Honoring Veterans in the Workplace
Workplaces should always be proactive in accommodating protected identities, and supporting the veteran community is no exception. Veterans, like everyone else, deserve to work in an inclusive, supportive environment where folks feel comfortable bringing their best selves to work. In honor of Veterans Day, we asked our clients to connect us with their employees who are veterans to give them the opportunity to share their experiences in the workplace and what employers can do to better support veterans or active military members. Thank you to all service members for your bravery and sacrifice.
What is one thing that you learned or experienced in the military that has helped you in your professional career, that you wish everyone could know?
“Do whatever it takes to get the job done - correctly and on time”
Trevor Leeds – Vice President & Consulting Division Manager, Primera Engineers
“I think the most important thing(s) I learned or experienced that has helped me in my professional career was the concept of adaptability or what I like to call the chameleon philosophy, and really the importance of a team or teams. In the military things are constantly changing whether it be your duty station, training missions, and deployment missions, and overall reporting and leadership structure. Things are always "breaking" literally and figuratively. When you find yourself getting too comfortable, attached, or complacent with a certain situation you are bound to allow yourself to become unhappy, and less effective. When any issue or challenge arises you really have to train yourself to look at things from a different perspective, learn to embrace the challenge and journey as a whole and not the immediate situation, work towards solutions, and keep going forward. Learn to adopt the Chameleon Philosophy.”
“The second part is the importance of having a well-developed team. Many times as veterans transition out of the military and into the corporate workforce, they tend to develop a loss of meaningful belonging. In the military everyone, for the most part, does everything together, you live together, work together, and train together all of the time so the sense of "team" is really grounded into the foundation of relationships. I think as a veteran and possible leader in the workforce, a key element of success is developing a team with a very strong foundation. I think the only way this can be done is to include members in active problem-solving challenges. Relationships are built and forged when times are challenging. This can also be done by encouraging and doing team-related events outside of the workplace. I know I personally thrive best in workplace environments where the team bond is exceptionally strong.”
Chris Ganz – Security Manager, ActiveCampaign
“One of my favorite lessons that the military has taught me and helped me in my professional career that I wish everyone could know is that every single team member, regardless of their rank or position within a company as well as every job, no matter how big or small it may be, is crucial to the success of the mission.”
Eli Reyes Chea – Bilingual Cancer Support Specialist, Imerman Angels
“The most important thing I got out of the military was the ability to take ownership of my situation. Most importantly, ownership of my failures. Serving as Medic makes some failures particularly devastating. From these situations, it is easy to find blame in others, but shifting the blame not only damages trust but also prevents you from learning from the situation. Owning these failures allowed me to grow, and make sure I never made the same mistake again. It also allowed me to deal with failure in a healthy way. The dialogue changes from "I can't believe I let this happen" to "It happened, and I won't let this happen again". This mindset can be empowering in any aspect of life. If you're running late for work, don't blame the slow driver in front of you, instead, look at what you could have done to avoid falling into this situation. It sounds a little harsh for some people at first, but it's also freeing to know that you can improve your life and the lives of others around you by just shifting your mindset.”
Greg Machat – Front End Engineer, Yello
What is one thing companies can do for their employees who are veterans or active military members to better support them?
“There are two separate groups that need to be addressed:
Veterans and active making the transition to civilian or reserve life – make it easy to land interviews and support their transition through proactive check-ins with a genuine supporter (another more senior vet, maybe)
Reserve or National Guard – create an extended leave policy for members returning from deployment – allow for weekend and yearly exercises without using PTO.” – Trevor Leeds
“I think one of the best things companies can do for veterans or really any employee for that matter, is just give them an ‘opportunity’. When I say opportunity, I don't necessarily mean the job itself, sometimes an opportunity can be an opportunity within a job. The best example I can give is myself actually. For the past 10 years, I have been working in a similar position across different companies, I have always wanted to branch out and learn more about the cyber security side under the umbrella of security operations. This opportunity was finally given to me recently as I was recently restructured under a new manager, and have been given the chance to learn networking and cloud-based security. I think providing an environment where veteran employees can continuously learn, and be given opportunities to work on new projects is the best thing a company can do.” – Chris Ganz
”To provide proper support that suits our needs which tend to be different from employees who aren’t veterans or active military.” – Eli Reyes Chea
”This is hard to answer because veterans are all different, with different experiences in their military service. I have several friends who took the uniform off and never want to see it again, and I have others who wish they had never gotten out. I guess just understanding that despite our time serving and the indoc processes in the military, we’re not all cookie-cutter soldiers. We still very much have our own identity outside of being service members/veterans.” - Greg Machat
To those who have bravely served our country, past and present, we thank you. We honor your dedication, courage, and immeasurable sacrifice that allow us to live safely and freely. We owe you our deepest gratitude!
In light of Veterans Day and conducting these interviews, we created a Veterans Resource Guide for employers and service members that outlines who classifies as a veteran, how to support veterans in the hiring process and the workplace, and what professional resources are available to veterans. Feel free to download and share with your coworkers and professional network!