Honor Veterans With Jobs!

Let me begin this post by expressing my appreciation and gratitude to Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlem for offering me the chance to be a guest writer on this well-established and respected blog. I am truly honored.

Have you noticed the preponderance of media outlets telling us that we need to hire military veterans? Have you read the suggestions for how to go about doing that? I have, and to commemorate the birthdays of the Air Force (September 18th), the Marine Corps (November 10th), and the Navy (Oct 13th), I would like to advocate for hiring a veteran. I don’t write that because it’s a patriotic thing to do or because the Federal Government is starting to push for more veterans in the workforce; I write it because hiring a vet is a sound business investment.

For purposes of this post, I will focus on the cohort of veterans who have served since 9/11 because, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for this cohort is significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate. As of August 2013, the rates stand at 10% for vets and 7.3% for the general population. (It is worth noting that the unemployment rate for veterans of all generations stands at 6.2%. There are probably some lessons to be learned by studying those trends, but that is for a different post.) Aside from the technical skills and security clearances veterans bring to the table, there are five non-technical reasons companies should hire veterans:

1) They are quick learners. Veterans have experience learning and applying new concepts very quickly. All branches of the military teach new technical skills and concepts in a very short period of time. Most initial training is accomplished in under a year, and the higher level technical training takes no longer than 2 years to complete.

2) Strong Leadership Qualities. All branches differentiate between leadership and management, and they train everyone - from the most junior recruit on up - in effective leadership. Throughout their tours of duty, each veteran has been delegated responsibilities that are vital to helping the entire team accomplish a mission,

3) Commitment to the mission, and the ability to work in complex, fast-paced environments. Veterans have extensive experience working to complete a mission, regardless of the time it took, or the levels of stress and adversity they faced.

4) Respect. There is a saying in the Navy: All Navy Regulations Are Written In Blood. Veterans respect authority and have respect for policies and procedures. They understand the stability and structure policies and procedures bring. They also understand the potential catastrophic consequences of not following procedures.

5) Work well in a diverse work environment. Few businesses and organizations are as diverse as the branches of our military. Veterans have worked successfully with other personnel from all nationalities, gender and sexual orientations, and religions.

And these are just the five reasons that quickly come to mind; I could literally make this list pages and pages long, but, again, that’s for another post(s).

All veterans want to make valued contributions to the workforce, not unlike most civilian workers, eh? But because of the high number of veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury, along with those who have more obvious physical injuries, I think that some employers are nervous about how to make the workplace friendlier to their specific needs. It is, however, surprisingly easy to accommodate these individuals per the guidelines of The Americans with Disabilities Act. One of the easiest things to do is review a job’s requirements and determine the fundamental skills needed to be eligible for it; for example: Does a candidate need a Bachelor’s degree to be considered for an entry-level position?

So don’t be afraid to hire veterans, even wounded warriors. At the end of the day, every organization needs to hire qualified men and women who are enthusiastic to learn, improve themselves, and move the organization forward. Military veterans have proven themselves; you owe it to yourself to bring them in and allow them to compete for one of your positions.

Neal Henderson

FrontRow Performance Coaching

Throwing Caution to the Wind

Bon voyage.  It was a great farewell party.  No, we were not sending someone off on a trip.  Rather, we were sending him off on a journey to start a new chapter of his life.  Philippe was leaving the Washington DC metro area for Copenhagen to join “the love of his life”.  After three years of a transcontinental romance, it was time to be together.

I asked him about his plans for his new life, other than spending them with his lady and planning their wedding.  He had no immediate employment, although she is well connected and is networking for him.  He’s had an interesting life and shared that he had always done everything according to a plan.  For the first time and after much soul searching, he was throwing caution to the wind, taking a leap of faith and going.  It was time.

What guides you in the decisions you make for your personal life, your professional life, and for your organization’s life.  We all know the importance of mission, vision and strategic goals.  It helps to determine:

• Where we and/or the organization are now?
• Where we and/or the organization hope to go?
• Why we and/or the organization hope to go there?
• How we and/or the organization hope to get there?

We also know it’s important to assess:

• Internal Strengths
• Internal Weaknesses
• External Opportunities
• External Threats

These activities help us to advance the strategic planning process to implementation.  And if done as a systematic process, success should follow.  Often times along the way, even with the best of planning and assessment, the unpredictable happens.  How well are you prepared to meet the challenges of unexpected and unpredictable events?

Disasters strike, as we’ve unfortunately seen happen too many times in recent years.  Whether they are natural disasters like hurricanes named Katrina or Sandy or unnamed tornadoes, or man-made disasters like Newtown or Boston, employees’ lives are affected.  Business leaders need the resources to address them – resources like employee assistance programs, disaster recovery plans or business continuity plans.

