As readers of this blog know, those HR practitioners could make some points with their managers by saving some of that budget via hiring transitioning military, many of whom will have a government-paid relocation included in their transition process.

For instance, this week a company asked me if there was a “catch” to the relocation benefits provided to military personnel as they transition back to civilian life at the conclusion of their service obligation.

I explained that the government will relocate the individual from their exit location back to their “home of record” (location where they entered the military) or the equivalent distance!

This is another reason why companies find military experienced candidates so attractive as new additions to their staff. Any savings on RELO costs is a huge benefit to a future employer.  Even with some companies dropping relo reimbursement due to economic pressures, the military relocation benefit still makes a transitioning military candidate more “mobile” than a civilian candidate.

Every company has certain categories of positions that are in constant need of filling. Whether those positions are computer programmers, help desk technicians, quality assurance inspectors or warehouse and distribution specialists, it becomes frustrating when your company and your company’s competition are both fishing in the same ponds for the same people. How long does it take you to fill these positions? And, do you have to pay more to get these people in order to beat your competition, or are you constantly losing out because you can’t match the salaries offered by your competition? Did you have to bring on workers with H-1B visas to meet the demand? Is there a better way to build a pipeline of qualified applicants to fill the constant demand? Is there a different “pond” you could be fishing in for underutilized talent? There is – read on!

As mentioned in my last blog, more than 80% of the jobs we have in the military have a civilian equivalent. Generally, the main differences between the qualifications of civilian applicants and military applicants doing the same work are that the military applicants:

• Might not possess a particular certification or required license. This occurs because the military doesn’t require them to have the civilian certification/license in order to do the job in the military.
• Might not have working knowledge of specific commercial applications used by civilian companies. This is because, given some of the unique requirements we have in the military, many of our military applications have been custom built for us. So, if you ask the veteran with 12 years of human resources experience whether he/she has used Taleo (a talent management system), he/she will say “no”. But he/she will be very familiar with the military’s custom built version of a talent management system, and will have a deep understanding of the full talent management lifecycle.

These surmountable differences leave us with a huge military talent pool every year who have most of the knowledge, skills and aptitudes needed to do a great job for a civilian company. More than 200,000 veterans leave the service each year (due to retirement or end of contract) and most struggle for months to find a job commensurate with their abilities and level of management/supervisory experience. This is a talent pool that is grossly underutilized and that would be a bounty for any savvy employer who was willing to try this idea to recruit veterans.

Consider creating an on-the-job training (OJT) program and market it to veterans. OJT programs can be designed for any kind of job, from human resource specialists to business analysts to security guards to any manner of technical positions. The benefit to the employer is that they can build a pipeline of heavily skilled, easily trainable quality candidates who will be groomed in exactly the way needed for the jobs in highest demand in their organization. The benefit to the veteran is an opportunity to either build on the training he/she has already received in the military or to pursue a new career in the civilian workplace.

So, maybe right now you are thinking that an OJT program could be a good way to tap into that pool of transitioning service members and help build your pipeline, but you are holding off because you know your company’s training budget has been severely reduced. The good news here is that there is a way for employers to recoup much of the costs to produce the training by structuring the training such that it qualifies as an approved education or training program eligible for the G.I. Bill. This means that the veteran can use his/her G.I. Bill benefits to pay to participate in the OJT program, thereby allowing the employer to recoup some of the cost to produce the training (i.e., instructional designer’s fee, facilities rental, material production, etc.)

Here are a few basic things to know about creating an OJT program that qualifies for G.I. Bill reimbursement:

• The new Post 9/11 G.I. Bill does not cover OJT programs. Earlier versions of the G.I. Bill (i.e., Montgomery G.I. Bill and Reserve Educational Assistance Program or REAP) do cover OJT programs. View a comparison chart of the types of training covered by different versions of the bills.

• Veterans who are eligible for both the Post 9/11 and one other version of the G.I. Bill have to make an irrevocable decision if they want to take advantage of the very generous Post 9/11 G.I. Bill. So, the earlier you market these OJT programs to the military community, the greater likeliness you will find those veterans who have not yet made the irrevocable decision to switch to the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill.

