One year ago in this space, I contributed an article chronicling the tragically high unemployment rate among returning veterans. As a veteran myself, I offered my insider's point of view as to why veterans should be considered highly desirable prospective employees.

Although employment among veterans remains an urgent issue, great progress has been made. According to the federal government, businesses have hired or trained nearly 300,000 veterans and military spouses during the past two years. Although these organizations deserve our high regard and praise, they have also smartly acted upon sound business principles. Veterans of the U.S. military return to America as members of a uniquely cohesive, dedicated and skilled team. The skills developed and the ethos practiced in the military are universally deployable to workplaces across America, to help build individual businesses and fuel our economic recovery.

To help build on this success, Washington has launched a “Joining Forces” initiative to hire an additional 435,000 veterans and military spouses. This initiative to ramp up veterans' hiring efforts calls attention to a pressing challenge: more than 1 million men and women who committed themselves to our nation's defense are set to leave the military during the next 5 years.

Following are some well-known organizations who have pledged support to this initiative by committing to veterans and military spouses hiring efforts. By calling attention to these organizations, I hope we can all be inspired by their example. It gives me great pleasure to list as the first of these companies an insurance underwriter.

  • USAA, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, has hired 6,000 veterans and military spouses since 2005. The company is planning to add 1,000 more–30 percent of new hires–during the next three years. These motivated, disciplined and dedicated workers will add significant value to this organization and our industry. As a USAA client for more than 30 years (even though I own an agency), I can attest to their operational excellence in customer service and support.
  • The Home Depot has stated a goal of hiring 55,000 veterans and military spouses. With nearly 2,250 stores, this is nearly 25 veterans and military spouses per store. I predict we can all expect even better service next time we prowl the aisles for kitchen faucets, duct tape and weed whackers.
  • UPS has committed to hiring 25,000 veterans and military spouses. UPS operations will become even more efficient as former military personnel transfer their intense logistical training and go from “green or blue” to “brown.”
  • ATT and BNSF Railway have each committed to hiring 5,000 veterans and military spouses.
  • Wal-Mart has made a commitment as large as its retail store footprint. Management has stated the firm will hire any veteran, who served honorably, the year after he/she leaves the military. Because much of Mal-Mart's success can be credited to brilliant supply chain management, operational skills these individuals gained in the military will be hugely valuable.
  • Comcast made a public commitment to hire 1,000 veterans within two years in March 2011. They blew away the goal and re-committed to hiring another 1,000 by 2015. They are active participants in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “Hiring Our Heroes” campaign.

When considering veterans for employment opportunities, it can be useful to remember the particular challenges they face. According to a report co-sponsored by another underwriting company, Prudential, more than two-thirds of veterans list “finding a job” as their greatest challenge in transitioning from military to civilian life.

Veterans also consider transferring military skills to a civilian environment as being a major hurdle to finding a job. In fact, 60 percent of returning veterans consider it a challenge to explain how their military experience translates to skills of interest to a civilian employer.

Returning veterans, as well as their families, have contributed a great service and sacrifice to we who remained behind. By creatively visualizing how skills veterans learned in the military can be translated to the workplace, we can help to fulfill our sense of gratitude towards them. Veterans' inability to explain what they can contribute does not exempt us from our obligation to understand what they can contribute.

Memorial Day is for remembering all those who wore the uniform and gave their future for our today.

To source returned veterans for your company, contact your local USO and service organizations. Following are a few additional recommendations:

  • To find out more about Joining Forces, go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/joiningforces/get-involved.
  • The Veterans Job Bank provides veterans with a central source for identifying veteran-committed employment opportunities and assists companies in identifying qualified veterans. It also returns job opportunities based on search criteria entered by the job applicant. Powered by a Google search, jobs are drawn from various job boards that have posted or specifically tagged jobs for veterans. To learn how your firm can add your job listings to the Veterans Jobs Bank, visit the Instructions for Employer Participation page.
  • The National Resource Directory (NRD) has also created the Veterans Job Bank Widget. This utility allows Veterans to conduct a job search without leaving your website. You can get the Veterans Job Bank Widget for your website by visiting the Job Search Widget page.

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