Defence veterans untapped resource for business

They have the skills that a modern workplace demands, but Australian employers are still slow to recognise the value of defence veterans.

Making the transition to the civilian workforce is not always easy.

It was the little things that took Kristie James by surprise. Her old habits and ingrained behaviour suddenly stood out in her newly acquired civilian job, providing unexpected everyday reminders that her life had taken on a new normal, and she was no longer in the military.

“There were a couple of days during the first few months of my job when I knew I was going to be five minutes late so I rang my boss to explain why,” she says. “I was stressed about it. And he was like, ‘Why are you calling me? Unless you’re an hour late and you haven’t called to tell me why, I don’t care.”

It took James weeks to stop calling her colleagues “sir’ and ‘ma’am’ without feeling she was rude, or worse, insubordinate

“After eight years of saying ‘yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am’, it was a bit strange. Being young when I joined the army, I had always thought ‘this is an officer, this is the warrant officer, I can’t talk to them’. But when you leave you realise that even if you are young, they’re just another person. They have a life just like me.”

James is one of the 5500 veterans who every year leave the Australian Defence Force. For many, especially those who joined the military immediately after completing school, walking away from the force is a huge leap into the unknown.

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By the time James was 10, the young tomboy had told her mother she planned to join the army. Eight years later she did just that. She served for almost eight years as an avionics technician working on ARH Tiger Aircraft in Darwin and as a military instructor based at the Rotary Wing Aircraft Maintenance School in Oakey, Queensland.

But a string of injuries, including falling off a plane she was working on and fracturing her back, cut her military career short. Despite retraining as a data manager, she no longer met the exacting physical criteria demanded by the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

James was medically discharged in 2014 and joined Boeing Defence Australia as a projects maintenance control supervisor, responsible for the technical and regulatory integrity of the maintenance conducted at the Oakey base. Despite working in the same location where she served in the army, she found day-to-day life as a civilian varied greatly from her previous life.

“There were some real major changes that I had to get used to,” she says. “Within Defence you have a very rigid structure; everything is provided for you. You don’t have to look for your own doctor, you are just given one. The bank was there on base. It’s just the little things like that: you don’t really realise that your whole life is this Defence thing and when you leave you have to start compartmentalising your life. You’ve got to find your own support network.”

James believes she was “extremely fortunate” to have quickly found a role she wanted and that suited her skills.

‘According to the Department of Defence, 9 per cent of veterans remain unemployed 13 months after they are discharged.’

“Prior to my departure I was very stressed, thinking, ‘what’s my next career, what do I do next? How do I choose what to retrain in for the rest of my life?’

“The position [at Boeing] came up because the person had to move for family reasons. I had the skills and I was lucky enough to get the position, but if I hadn’t then I would have been one of those statistics trying to get a job, not knowing how my skills translated to the wider workforce.”

The statistics she refers to are sobering. According to the Department of Defence, 9 per cent of veterans remain unemployed 13 months after they are discharged. However, in 2017, a report by veterans employment group WithYouWithMe found that the total veteran unemployment rate was 30 per cent – more than five times the national average of 5.4 per cent.

Minister for Veterans Affairs Darren Chester admits that in the past the government and the ADF underestimated the difficulties some veterans experience as they transition out of the armed forces.

“I think we have underestimated the challenge in the past, and I think the defence force has been focused on its mission to keep our nation safe and perhaps hasn’t needed to focus as much on what happens after the military.

“I think in 2018 and beyond, if we are going to attract our fair share of the best and brightest young Australians, we have to put a proposition to them that says you can have a great career at the ADF and we will prepare you and support you for a life after the military.”

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Chester tells The Deal that despite considerable goodwill among large corporates when it comes to hiring veterans, there is a genuine lack of understanding and appreciation of the range of skills a veteran can bring to the workforce.

He argues that human resources managers in particular need to cast a wider net and consider veterans who might not have years of precise experience in the role.

“There is a lack of understanding within corporate Australia, and I suggest perhaps among HR managers, about how the skills that are developed in the ADF relate to civilian life,” he says. “Part of that is making sure we translate an ex-service man or woman’s CV into language that corporate Australia understands.”

Boeing Defence Australia’s managing director and vice president Darren Edwards agrees.

Around 20 per cent of BDA’s employees are veterans, as are more than 50 per cent of Edwards’ leadership team.