• The G.I. Bill benefits are paid directly to the veteran, who in turn pays you. They are generally paid one month in arrears. So, for example, if they begin training on September 1st, they will receive their benefit check for the month of September in October. Keep that lag time in mind as you determine your tuition and payment plan.

• In order for your training program to be declared G.I. Bill –eligible it must first be approved by your State Approving Agency. State Approving Agencies approve the programs within their borders and determine which programs are appropriate for veterans to enroll in to utilize their VA educational benefits.

• The program must include an employment objective (i.e., “Help Desk Technician” or “Computer Software Engineer” or “Storage and Distribution Manager”)

• Hint: go to O*Net Online and type in your position name. It will display a number of related occupational titles with associated Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Systems codes.

• Select the occupational title(s) that most closely resembles the position for which you are designing the OJT program and review the lists of tasks performed and tools used by that occupation.

• Incorporate those tasks and tools into your training design, plus any other specific requirements.

• In order to be classified as an OJT program, the training must be for a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 24 months in length. 6 months equals 1,000 hours of training if the OJT program is full time.

• The OJT program must have an associated incremental pay scale. This means that while the costs of the program can be offset by the G.I. Bill, the employer is still required to pay a wage to the trainee. The starting wage can be minimum wage (or higher). The ending wage should be equivalent to the hourly wage you would pay if you were hiring someone who was already fully qualified. There should be at least one incremental pay increase between start and finish for a six month program and more if your program is longer than 6 months. Pay increases can be tied to training milestone achievements (i.e., pass this exam or assessment) or to program duration milestones (i.e., every 4 weeks).

• The OJT program must include a detailed training plan. So, for a 6 month training program, what will you cover during the 1,000 hours of training?

Once you submit your training plan for review, the SAA approval can be granted in as little as 2-8 weeks if you’ve met all the criteria and have structured the program correctly. If you would like assistance in designing an OJT program, please contact me. There are minor record-keeping requirements that must be kept on file and also reported so that the veteran will be paid. Your SAA will provide you with those details.

Once you get approval for your G.I. Bill –eligible OJT program, you need to market your program to veterans. But where should you promote your program to get the attention of the military member? There are at least a half dozen avenues you can use to get the word out to the veteran community, from military transition centers to social networking sites. If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to register for my web seminar entitled “Military Applicant Sourcing Options” (now available on demand).

Thanks to The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (provision mentioned in Subtitle C – Tax Incentives for Business, Part III – Incentives For New Jobs on page 223 of the act –whew!) there is a new veteran category eligible for the WOTC. For a limited duration (January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2010) companies can take a maximum tax credit of $2,400 per veteran for any veteran (not just a service-disabled veteran) who was:

• Discharged or released from active duty in the Armed Forces at any time during the 5-year period ending on the hiring date, AND
• In receipt of unemployment compensation under State or Federal law for not less than 4 weeks during the 1- year period ending on the hiring date.

This new veteran category of WOTC is retroactive to apply to individuals who began work for an employer after December 31, 2008.

So, how much paperwork is involved in order to claim the tax credit? Not much, so it is really a shame more employers don’t make the effort to do this. Depending on how you found the veteran applicant there are a total of two forms that require completion in order to attain certification.

If you found the veteran through your state workforce agency (SWA), you will need to complete the employer’s portion of the:

1. Conditional Certification, Work Opportunity Tax Credit, ETA Form 9062, and the
2. Pre-Screening Notice and Certification Request for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, Form 8850

If you found the veteran on a commercial job board or at a military job fair, or if he or she applied directly to your company, you will need to complete the employer’s portion of the:

1. Individual Characteristics Form (ICF) Work Opportunity Tax Credit Form 9061, and the
2. Pre-Screening Notice and Certification Request for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, Form 8850

If you found the veteran through your SWA, his or her veterans’ status may already be conditionally certified by the SWA. Either the SWA or the applicant should provide you with a copy of the Conditional Certification, Work Opportunity Tax Credit, ETA Form 9062. All you need to do is complete the employer portion of the form, which asks for:

• Your company name,
• The position/job title the applicant is being hired to fill,
• The employment start date, and
• The starting wage.

Both the Form 9062 and the Form 8850 must be sent back to the SWA no later than 28 days after the applicant starts work. If all information can be verified, you will receive a WOTC Employer Certification Form for that veteran.

