflect, revisit, adapt and change their strategies and goals for them to navigate through the stormy pandemic climate. During such challenging scenarios, diverse viewpoints do help companies to bring-in creative and unique solutions, and thus no wonder that most companies have continued to keep “diversity hiring” high on their hiring agenda but with a strategic shift. The conversations around diversity hiring have shifted from being one-dimensional, focused only on gender diversity, to multi-dimensional, exploring other forms of diversity, so as to reap the benefits of having a diverse workforce.

One of the successful ways of hiring diverse talent by companies in other big democracies such as the U.S and the U.K is by tapping talent from non-traditional sectors such as the military. In India too, many organizations are encashing upon this exceptional diverse talent pool, which is even more relevant hiring in the current VUCA environment as military professionals are adept at fighting, surviving, and winning out of chaotic situations.

The U.S origin MNCs such as JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Amazon hire veterans in volume in the U.S and they have emerged as leaders in hiring veterans in India as well. Taking a cue from them, many top Indian firms such as Reliance group of companies, Tata group, Mahindra group, RPG, and more have joined the bandwagon and looking at hiring veterans through an internship model and/or traditional lateral hiring model. Companies that have matured their veteran hiring agenda and have volume requirements are looking at hiring through single company job fairs or multiple companies job fairs conducted by Military To Corp-M2C.

The enthusiasm among the companies to explore military diversity was seen in the recently held Hire Women Warriors #HWW drives wherein a number of F500 companies came forward to participate in this woman veteran-specific job fair. The success of this job fair gave confidence to M2C to organize India’s biggest veteran job fair, Hire our Heroes #HOH , which is scheduled on 24-25 Aug 2022, coinciding with the theme of Independence day. Top-notch companies from various sectors especially Investment banks, Consulting, IT/ITeS, Telecom, Logistics, Manufacturing, E-Commerce, Healthcare, Aerospace & Defence have come forward and registered for this upcoming drive (To register, write at [email protected]).??

A few years back, there were many myths around veteran hiring in the ecosystem such as veterans are rigid or they are not tech-savvy which have been proven wrong as veterans have been performing extremely well in the tech as well as non-tech roles in corporate. Also, the perception bias that military candidates are fit only for admin and security roles is a thing of the past as today veterans are placed for roles in data science, software engineering, risk, program manager, operations, and many off-the-beaten-paths.

There is more awareness today than yesterday about the hard and soft skills of veterans and the business and organizational value they bring from war-room to boardroom. With the emphasis on modernization in the military over the past decade and also with the world moving more towards technology, veteran talent is tech-enabled and they upskill themselves before their transition into the corporate world.

The Indian military is one of the largest militaries in the world; the three services combined account for a 1.4 million-strong military. With approx 50-60k leaving every year and joining the corporate workforce, in their 30s and 40s, they add to the highly skilled talent pool with rare soft skills such as problem-solving, mission-focused, goal-first, initiative, and many more.?

Military diversity is further diverse and has many other categories of diversity under its umbrella. Women veterans hiring, one of the talent pools in military hiring, is about hiring women talent pool from the technical and non-technical branches of the military. They bring in double diversity, i.e military diversity to gender diversity. Women officers in their early 20s gain exceptional leadership experience by leading soldiers in conflict zones of the country on the northern and eastern front. When these talented women leaders transition from military to corporate in their early 30s, they form a good pool of “diversity in leadership” which companies can encash upon to fill the void that exists from a gender diversity perspective at the mid-senior leadership level.?

Another diverse pipeline from the military is disabled veterans or veterans with disabilities. The PwD veterans are those who get injured during the line of duty in the military operations or during the training. Hiring PwD veterans is not only a noble cause but also a good talent strategy from an employer brand perspective. Hiring?PwD?adds to diversity at two levels – one at the military level and the other at the inclusion level of hiring?disabled?persons back into civil society. Hiring?disabled?veterans?also creates a very positive buzz around a company’s progressive and inclusive talent acquisition approach.?

The third diverse talent pool of military diversity is male veterans who constitute the majority of the military and are drawn from all states of the country, including from the remote locations such as north east or Leh – Kargil or even the Andamans & Nicobar Islands. These are multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, multi-religion diverse sets of military professionals teamed up and work shoulder to shoulder for operational success.?

Today, more and more companies have been pledging to hire diverse talent to bring-in creativity and unique solutions to modern-day business challenges. Gradually, the awareness is setting in that there are many more types of diversity and by focusing on only a couple of dimensions, companies are much less likely to reap the benefits of having a diverse workforce. In order to become a truly inclusive organization, companies should consider all different categories of diversity - including ones that are often absent from the public discourse.

If your company is keen to hire veterans & participate in the hiring drive - Hire Our Heroes #HOH - scheduled on 24 & 25 Aug 2022, reach out to us at [email protected] .?