Our conversation unveils the essentials of connecting with the veteran community, deciphering the language of military experience for the corporate world, and fostering an inclusive culture that benefits both the organisation and its new veteran employees. The panellists unravel the practicality of signing the Armed Forces Covenant and the advantages of attending employment fairs designed for veterans. They emphasize the importance of supporting not just the veterans but their entire families, recognizing the social value veterans add to an organisation, particularly in the public sector.
Finally, actionable advice from our panellists outlines strategies to harness the calibre of the veterans' talent pool. They discuss how companies can engage with government support systems like the Career Transition Partnership, and the economic advantage of viewing military training as a national investment. Listen as we encourage the parking and transportation industry to open its doors wider, presenting the varied opportunities it holds for those who have donned the uniform and now seek a new mission in their civilian voyage. Join us in this eye-opening discussion that promises to reshape the way you think about veteran integration into the business landscape.
Our conversation unveils the essentials of connecting with the veteran community, deciphering the language of military experience for the corporate world, and fostering an inclusive culture that benefits both the organisation and its new veteran employees. The panellists unravel the practicality of signing the Armed Forces Covenant and the advantages of attending employment fairs designed for veterans. They emphasize the importance of supporting not just the veterans but their entire families, recognizing the social value veterans add to an organisation, particularly in the public sector.
Finally, actionable advice from our panellists outlines strategies to harness the calibre of the veterans' talent pool. They discuss how companies can engage with government support systems like the Career Transition Partnership, and the economic advantage of viewing military training as a national investment. Listen as we encourage the parking and transportation industry to open its doors wider, presenting the varied opportunities it holds for those who have donned the uniform and now seek a new mission in their civilian voyage. Join us in this eye-opening discussion that promises to reshape the way you think about veteran integration into the business landscape.
Hello and welcome to the Leading Change podcast. I'm Jade Nebel, the regular host Today. I'm going to be handing over the range to a guest host, though. Today's host would be Dean Funnell Connell, and the subject we'll be talking about today is how businesses can support the veteran community in transitioning to roles within parking and transportation. So, without further ado, hand over to you, dean, take it away.
Speaker 2:
Hi, I'm Dean Funnell Connell. I'm the sales director at Conjuring and today we're going to be talking about how organizations can do more to support the veteran community. So we've got a great panel of guests on this podcast, so we'll just go around the room there and just get some feedback. Find out, firstly, who you are, what organization you work for and then, to get some immediate value for this podcast, just one or two things that your organization does to support businesses recruiting people from military backgrounds. So if we start with James Cameron from Mission Community, Hi, my name's James.
Speaker 3:
My background's in the Army. I spent a while knocking around in tanks and since then I've run a charity called Mission Community. That's about promoting the armed forces community in society, so really great for the opportunities to contribute.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant Thanks, James and James Murphy from TechVets.
Speaker 4:
Hi, dean. Yeah, James Murphy, I'm the director of the Forces Employment Charity TechVets Program and, for zero fees, we provide employers access to trained and technically skilled talent from the armed forces community who are specifically seeking careers in information technology.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant. Thank you, James and Jenna Richardson from the Forces Employment Charity.
Speaker 5:
Hi, dean, thank you. Yeah, I'm Jenna Richardson. I'm also from the Forces Employment Charity. I am employee liaison and one of my roles is to help businesses to understand how they can reach the veteran and the armed forces community and to support them in reaching them as prospective workforce.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant. Thank you, jenna, and over to Adam March and Wincott from the White Ensign Association.
Speaker 6:
Good morning Adam, march and Wincott. The White Ensign Association is a naval charity supporting naval and Royal Marine service leavers as they transition out of service, and we've been doing that since 1958. So we're reasonably good at it now.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant Thanks Adam and Gareth Williams from Job Opoe.
Speaker 7:
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the invite. Yeah, gareth, from Job Opoe. As you say, job Opoe is effectively an organisation that connects veterans and service leavers with employers who want them or think they want them, or indeed don't know they want them yet. We do a lot of work with our employer partners to make sure they recognise the value and the benefit that veterans and service leavers can offer their organisation.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant Thanks, gareth. And obviously Veterans County is something that we'll get into as well and get people looking up and plug it into as we go through. But just wanted to start with in terms of the journey that we're on within parking. So we launched Veterans in Parking just over a year ago. We have over 100 members now on our LinkedIn community that supports that, and I think the important part that we've picked up from that is a veteran community. Sorry, the military community goes beyond just the veterans themselves. It includes the spouses, the children's of those that have served and are still serving, in addition to reservists and the volunteer cadet forces as well. So, jenna, probably one for you as a place to start with your in how organisations can go beyond their commitment of signing the Armed Forces Covenant, what else they could be doing after that period.
Speaker 5:
I think, in terms of the veterans and the families, it's about visibility. I think I think employers if they can make themselves clearly forces-friendly and supportive of the challenges that both the veterans, the spouses and partners of the veterans and the currently serving and the young people in the community are faced with and they can have strategies in place to support those challenges, I think it makes organisations much more appealing as a prospective employer for these groups.
