Nonetheless, veterans often struggle with their transition into civilian life and workplaces. This problem often limits the extent to which work organizations utilize their talents. Here, we briefly review relevant work from outside the management field and nascent work within the field to build a conceptual model for understanding the integration of veterans into the workplace. We do this by applying diversity and person-environment fit perspectives. A diversity standpoint helps us to understand veterans as a social group and their inclusion in the workplace, while the person-environment fit perspective helps us describe veterans’ compatibility with their work environments in terms of organizational demands and veterans’ needs. We intend for this conceptual model to guide future empirical research on veterans as human capital and their transition into civilian organizations as part of their societal reintegration, career development, and personal well-being.
Keywords: Military veterans, Diversity, Person-environment fit, Career development
Highlights
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Management scholars have neglected the study of military veterans at work.
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Veterans’ workplace experiences are part of their societal reintegration.
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Diversity theory explains veterans’ discrimination, stigma, and identity strain.
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Veterans’ attributes, perspectives, and KSAs fit organizational demands.
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Meaningful work can spillover to fit veterans’ life needs.
1. Introduction
Organizations continuously seek out human talent, and management scholars advise them to tap into a diverse human capital pool to obtain new insights and perspectives. Military veterans are an important and diverse human capital resource for the organizations of the countries they have served. Veterans possess desirable values and valuable knowledge, skills, and abilities. They are a sizable social group, given that there are 20.4 million veterans in the U.S., and more are joining the workforce. Yet, many organizations overlook veterans as a human capital resource or fail to fully utilize the KSAs they have developed through their military service.
The reasons for this discrepancy include population differences in age and health, having less civilian work experience, and taking a long time to find a job, particularly after leaving service. Also, some organizations are reluctant to hire veterans , and veterans often face bias during job screenings. Veterans who do gain employment tend to face discrimination, negative stereotypes, stigma, underemployment, identity strain, exclusion, and a lack of adjustment . For these and other reasons, many veterans struggle with integrating into a workplace as part of their transition into civilian life , which could include failing to find or maintain employment . These problems are evidenced in current employment and unemployment rates for veterans and civilians. While the unemployment rate for veterans (3.1%) 1 is favorable when compared to the civilians’ rate (3.7%) (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020a, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020b), the veteran employment2 rate is 46.8%, lower than the 63.2% rate for civilians (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020).
The integration of veterans into civilian life is a vital and important societal issue. As such, many institutional and governmental policy initiatives have been established to support the employment of veterans, including legal affirmative action protections against discrimination and the creation of governmental institutions such as the Department of Veterans Affairs. Further, scholars in sociology, labor economics, psychology, and health have explored the role of military service on economic attainment, employment, and well-being . Much of this research, however, has focused on fixing specific problems such as stress, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) consequences and symptoms . Unleashing the potential that veterans have for organizations and society has not received much scholarly attention. The management field is in the best position to fulfill this need, however, there is little research in management that seeks to understand veterans as a human capital pool. This is surprising given that corporate reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that veterans contribute different perspectives, viewpoints, and KSAs such as discipline, teamwork, and leadership , and because scholars in management and related fields have used military samples for their studies.
One reason for this lack of veteran-related research in the management field is the absence of theoretical guidance for scholars . Management scholars have begun to pay attention to veterans, but studies on the topic are scant, and they have focused only on the selection and hiring of veterans and on their ethics. Currently, the management field has a limited understanding of how firms can best manage veterans, particularly on human resource management after recruitment and selection. A more comprehensive grasp on veterans’ fit in the workplace and their experiences as a social group is needed to understand how organizations can better capitalize on this human capital resource.
Our goal is to propose a conceptual framework for understanding veteran-specific demographics, inclusion, and fit in organizations by applying management theories, particularly the diversity and person-environment (P-E) fit perspectives, which we judge to be the most directly applicable to the challenges that veterans face. We contribute to the management literature by delineating how veterans’ unique personal and social attributes and experiences shape their workplace fit, their levels of inclusion, and the outcomes for both the veterans and their employing organization. We use this framework to inform how organizations employing veterans can best utilize veterans’ unique attributes and KSAs to enhance their compatibility with their civilian work organizations, jobs, and careers, and to be able to foster their inclusion by allowing them access to resources and the ability to fully participate, contribute, and influence decisions in their organizations. We summarize our arguments with testable propositions.
2. Research on veterans’ personal and work lives
A veteran is a person who served in the military and was discharged in other than dishonorable conditions . This includes those who served in times of peace and war, those deployed to combat or not, and those who served any amount of time and left voluntarily or involuntarily, which could include having a contract end, a medical discharge, or retiring. Most service members experience a transition into the civilian workplace through employment. A small proportion of service members (about 17%) reach full retirement while in the military . Military retirement can come at a relatively early age and some military service members can retire after just 15 years of service under the Temporary Early Retirement Authority (U.S. Department of Defense, 2020). However, even those who retire may seek out employment to better support their lifestyles or may have a desire to continue to have a productive working life.
