Veterans Get Connected

Veterans, are becoming more connected than ever. Over the last 3-4 years, the 美国军队 took a large interest in the SkillBridge program. Soon, every branch followed their steps and more veterans transitioned though this program. As of today, there are thousands of veterans who graduated from the internship with an offer letter. Due to the heavy volume of successful program attendees, these veterans are starting to forward the gratitude by becoming mentors for likeminded individuals through organizations such as Veterati and The KEY Community . Seems that every morning when you open your LinkedIn , you see a retiree posting the need to help another one of our Military Veterans of LinkedIn by requesting additional mentors, companies, and recruiters to give assistance.

We now see a wide array of post-service #veterans reaching out to pick back up those who are falling. Leaf Home decided to build a large network of internal veteran employees as well as mentorship for both internal and external veterans. I spoke with Jennifer Usenick, PHR with Herc Rentals , and she is establishing a likeminded atmosphere to help the process of the veteran transition into the company all while guiding those with different goals. Now we see more military groups on LinkedIn and Facebook than ever before such as the Skillbridge Network: The Military Transition Hub , Women Veterans Alliance , and Recruiters for Veterans. Since the evolution of technology and rise of veteran awareness, we see new job placement and community organizations such as VETS2INDUSTRY and 7 Eagle Group , founded by Brian Arrington, M.S. and Jordie Kern . Now, veterans can attend virtual and in some cases, physical networking events bridging the gap between the veteran and recruiter. Both organizations have a free platform for veterans to build a profile that allows companies to source service members and fill important roles. Veteran owned companies such as Black Rifle Coffee Company and Grunt Style are finding ways support our veterans, whether it's though coffee or the Grunt Style Foundation which is heavily guided by Co-Owner Tim Jensen . This, is all of the good news, but what brought us here?

Let’s talk about how we may have gotten lost. All branches of the military set a "mission first" atmospheric lifestyle. This draws on our full intrinsic motivation while optimizing our?work ethic as many senior leaders utilize what I call, reward power. What does this tell us? This tells us that we operate under a developed system that lacks transparency or diverse training methods. This is a wheel that the military doesn’t want to reinvent because they feel it works, but it doesn’t. This method shows that the leader is to motivate his or her veterans through intrinsic motivation and incentive.?

Your career in?the service is thriving on structure and guided by patriotism and incentivized reward systems. Yes, this can be effective, but here is why it doesn’t work for the transitioning veteran. When you are approaching that last?year of service, you are ready to prepare yourself. Wait a second, prepare? We can sometimes start by mentally preparing ourselves, but without proper resources or guidance, all of what mental preparation engenders, is mental stress. This is because throughout our career, we weren’t exposed to proper transitioning training. There wasn’t ever a quarterly mandatory training on how to successfully reintegrate into the civilian world. The #military will gladly provide such reintegration back to your assigned duty location Conus or Oconus, after a long and hefty deployment, but severely lacks the importance to conduct the same for those transitioning with the same sense of importance and severity.

Perhaps, transition training should be as frequent as SHARP training. Could it be that the military has purposely put the importance of this training on the backburner? Is it possible that the transitioning assistance program on the way out of the door, is so quick and poorly developed to ensure veterans aren’t distracted from the dream of what’s next?thus, crippling their retention needs. The good news is that the transition centers are starting to increase their ability to help. Nellis AFB conducts DoD-SkillBridge training for transitioning veterans, directed by Sarah Payne, Ed.S. . There are conference and award systems that are set in place to recognize those who make a difference in the veteran corporate sector such as the Military Influencer conference and the Veteran Champion of the Year in Corporate America Award though G.I. Jobs .

How long does it take to identify that there is a problem. Not long, right? As an experienced leader in the military, you spend years mastering the steps to problem solving, leading and protecting others, and developing other future leaders. How are these skills and the values of your branch, not coexisting with a standard of procedure ensuring our vets transition successfully? The highest in command and those responsible for training and development, can’t seem to make an award winning strategy for what happens when veterans leave. There’s a reason for everything. Afterall, this has been a problem growing near a blind eye for years, even decades. As now now, the way veterans start getting connected and help one another, is finally growing at an unstoppable rate. Watch out, Corporate America