Veterans are widely considered to possess a range of skills that should appeal to employers, including organisational and communication skills, strong attention to detail, and the ability to remain calm under pressure and adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.

However Edwards says some employers struggle to identify those attributes. He argues that companies need to make a conscious decision to consider employing veterans even if they don’t necessarily have the direct years of experience in a particular job.

“We’ve been pushing the veteran’s strategy pretty hard for the past year and half,” he says. “You could actually be missing a really valuable opportunity to take someone who … has a bunch of skills that are above and beyond their technical industry skills, things such as leadership and passion, courage and loyalty – all those intangibles that come on top of a specific skill set. You could potentially be missing that kind of stuff if you can’t translate the skills into your business.”

Many veterans undervalue their skills and struggle to comprehend how they apply in the civilian workforce.

However it is not only employers who underestimate what veterans bring to a job. Edwards admits many veterans undervalue their skills and struggle to comprehend how they apply in the civilian workforce.

“They [veterans] might not be able to a) articulate their skill sets in a way that industry can understand and b) I’m not sure they have the confidence in some cases to come forward and say ‘I’m as good as someone else and just because I haven’t been in a profit or loss organisation doesn’t mean I can’t do that stuff as well as anyone else.”

Kristie James considers herself lucky to have found an employer and bosses who looked beyond her physical injuries and realised the strengths she could bring to the job.

“I think that the discharge for me was a great stepping stone for bigger and better things. Working with Boeing has actually put me on a path where I can move through a company and be promoted, whereas if I’d stayed in Defence I don’t think – because of my injury – I was not going to be promoted or be able to be promoted.

“When I transitioned I was still having some issues with my sciatic nerve and I was having time off to go to medical appointments, and Boeing was really supportive of me doing what I needed to do to be able to come into work.

“At my workplace I was one of the first people to be given a sit/stand desk.”

However she believes some employers go too far, treating veterans with kid gloves, failing to understand how deadline and task-oriented many veterans are and the strong work ethic many possess, instilled by years of disciplined training and service.

“In the beginning when you start a new job people don’t want to give you extra work. They don’t want to load you up with a lot of things because you don’t know the workplace. But for people leaving the military, that’s what we thrive on.

“I think a lot of people suffer when they start a new job after leaving the military because they’re not getting enough stimulation in that position. We’re taught to be leaders.”

“I think that’s something we need to work on with people who are transitioning, the wider community, and the people who do the hiring, to look at veterans not as being this broken thing, but as someone who can help you, someone who can further drive your business.”

John Bale, co-founder and chief executive of Soldier On, a not-for-profit that supports veterans, believes that the image of veterans as wounded warriors, often portrayed in the media and movies, doesn’t help. He argues that it is possible for employees with physical and mental injuries or illness to perform well in the workplace if they receive adequate support.

“It’s about education, reducing the stigma that every person who has been to Afghanistan or Iraq is suffering from PTSD, and also identifying that if they are, unfortunately a lot of Australians are suffering from mental health injury and are able to work.”

Darren Chester agrees. Of the 5500 to 6000 personnel who leave Defence every year, around 500 are discharged involuntarily due to medical or other reasons. “Unfortunately for us the coverage of veterans’ issues tends to focus on the negative outcomes, where someone may suffer from PTSD or other mental health issues, whereas the majority of people leave their Defence service with qualifications and skills that will help them have a successful civilian career.

“My view is that we need to make sure we offer additional support to that group I would describe as an at-risk group, for longer, knowing that their transition might be more difficult than someone who’s already got a job lined up and is ready to get on to the next stage of their lives.”

The Department of Defence provides ADF personnel with programs to assist their transition to civilian life, including mandatory two-day transition seminars.

Under its Career Transition Assistance Scheme, it offers a further suite of support programs. However many of these are not available to all discharging personnel.

Members of the defence force who have served less than 12 years have access to online information, can attend a job preparation workshop, and qualify for five days of approved absence for “career-transition activities”.

However they are not eligible for funding to undertake vocational retraining, unlike members who have served between 12 and 18 years, who receive up to $1100, and $5320 if they have been in the ADF for more than 18 years. Those who have served less than 12 years are also ineligible for curriculum vitae coaching and financial counselling.

But most service men and women remain in the armed forces for fewer than 12 years. The current average length of service for a male is nine years and for a female it’s seven years.