If you found the veteran on a commercial job board or at a military job fair, or if he or she applied directly to your company, you can still request certification of his or her status by completing the Individual Characteristics Form (ICF) Work Opportunity Tax Credit Form 9061, collecting a copy of the required documentation (listed on the form) from the veteran, and providing it and the Form 8850 to your SWA for verification.

With the Form 9061, you must first determine if the applicant is willing to provide the required information. Prospective employees are not required to provide information of this sort to an employer – their participation must be voluntary. A simple way to do this is to make this a routine document that is presented to all applicants – attach a cover sheet indicating that status disclosure is completely voluntary and does not adversely affect hiring decisions.

If the applicant is willing to provide the required information, have him/her complete blocks 6-8 and 12-19 of the form. The form must be completed on or before the applicant is offered employment.

There are some military placement companies and military job boards already collecting this information as a service to the employer. If you are considering using a placement company and/or a job board as part of your military hiring strategy you should inquire if it collects this information for you.

As with the earlier situation, both the Form 9061 and the Form 8850 must be sent back to the SWA no later than 28 days after the applicant starts work. If all information can be verified, you will receive a WOTC Employer Certification Form for that veteran. Those certification forms serve as documented proof that will back up the claim you make on the IRS Form 5884 when your company files its taxes.

Note that the language on Forms 9061 and 8850 has not yet been updated to reflect the new veteran category, and it is yet undetermined whether the forms will ever be updated, given the relatively short duration this new category is in effect. I’ve spoken with a few state WOTC coordinators and their advice is to just write in the category “unemployed veteran” across the top of the form.

The WOTC can be carried back one year or forward 20 years, which is especially helpful for smaller businesses who may not have enough tax liability this year to take the full credit, but who have hired qualified veterans and are otherwise entitled to the credit.

]]> http://www.HireMilitary.com/2009/03/an-update-on-tax-credits-for-hiring-military-veterans/feed/ 3 http://www.HireMilitary.com/2009/01/how-hiring-military-veterans-helps-your-company-save-money-%e2%80%93-part-5-many-veterans-have-a-security-clearance/ http://www.HireMilitary.com/2009/01/how-hiring-military-veterans-helps-your-company-save-money-%e2%80%93-part-5-many-veterans-have-a-security-clearance/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:25:30 +0000 Lisa Rosser http://www.hiremilitary.com/?p=179 If you recruit for a federal agency, a defense contractor or other company that does business with the government, and you have to fill positions with cleared resources (i.e., people who have security clearances), or people who are “clearable” (capable of obtaining a security clearance), then you are already painfully aware of the cost involved in obtaining a clearance (in the thousands of dollars for a Top Secret) and the time it takes to process and adjudicate one (average of 1 year for a Top Secret). And, generally, until your new hire has been awarded his/her clearance, your company cannot have him/her working on projects that require the clearance.

So, clearly, it is better from a cost savings and productivity standpoint for your company to find someone who already has a clearance or who can more easily obtain one so he/she can begin being productive as quickly as possible after starting. This is why sourcing from the military is a great way to fill those “clearance required” positions.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, many (though not all) service members already have a security clearance as a requirement to perform their job in the military. This population includes college seniors who are about to be commissioned through the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program. There are several ways to confirm the status of the clearance.

If your company is a defense contractor, it should have an account to access the Joint Personnel Adjudication System (JPAS), which is the Department of Defense’s personnel security migration system. From there your designated JPAS account holder(s) can look within the system and confirm if the veteran you are considering for a position does in fact have a current clearance, or has evidence of a clearance in his/her history.

If you recruit for a government agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has an internal government database that is linked to JPAS. This provides an across-the-government view of current and historical information which allows agencies to confirm clearance status online.

Can you still consider an applicant who previously had a clearance but who left the military a year ago? As long as the break in military service has not exceeded more than 24 months and an inquiry discloses no reason why the clearance should not be accepted you should still be able to have his/her clearance reinstated without needing to redo the full investigation. However, if the break has been more than 24 months there will need to be a reinvestigation. The process should be faster for someone who previously held a clearance versus someone who has never had a clearance.

Even if the veteran you are considering never had a clearance, in general he/she could be considered more “clearable” compared to an applicant who never served in the military, simply because the veteran has already passed a number of background checks before being allowed to serve, including finger print checks, and (possibly) criminal record checks, and financial credit checks.

