Keeping veterans on the job is as important as hiring veterans if organizations want to gain the advantages of their unique skills. Stay interviews are important for addressing job concerns and asking forward-facing questions to improve veteran recruiting.
By Royston Arch
The emphasis on hiring veterans has brought a large measure of success with a veteran workforce in civilian positions exceeding 11 million in 2017. The focus for several years has been in the recruitment and onboarding of veterans, but hiring is not the same as retaining. Companies are investing large amounts of money in hiring veterans, spending resources to convert military "speak" into job specifications, and developing veteran supportive onboarding procedures.
Hiring veterans is certainly important, but hiring them into the right jobs and keeping them is proving challenging. The first year turnover rate is high for veterans, and the reasons are complex. Some leave because they accept civilian jobs that underutilize their skills, while others leave because they have trouble adapting to being a civilian employee.
Stay interviews can play an important role in veteran employee retention. Properly structured questions can guide employers in identifying the issues veterans are facing in the workplace, enabling supervisors to make changes that improve retention and recruitment.
Stay interviews are employer interviews conducted with current employees. They are not negotiation interviews. Stay interviews are designed to identify what is working for employees, the challenges they face in performing job duties, and how the employer can improve employee satisfaction and engagement.
The proper stay interview is an honest dialogue between employer and employee in which the employee feels free to discuss likes and dislikes concerning their jobs. They are an excellent opportunity for employers to gain insights on the employee experience. The key is encouraging honesty and making employees feel comfortable about telling employers the truth. Reaching out to all employees at each stage of the employee lifecycle is important, but for veterans it means being able to successfully transition into and stay in the civilian workforce over the long-term.
Stay interviews can pinpoint specific reasons employees, including veterans, are staying or considering leaving, even if they do not specifically say they are leaving. The stay interview is a one-on-one discussion between the employee and the supervisor or Human Resources manager. Veterans have unique needs when transitioning from military to civilian employment, and only they can adequately describe them. The employer can use the information to develop individualized strategies to retain veteran employees.
However, stay interviews also produce information for recruiters and Human Resources to help them develop strategies for improved talent management processes from recruiting to career planning. From this perspective, stay interviews are about making good candidate-employer and good job matches.
Measuring for Success
One of the issues that Rand Corp. addressed in its report "What's Good for Business and for Veterans" is that there has not been enough research on the effectiveness of the effort to translate military skills to civilian jobs. The report applauds the federal government and private sector employers for improving employment opportunities for veterans and to engage veterans through a variety of initiatives. Unfortunately, the effectiveness and impact of these efforts have not been clearly measured.
There are conflicting metrics. Though the unemployment rate for veterans as a group has declined, the rate for the 18- to 24-year-old remains higher than the rate for the general population. Some veterans, like post-9/11 veterans and female veterans, are earning more than nonveterans with similar demographics, but there is no certainty as to why this is true.
Rand Corp. assembled workshops with panels of experts and several points came out of the discussions that can help employers retain veteran employees.
One of the most important findings is that not all service members want to transition into a civilian career that is similar to the career they had in the military. Some want to change careers.
Another is that tracking a veteran's career path is important, measured by factors like retention and job satisfaction. Human Resources needs to link employer performance with veteran status – recently hired, how long out of uniform, etc.
Stay interviews can provide some of the critical information needed to document employee experiences. For example, companies that have veteran support programs can learn whether they are working. Those programs can be amended as necessary, which can improve veteran recruitment. It is all connected.
The need for data collection was also highlighted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonprofit and bipartisan organization. Data and information collected via stay interviews could improve retention rates by improving hiring initiatives and the success of mentorship programs and affinity groups. CNAS' data indicates that many veterans leave for positive reasons, such as higher pay or more responsibility. The lower turnover among veterans is for those who are placed in positions that are correct fits.
Gathering Information
Best practices for stay interviews for veterans are the same as they are for all employees. Interviews should be conducted one-on-one. Veterans should understand the reason for the interview which is to gain insight into what motivates and discourages the veteran. The employer will seek specific information about the aspects of the job the veteran enjoys, dislikes, has difficulty managing and dreads.
This is not a negotiation. It is an information gathering exercise in which the veteran-employer also try to find solutions to the challenges the veteran must overcome. It may mean finding a better job fit or providing more support services. It is important to always be upfront and honest about the options.
The stay interview should happen during the first year of employment but can take place as frequently as deemed necessary and as early in the veteran's employment as desired.
The stay interview also needs structure. Managed correctly, it provides critical firsthand information from veterans who are on the job. Unlike the recruitment conversations and candidate interviews, the stay interviews deliver actionable and specific information to improve the current and future workplace. The veteran and employer benefit from the forward-facing interview.
Hiring veterans is just one step. Keeping them employed in jobs that are the best fit is the more important one for all involved.