The minimum term of service prerequisites for these transition programs are currently under review.

‘Bale says the defence force has improved its transition process but argues more needs to be done to streamline services.’

“My strong view, which I’ve expressed to the Department of Defence and the DVA, is that support should be provided on a needs basis rather than on a time-served basis,” Chester says.

In recent years, the government has launched several initiatives to ease the transition process and encourage companies to employ veterans. In 2016 the Industry Advisory Committee on Veteran’s Affairs was established to encourage industry and corporations to recognise the skills that Defence personnel can bring to the workplace. Chaired by Westpac’s Consumer Bank chief executive George Frazis, the committee comprises representatives from 13 companies and industry groups, including JP Morgan, PwC, Clayton Utz, Australia Post, Saab Australia, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Earlier this year the government established the Prime Minister Veteran’s Employment Awards to recognise companies and individuals who create employment opportunities for veterans.

“Those awards were highly successful in showcasing the leading organisations in Australia but I think the next step is to drive the veteran employment agenda to a broader corporate audience,” Chester says.

“We’ve done a lot of work in the past five years but there is more work to be done.”

Two months ago the Department of Veterans Affairs began to trial a case management pilot looking at ways to proactively manage medically discharging and at-risk veterans. Transitioning veterans will be automatically issued with a “white card” for free mental health treatment. The process allows the DVA to keep a register of transitioning veterans.

“This allows us to have a better understanding and a better knowledge of veterans in the community,” says Chester. “It worried me when I started this role [six months ago] to find out that we didn’t have a complete list of veterans in Australia because people who had served had left and never been required to register their details.”

Bale says that the defence force has improved its transition process in recent years, but he argues more needs to be done to streamline services.

“They [the programs provided by Defence] are not as cohesive as they should be and one of the attitudes is there was a point in time when there was a realisation that those who were transitioning out of Defence weren’t getting the support they needed.”

It’s a process on which Mark Ellis is about to embark.

Ellis joined the army in 2009 at age 24. The rifleman was mostly based in Brisbane, and has served in East Timor and Iraq. But after four shoulder reconstructions he was medically discharged. (The Deal spoke to Ellis two weeks before his discharge date.)

Ellis is studying a Bachelor of Business through Griffith University and has secured a job as a veteran liaison adviser with defence contractor Raytheon Australia. Around 35 per cent of Raytheon’s workforce are veterans.

The former Lance-Corporal is relishing the change. He admits there may be some challenges, such as missing his mates and trying to find his place in the civilian workforce. But as a father of two young children he is looking forward to spending more time with his family, as well as helping other veterans.

After almost 10 years, Ellis has no regrets.

“I’ve had a really positive experience,” he says. “And I really can’t fault my transition. I’ve been going through the process for six to 12 months. I’m looking forward to moving on.”

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WHEN YOU’RE TOLD IT’S TIME TO LEAVE...

John Bale is co-founder and chief executive of Soldier On, a not-for-profit that supports veterans. A former captain in the Australian Army who served in Afghanistan, he says the challenges facing transitioning veterans extend well beyond finding a job.

He points out that for some veterans, their rank, and the respect of their fellow servicemen and women, has underpinned their self-worth and sense of purpose.

Personnel who are medically discharged can find the loss of rank and status, and the realisation that they are no longer part of a team, particularly confronting.

“At the end of the day we are all looking for the meaning in life and it’s especially hard when the meaning you had, and the purpose you had, has been taken away from you a) because you’ve decided to, but b) when someone else has told you it’s time to leave the military,” Bale says.

“That’s the hardest one, especially for the medically discharged personnel who wanted

to stay another five, 10, 15 years.

“If you’re leaving, then often you’ve already thought of the implications, but when someone taps you on the shoulder and says, ‘sorry, you can no longer serve’, finding that kind of purpose again is absolutely painful.

“Having lost the uniform, they’re not really sure about themselves as an individual when they’ve always talked about themselves as part of a team and what the team has done.”

Medically discharged veterans often need to focus on dealing with their injuries or illness and securing their financial benefits and entitlements, rather than on developing a new career.

“That’s where we come in and try to make sure the transition is a whole life transition that supports your family, making sure you have good, strong networks, making sure you have good mental health support if that’s required, and also making sure that you get a good job and an employer who understands your skill set,” Bale says.