Speaker 2:
And Jenna on signing the Armed Forces Covenant. So, as an organisation does that, do they get direct access to organisations such as the Forces Employment Charity, or do they need to go searching for them?
Speaker 5:
So when an organisation signs the Armed Forces Covenant, they'll be allocated a specific point of contact, if you like, within the Ministry of Defence, and that individual is then able to sort of direct them to all the different types of support that is available to them as an employer. I mean they will be directed to organisations like all the organisations that are represented here, and the organisations that are represented here are all. Really one thing you'll see from this community is the passion and the desire to support our community members, and these organisations here are always happy for employers to reach out to them for support, guidance, advice in any way that we can help.
Speaker 2:
Now that's brilliant, jenna, and yeah, definitely the experience that I've had personally in sort of meeting all of you guys on separate occasions and then coming together as the military community really likes to do so. James, at TechVet, obviously you come in contact with many organisations promoting roles to service leavers, so for a business at the start of their journey, is there anything else that you'd advise beyond what Jenna's added there?
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I suppose the talent pool is always going to move where they can see great opportunities. So for them to be able to see those opportunities, as Jenna was saying, you've got to make yourselves a bit more visible as a forces-friendly employer, and there are numerous ways in which people can do that. There are certain activities that someone can conduct within an organization to make their company more visible. That might be engaging with the employment fairs. There's plenty of opportunities not just within the companies here, but the whole veteran ecosystem is rife with employment opportunities, employment fairs, promoting those opportunities. So companies presenting managing a stand at one of those events instantly starts to get people aware of what their company are doing, what sort of opportunities they have, and it becomes a slightly more recognized brand. So there is certainly that.
Speaker 4:
I think the other thing that companies can do at the start of that journey, which will tie into the Armed Forces Covenant work and the employer recognition scheme activities, is to try to find those individuals that may be already in the organization who are veterans or partners and spouses who may want to support that activity. Because when you start to build that internal veteran group, or ERG employer resource group as many companies call it, you provide an opportunity for people to come in to a very warm and open environment that welcomes them in because they can see people with a similar background. But additionally, what that ERG will do is support the HR team, the talent teams, in understanding what that talent pool looks like and how to draw people in, what the challenges are and how to best articulate those sort of translation skills.
Speaker 2:
James in terms of is there a central organization? So Jenna mentioned in terms of signing up to the Armed Forces Covenant and getting access to those people, is there an organization that can guide a business to where those event fairs happen and when they are?
Speaker 4:
Yeah, absolutely so. One of the priority places for companies to go to will be the career transition partnership, which is the official contract that's in place with the MOD to support those leaving the military, and those events are open to the wider forces community and they happen fairly regularly. They have an events page, the career transition website. That event page has all of those events listed on there, the virtual and in-person events Separately. As Jenna mentioned the point of contact the account manager, if you will, within defence relationship management they tend to focus quite a lot on tying those companies in.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, james. So in terms of it sounds like there's lots of access, lots of ways that businesses can approach the military community, but in terms of the talent pool within the community itself, do we believe it's there to support an organisation in parking? So obviously, technology is now a massive part of what's going on there. So, james, a mission community. Are you seeing a real attraction there for that talent pool that could want to move into the parking sector?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely, the armed forces realise on having a turnover of people go through it. So every year something in the region of about 14,000 to 15,000 people leave the services. And they're doing that at every level, from early service leavers who are leaving before they've sort of completed their military service, so young people, generally speaking, who sort of 18 years of age and they're about, who, for one reason or another, have not been able to complete their sort of basic military service. But one end, and that's quite a raw, a young, a very sort of pliable audience of people who are a natural source of people who are leaving the military every year, all the way through to much more long-haired, crusty types who are leaving having done full military careers and everything in between. And that's a chunk of people, but of course they're distributed then across the country, so people tend to go back to the parts of the world that they come from. So, while the service leaving community tends to be focused around where the military is based, actually, people are then largely taking themselves back to where they've got family structures that can help them support their families and childcare etc. As they leave. And there's a really straightforward way of engaging with that audience and it's through the career transition partnership. That's what the government spends money on in order to ensure that we have good outcomes for our people as they leave the services. And that's really straightforward for somebody to engage with career transition partnership and to be able to upload their job opportunities onto the same system as well.
Speaker 3:
But, just reflecting what James Murphy was saying, I couldn't agree more. I mean, for many organisations, you already employ people from the armed forces community and your first step is start counting. If this is something that you're interested in doing, have some metrics against it. So work out how many do you have of what kind of people and ask yourself the question do you like him? Because if those are the kind of people that you like, can you sort of reflect oh yeah, no, actually those are great. Then they're probably your best guide to being able to go and finding more like themselves and tapping into that, to be able to use some of your veterans, some of the family members, people who just give them monkeys about the armed forces community can be really powerful ways of helping you then get others in behind them.
