Recruiting Veterans Can Help Your Organization Build a More Diverse, Inclusive Workforce

Apprenti is a Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) that can help you tap into this often-overlooked, but highly skilled talent pool.

Diversity in the workplace is not about altruism or filling hiring quotas. Focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) is a competitive imperative for all industries. Companies with diverse teams enjoy a greater speed of innovation, improved recruiting and retention, better productivity, increased profitability, and higher rates of employee satisfaction. And shifting demographics mean the workforce of the future will be more diverse than ever. By failing to embrace DEIA now, some companies may put their very survival in jeopardy. 

Nonetheless, employers are often challenged to find and recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds. When it comes to building a diverse workforce, military Veterans are an often-overlooked category of potential talent, despite being a highly skilled and employable population. Employers have the opportunity to reap myriad benefits from recruiting Veterans into their workforce. 

Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs) offer an alternative pathway for companies to recruit Veterans. RAPs are recognized by the Department of Labor (DOL), and are a proven model of apprenticeship that are known for their capacity to scale across companies and industries; produce more consistent employment outcomes; and enable companies to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforces. 

Apprenti is a RAP that provides economic mobility to underrepresented groups, such as Veterans, people of color, women, and individuals with disabilities by identifying, training, and placing talent into careers in tech at an accelerated pace. As such, Apprenti empowers employers to bridge the pervasive talent and digital skills shortages by building their own pipeline of highly skilled, highly motivated, and diverse tech talent. Recruiting Veterans through an apprenticeship program like Apprenti can provide your organization with numerous benefits related to their training and government programs that may help improve your company’s financials.

Veterans Are Multi-Skilled

Veterans acquire training, experience, and a variety of transferable skills during their military service that would benefit most employers. They often:

• Work well in teams
• Are adaptable, dependable, disciplined, and proactive
• Are excellent leaders and problem solvers
• Have a strong sense of responsibility and accountability
• Are goal-oriented
• Have sound decision-making abilities
• Are willing to learn and master new skills
• Are able to cultivate skills to help them meet new challenges
• Have higher levels of maturity and emotional intelligence

Adding Veterans to your team enables you to gain apprentices and employees who are flexible, natural leaders, and can develop a broad range of job skills. Additionally, it diversifies your workforce, which serves to better your organization.

By hiring Veterans, your company may also qualify for government tax benefits through the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) program (specific conditions apply). 

A Diverse Workforce Benefits Your Company

By 2035, the majority of the workforce will be made up of minorities. Companies, particularly in the tech industry, that don’t view DEIA as a competitive weapon risk falling behind. Today, most companies tend to rely on a largely homogeneous workforce made up primarily of white males to fill tech roles. To remain relevant and sustainable, industry employers need to do better when it comes to recruiting and retaining diverse candidates.

A talent pool made up of Veterans provides a ready-made opportunity. The U.S. military has a racial diversity percentage of 43% people of color, compared to the U.S. workforce, which is made up of 37% people of color. The Department of Veterans Affairs projects that minority veterans groups will grow from 23.2% of the total Veteran population in 2017 to 32.8% by 2037. 

In addition, the benefits of a diverse workforce are undeniable:  

• Diverse teams lead to more innovation. Teams made up of individuals with varying skill sets, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences typically bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the table. This allows leaders to tap into people’s strengths and leverage them to create higher-performing teams. In addition, a Harvard study found that “higher cognitive diversity leads to greater performance and faster learning — all factors that can spark creativity and innovation.”   
• Companies are better able to recruit and retain talent. Younger generations are drawn to companies that reflect their values, and diversity, equity, and inclusion rank high on the list. In fact, DEI is a critical factor that millennials intentionally consider when deciding whether or not to join a company. Cultivating a culture that prioritizes DEI can help make your organization more appealing to prospective hires as well as existing employees. 
• Employee engagement increases. Employees who feel a sense of belonging in an organization may be more likely to embrace opportunities to share and offer refreshing perspectives and ideas. Beyond higher retention rates, better-recruiting opportunities, and an enhanced brand reputation, fostering an inclusive environment can help increase overall employee satisfaction and engagement, and encourage greater professional and personal growth within your workforce. 

Apprenti Connects Veterans and Employers to Fill Tech Roles

Often, the challenge for Veterans is translating the skills and experiences they learned in the military to civilian careers. While their skills are transferable, Veterans don’t always know how to apply them, nor do hiring managers understand how their skill sets fit their needs.

That’s where Apprenti comes in. The Registered Apprenticeship program helps put Veterans on a fast track to a career in technology. Working with Apprenti enables Veterans to qualify and access military-provided education and training benefits such as the GI Bill; Veteran Readiness and Employment for Veterans with a service-connected disability; and the DOD SkillBridge program, which allows Veterans to gain civilian work experience through specific industry training, apprenticeships, or internships during their last 180 days of service. Apprenti also offers services for Veterans with disabilities through its dedicated Access Team, which helps apprentices identify and implement accommodations and provides equal access for all during the apprenticeship program.   

Additionally, Apprenti can match employers with qualified Veterans, who will receive classroom and on-the-job training relevant to the roles in which they are placed as apprentices. In this way, Apprenti helps employers source diverse candidates, including Veterans, quickly and easily to fill critical tech positions. As such, employers can take advantage of opportunities to diversify their workforce, reap the competitive benefits of diverse teams, and build a strong workforce for the future.   

If you’re considering expanding your workforce through apprenticeship, and are interested in hiring Veterans, you can visit our website to learn more about Apprenti Veteran Services and how we partner with employers to help you build a thriving, diverse workforce for the 21st century.