Some food for thought: I have spoken with some recruiters who fixate on trying to find a veteran with both a Top Secret (TS) clearance and some additional skill (such as functional familiarity with a specific commercial software application such as Siebel or SAP). I have to remind them that often the veteran with the TS clearance can learn the missing skill faster than the civilian with the skill can obtain a TS clearance. People who are successful in the military are that way because they are highly adaptable and trainable. Your company could still save a lot of time and money by sending the veteran with the TS to Siebel training versus hiring the civilian with Siebel skills and waiting up to a year to be able to staff him/her on a project.

There are three categories of veterans who, if hired by your company, would entitle your organization to receive the WOTC. A maximum tax credit of up to $2,400 is available to companies that hire:

1. A veteran who was referred to your company by the Department of Veterans Affairs as part of a vocational rehabilitation program, or
2. A veteran who is a member of a family that received food stamps for at least a 3-month period in the past 15 months
3. A veteran with a service-connected disability who, within the last year, was either a) discharged or released from active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces, or b) unemployed for a period or periods totaling at least 6 months. This tax credit rises to a maximum of $4,800.

“Service-connected disability” sounds a bit scary and intimidating to those unfamiliar with the term. However, what it really means is that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has evaluated the veteran and has determined that he or she is considered disabled by an injury or illness that was incurred or aggravated during active military service. Disability levels are rated from 10% up to 100%.

An example of a service-connected disability might be an infantry soldier who spent his career parachuting out of perfectly good airplanes and as a result of those numerous hard landings has injured his back or torn up some ligaments in his knees.

To the casual observer, this veteran looks, acts, and walks no different than any other person. But the VA may have evaluated him and determined that he is 30% disabled due to injuries incurred because of his service. Other disabilities could be hearing loss due to working around generators, lower back injuries from riding in cramped armored vehicles, even high blood pressure from working in a very stressful environment. Of course, it also applies to more obvious injuries such as loss of a limb, or eyesight, or burns.

The IRS also provides a tax credit (via Form 8826) of up to $5,000 to small businesses (defined as having gross receipts of less than $1 million OR no more than 30 full-time employees) to cover expenditures related to making your workplace more accessible to a disabled employee. Eligible expenses could be things like installing special readers for those with visual impairments, installing a height adjustable desk to make it wheelchair accessible or contracting for a sign language interpreter to accompany an employee with hearing loss to attend training.

Many states also offer an employer tax credit incentive for hiring veterans with a service-connected disability. For example, Pennsylvania has an Employment Incentive Payment (EIP) program for companies who hire veterans who are completing rehabilitative services through the VA. An employee must work one year in order to qualify the employer for the maximum first year credit of $2,700. An employer can earn a tax credit of up to 30 percent of the first $9,000 in qualified first year wages; 20 percent for year two; and 10 percent for year three. Also, if the employer provides or pays for child care or transportation services for each new employee, up to $1,800 of addition EIP tax credits are available over the three-year period.

So, just think how much money your company could save if it made the effort to hire even 10 veterans next year from one of those eligible categories. Now, think bigger – 20, 50, 100 veterans!

If you’d like more information about hiring disabled military veterans I encourage you to attend my web seminar entitled “Hiring Disabled Military Veterans”. The schedule for all of my web seminars can be found by clicking this link.

All military recruits undergo thorough background checks before being allowed to serve, including finger print checks, and may include criminal record checks, and a financial credit check.

Military members whose jobs require a security clearance undergo multiple investigative processes to obtain and maintain that clearance. Full re-investigations are required every 5-10 years (depending on the type of clearance) for as long as they serve in the military. A security clearance background investigation includes:

• A National Agency Check, during which investigators review records held by federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Office of Personnel Management.
• A Local Agency Check, which calls in criminal history records held by local law enforcement agencies such as police departments and sheriffs with jurisdiction over the areas where the service member has lived, gone to school or worked.
• Financial checks.
• Field interviews of people who know the veteran, including co-workers, employers, friends, educators and neighbors. The service member provides a list of contacts, though the investigator may (and often does) talk with others beyond the names submitted.
• Checks of records held by employers, courts and rental offices.
• A personal interview with the service member.