The unexpected can also be exciting.  New opportunities arise that weren’t or couldn’t have been predicted.  How willing are you (and/or the organization) to take a risk?  Agility, flexibility, resiliency, these are all characteristics needed to embrace change.  Is your organization one that will embrace change?  Are you willing to embrace change?  Are you (and/or the organization) able to craft creative, innovative and imaginative business solutions?

As important as it is to have resources and plans to address disaster, it’s equally important to have processes and plans that will allow you to recognize, capture and embrace new opportunities.  Every good strategic plan is just that, a plan.  It’s not cast in concrete.  Every good strategic plan allows for evaluation and modification.

How often do you get a chance to take a risk?  How often are you willing to take a risk?  And if you take a risk and implement a major change, how prepared are you to communicate the changes to your employees and guide them through it?

Know Your Audience

One of my favorite TV shows is The Good Wife.  In fact, I’m committed to watching it.  I’ve got a slightly vested interest.  Behind the scenes of that show are the costume designers, and the head of costume design, Dan Lawson, is a family friend.

This year Dan received the Young Master award for his work on the show at the TDF Irene Sharaff Awards, an event that honors the best costume designers in the business.  The award was presented by Juliana Margulies (THE Good Wife), who plays the lead, Alicia Florrick.  And Christine Baranski, who plays power lawyer Diane Lockhart on the show, ran from her Lincoln Center rehearsal to be in the audience for the presentation.  Without a doubt, it IS Dan’s job to make these actresses and the rest of the cast “look good.”    And he excels at it.  The outfits worn on the show even catch my husband’s attention – not a man who focuses on style as a rule.

What an honor to be recognized by your stakeholders.  Sadly, too often in organizations, the “actors” don’t always know who their stakeholders are.  Who do they have to please?  Who, if anyone, do they have to “make look good.”

Great leaders and great employees recognize that there are multiple stakeholders in every organization, whether it’s for profit or not for profit.  Stockholders, members, community groups, and customers are just a few examples.  Great HR leaders recognize that they have to include as stakeholders the employees and managers they support.  Great employees want to serve the organization in a way that fulfills its mission and lives its values.  All of the parts and stakeholders are interconnected.  Motivated employees will seek intrinsic value from their work – do their best because they gain a sense of personal satisfaction in addition to adding to the value of the organization.

I once had a boss (his first role as a manager in a large corporation) who liked to profess that we (coworkers in the departments who reported to him) all worked for him.  I got under his skin when I asked, “Excuse me, don’t we all work for the company?”  That was a long time ago, and I’m happy to report that he’s grown a great deal since then.

But recently, I heard about a colleague’s former boss – someone in a responsible, senior role, who would chide her if she attempted to help other departments accomplish their goals.  “Remember, you work for this department, not those others!”  Like me so many years ago, her reaction was the same as mine: “Don’t we all work for the good of the organization?”  Yet this boss appeared only to be concerned about “looking good” and having those around her make her “look good” – literally and figuratively.

Great leaders get past the politics in the organization and have the vision and courage to foster an environment and culture where everyone does his or her best for the good of the whole.  They recognize that the whole is greater than their part.

Dan Lawson’s job on The Good Wife is not about making just one actress look good, it’s about making the whole cast look good – literally.  But without their talent and contribution, and the talent and contribution of all of the other individuals employed to make this show go on, it wouldn’t be a “hit” entering season five!  And as a dedicated audience member, I’ll continue to watch it and be entertained.

Origins of Labor Day

On March 25, 1911 as the Triangle Shirtwaist Company burned, a young social worker who was in Washington Square looking on in horror as the seamstresses jumped to their deaths.  That young social worker was Frances Perkins.    It was because of this event that she left her office as head of the New York Consumers League and become the executive secretary for the Committee on Safety of the City of New York.

When you walk into the Department of Labor’s building in Washington DC you are greeted by a statute of Frances Perkins.  In fact, the building is named for her.  Frances Perkins was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet.  In this role, she had an unenviable challenge: she had to be as capable, as fearless, as tactful, as politically astute as the other Washington politicians, in order to make it possible for other women to be accepted into the halls of power after her.

While famous simply by being the first woman cabinet member, her legacy stems from her accomplishments. She was largely responsible for the U.S. adoption of social security, unemployment insurance, federal laws regulating child labor, and adoption of the federal minimum wage.

Marking the end of the summer vacation season and return to school, Labor Day, is celebrated on the first Monday in September, as a tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City. some 10,000 workers assembled and marched from City Hall, past reviewing stands in Union Square, and then uptown to 42nd Street.  The workers and their families gathered for a picnic, concern and speeches.  It was organized by the Central Labor Union, an umbrella group made up of representatives from many local unions.

Debate continues to this day as to who originated the idea of a workers' holiday, but it definitely emerged from the ranks of organized labor at a time when they wanted to demonstrate the strength of their burgeoning movement and inspire improvements in their working conditions.

By 1884 similar organizations in other cities followed the example of New York and celebrated a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country. By 1894, 237 states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.