The transition to civilian life is not easy, which is evidenced by the comparatively low employment rate we noted earlier, by the feelings of identity strain that veterans in the civilian workplace report, and by veterans’ high rate of suicide . These issues suggest that veterans struggle to successfully navigate their transition into the civilian workplace. Moreover, their ability to integrate successfully into civilian organizations is likely to depend on their distinct experiences in the military, particularly as some experiences (e.g., combat) are associated with adverse work and life outcomes in the future. While the management field has lagged in the study of veterans’ transition into civilian life, this issue has been explored in labor economics, sociology, psychology, and health. Research in these fields has addressed veterans’ societal reintegration, including the (typically adverse) impact of their experiences of trauma, stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on unemployment and underemployment. These experiences are of interest to management scholars, along with life-related outcomes such as socioeconomic attainment, health and well-being, family relationships, rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, and incidences of suicidal ideation. Given their relevance and important implications for human resource management, we present a brief review of research on veterans from non-management perspectives.
2.1. Veterans’ civilian societal integration
Sociological research on veterans has centered on the “life course” perspective . This research considers military service as a life-altering experience that influences veterans’ entire lives, including their physical and mental health , educational attainment, interactions with civilians, homelessness rate and family relationships . These studies consistently show there is a multitude of negative effects from military service while veterans reintegrate into civilian society. Research examining military experience, however, shows either negative or no effects from military experience on economic outcoome, but a lower likelihood of being called back after a job interview . Studies comparing “wartime” or service periods (e.g., World War II, Vietnam, post-9/11) depict differences in the amount of civilian support for the wars and the impact of such support on the ability of veterans to reintegrate into society. Additionally, differences across gender, race, and ethnicity affect veterans’ levels of employment and wages .
Spanning the last several decades, labor economics and sociology perspectives have examined how the military experience affects future civilian work and whether or not having had military service leads to greater levels of productivity, human capital, and higher wages. These perspectives present mixed findings . One important finding, however, is that certain military occupations transfer more easily into civilian jobs . This has led to more recent studies that question whether or not a match between civilian jobs and military training leads to higher rates of employment and socioeconomic attainment. Such “job matching” may mean that veterans who obtain transferable experiences in the military may transition better and have higher employment prospects than veterans in military fields that provide an unclear path to civilian jobs . Studies from labor economics have utilized a variety of data sources and methods, including archival panel data and data from various governmental sources , cross-sectional surveys and experimental designs . Nonetheless, this economic perspective on the transferability of military experience and employment uses a “macro” lens that, while highlighting the importance of job transferability, is unable to answer questions about how organizations can best capitalize on the skills and abilities that people develop in the military.
Sociologists and economists have studied the role of demographics (e.g., race and gender) on wages and employment while providing a diversity perspective on veterans. Findings show that military service improves the employment rate and wages of African American men, and as a bridging experience, increases their earnings and college enrollment rates. The military experience also serves as a source of acculturation and improves veterans’ human and social capital, serving as a credential that is “especially advantageous for disadvantaged groups” . These differences, along with other attributes such as veteran’s education, imply that veterans are as diverse as their experiences and should not be treated as a monolithic group.
2.2. Veterans’ health and well-being
Research on veterans’ health and well-being centers on psychological injuries and disorders such as PTSD, stress, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, some of which have comorbidity. Despite centering on adverse outcomes, health studies also have shown that the military equips people with the ability to work under pressure.
According to the DSM-5 (APA, 2013), the guide used by psychologists and other mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders, PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that occurs in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, such as war. PTSD is associated with the intense reliving of traumatic or life-threatening events through disruptive memories, ruminating on past events, having nightmares, avoiding scenarios that serve as reminders of the previous event, and being hypervigilant . Research on veterans’ PTSD is extensive, perhaps due to its relevance to medical and psychological care, but PTSD is only one of various mental disorders that can result from the experience of war. Despite being associated with veterans, PTSD is more common among civilians since a variety of traumatic events such as natural disasters, violent personal assaults, accidents, as well as war, can lead to the disorder. Further, the psychological impact of war is stronger for civilians than for veterans, even if this impact is overlooked by the media.
The actual PTSD rate for veterans is unclear and subject to debate. A reanalysis of Vietnam veterans’ data suggests a lifetime prevalence of 18.7%, and 9.1% at 10 to 12 years after the war . Government estimates suggest that 20% to 30% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans show PTSD symptoms (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, 2015). Meta-analytic data for Iraq veterans show that PTSD estimates range widely from 1.4% to 60%, with an average prevalence estimated at 23% . Nonetheless, veterans who have been diagnosed with PTSD or show symptoms of the disorder face poorer levels of health, a lower quality of life, higher incidences of self-medicating, higher rates of substance abuse, and a high suicide rate, along with work-related outcomes such as unemployment, poor workplace functioning, and absenteeism .
Research in health and well-being shows that having had combat experience presents veterans with physical and mental health problems throughout their lives, including during retirement. The unique, traumatic experience of combat can lead to a great amount of distress during and after service. Such experiences may be associated with depression, anxiety, anger problems, and functional impairment . Combat veterans are also more likely to divorce and to experience PTSD than other veterans . Combat experience is not common to all veterans, although approximately 58% of post-9/11 service members have been deployed at least once to a combat zone , and more than 2.7 million service members were deployed to combat zones between 2001 and 2015, accounting for more than five million combat deployments (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018). Further, the indirect exposure to combat experienced in many military jobs, such as damage control surgery medics in war zones , can also lead to trauma and psychological injury. In sum, actual combat and indirect exposure to combat are important to consider because they can adversely impact the personal and work lives of veterans.
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