Not every job in the military requires a security clearance, so not all who have served will have undergone the above mentioned investigation.

Frequent and random drug testing is a fact of life in the military. Active duty members must undergo a urinalysis at least once a year. Members of the Guard and Reserves must be tested at least once every two years. The reality is that most will be tested more frequently than those minimums due to the many options military commanders have for legally justifying that a test be done. Department of Defense labs test over 60,000 urine samples every month. Annually, anywhere from .04% to 2% (based on FY 2001 statistics; the range varies by Service and by Component) of all service members will test positive for drug use, and, as drug use is considered incompatible with military service, those members will be discharged from the service with something other than an honorable discharge.

Posted by Lisa Rosser, Author of and Speaker/Workshop Leader on The Value Of a Veteran(TM): The Guide for Human Resource Professionals to Regarding, Recruiting, and Retaining Military Veterans

All service members who serve overseas are provided training on the local culture. A number of service members, by virtue of the time they spent overseas or as a result of the job requirements they had while stationed abroad, speak a second (or third) language. Most of the military services have even set up programs whereby their members can take free language training through Rosetta Stone. Online access to all 30 Rosetta Stone language training courses is free to all Army Active, Guard, and Reserve soldiers as well as Army civilian employees and contracted Reserve Office Training Corps (ROTC) and United States Military Academy (USMA) cadets. The Air Force has contracted for a similar program. The Marine Corps offers the Rosetta Stone courses for free, but for a select number of languages.

So why should recruiters and hiring managers care? Employers who are knowledgeable about hiring military know that service members begin exploring civilian career options as far as a year in advance of separation. So, if hiring for international positions is routine for your company, you should begin reaching out and building relationships with separating veterans as early as possible. You can describe the types of international positions and assignments you have and if those positions require a level of proficiency in a language, you can remind the service member that he or she can increase their level of hiring attractiveness by taking advantage of the free language training the military offers. Then, when the veteran is 1-2 months away from their separation date, they can apply for your position and already have the language proficiency requirement met. And that doesn’t cost the employer anything other than the time to build the relationship.

Some military officers have a job specialty called Foreign Area Officer which requires them to become regional experts on a geographic area and on the culture of the people who live there. Their military jobs require them to be able to communicate and interact with foreign militaries and organizations in their assigned regions. The Foreign Area Officer Association is made up of over 750+ current and formers military FAO’s from all services. The association allows employers to post positions and to review member resumes for free.

Posted by Lisa Rosser, Author of and Speaker/Workshop Leader on The Value Of a Veteran(TM): The Guide for Human Resource Professionals to Regarding, Recruiting, and Retaining Military Veterans

The veteran has up to one year from the date of separation to take advantage of this benefit. So, I encourage my clients to search for military members with the right skill sets where ever they may be and then ask them if they would be willing to utilize their final move benefit to relocate to where the job is.  Roughly half of the over 225,000 veterans separating from military service each year are coming off of active duty tours, so that is a tremendous source of talent that can be relocated and utilized anywhere in the US.

Author, blogger, speaker, and guru of online marketing strategy David Dalka quoted me and this military relocation idea in his recent ERE.net article entitled How To Hire True Diversity and Get Beyond Hiring Only Local Candidates. In the article he offers five unique ideas for recruiters to find the talent they need without artificially limiting themselves to local candidates.

Do you want to know another veteran hiring secret? Some really fantastic military talent is “hiding” overseas. We have active duty service members stationed in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa, and a good percentage of them are within one year of separating from the military and are planning their transition from active duty AT THIS VERY MINUTE. They would love to hear about your company and how their skills could be a great fit. This overseas-stationed sub-population within the military gets ignored, mostly because companies and recruiters either haven’t figured out (1) they exist, and/or (2) how to reach them. And, now that you know Uncle Sam will foot the bill for relocation back to the good ole U-S-of-A, there really is no excuse not to pitch your positions to this group.

If you want additional ideas on how to build your company brand with the military job hunter, I encourage you to sign up for my web seminar “Marketing to Attract the Military Applicant”.

Posted by Lisa Rosser, Author of and Speaker/Workshop Leader on The Value Of a Veteran(TM): The Guide for Human Resource Professionals to Regarding, Recruiting, and Retaining Military Veterans

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