Speaker 3:
So if you can pick that out, articulate some great examples and exemplars and tell their story.
Speaker 3:
It starts to tell the story internally within your organisation about your own values and why it's important for you to do these kind of things.
Speaker 3:
Hopefully that will resonate with other employees, but it will also give you some examples that you can kind of hold up and go and you're not just talking about in theory it's possible to join this industry and you could do X, y and Z. It's so much more meaningful to people who are wondering what on earth that next step will be, whether it's a service leader thinking about their potentially their first ever job as a civilian, or whether it's a veteran who's out there in society who's looking at a job change and the kind of opportunities different sectors could give them. If you can articulate something with which those people can resonate and they can look and think oh, there's a guy like me and I'd really like seeing what they've gone on to and I never realised that the industry included opportunities like the things that they've done. That's incredibly powerful and following one of those pulling away at that, those start to give you your ammunition to be able to go and attract more people like the ones that you've identified, that you like.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, james, and I think just in from the conversations we've had so far, just showing that breadth of age of when people are leaving the forces and our veterans, but also then that wider community of spouses and children that are affected by that. So, garif, a question for yourself. For myself, in my experience, when I left, I went from being in a very structured Roll, knowing what I was doing for the next three years, to then leaving and I went into an office role, I went to a customer service Roll, but. But what I'm seeing now is there's more roles being promoted as it's remote, your, you can work from anywhere, you can work from home. And I just wondered what you, what, what you seeing from from those experience of veterans who are then you still being down the mess and spending time with, with a lot of people, to then, ultimately, that that isolation of doing, as we are now, sat behind a desk talking to each other remotely.
Speaker 7:
Yeah, I think there's absolutely.
Speaker 7:
You know it's much talk about the shock of capture, all the you know the change, that transition camera, some people. I think that if you are Moving almost overnight from a very tight net, collective, team based, team orientation to work on your own in the shed of the bottom of the garden and that's obviously gonna cause some challenges. But I think importantly and something that we bang on a lot of others I'm just a thousand people doing it at the same time is hundreds of thousands of actions you have done before you and the community strong communities like nothing else out there. So if individuals are moved into a job where they are now Working remotely and absolutely questions can do that, absolutely, but you do that. But I think people are fine finding a challenge, then Get in touch with others who are doing that and ask what means, what mechanism you know they put in place to make that workable and ultimately it doesn't work for you. You know there are options available. I think that absolutely it can be a challenge where there are always ways around it.
Speaker 2:
Apologetic plug for the veterans in parking group that can help with that and build that community within the industry. And I'm probably in the reverse for the experience of military spouses who may travel around the country, around the world with their partner but actually that opens a lot of opportunity for them. So what's your experience of that?
Speaker 5:
You absolutely right, dean, and I mean I've worked with military spouses for so, like you know, get up for seven years now and since the pandemic, you know it, it was a, you know I'm arguably it was a terrible time for people, but actually, in terms of the way we work, it kind of pushed us forward In terms of remote working very, very rapidly and I think a lot of organizations recognize that actually it opened up the potential workforce for them and military spouses and partners who are, like you say, mobile and they are, you know, by definition, military life requires them to move around.
Speaker 5:
It's meant that a lot of people have been able to maintain a career which previously was, was quite difficult to do. You know, it's my, that's my experience, and I, you know, remote working completely with a game changer for me, so I'm just one, one example. I mean it doesn't change, it doesn't solve everything. There are still some, some difficulties, for example, military spouses working overseas, the treaties that govern that. You make it quite difficult even to work remotely, but that is something that the, you know, the powers that be are working on. But no, absolutely I think that the remote working opportunities has it's been, like I said, in, a game changer for a lot of military spouses and it's been very positive for that community.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, jenna. Yeah, thank you for showing thoughts on that. So I want to move on now to, just For the people listening, that there's gonna be lots of different types of businesses within the parking set, that there's also gonna be different people within the parking sector. And if I'm within hr, I'm within the talent team. I need to find a way sometimes to translate a military CV to see the value that the candidate offers. So I don't probably in terms of your role at the y nson association, you do engage with both businesses and veterans and I'm one example of that. I'm with the with incodion, but what supports out there for someone who hasn't made that connection yet?
Speaker 6:
I'm. It's difficult, isn't it? So everybody sort of comes out of the, the career transition workshop with a, with a CV, and and there, quite often there's been the criticism that they become quite templated and to actually to quite. James Cameron, you know CV is a very blunt tool to present quite a complex individual, and that there are also CV is also. I tend to find that they are kind of a barrier to to to transitional progress, if you like, when people get so wrapped up in the production of a CV that that it becomes almost a hindrance, an obstacle to overcome.
Speaker 6:
I'm telling people to use chat GBT now as a first step, just to write their CV down, to write their military career down almost like a stream of consciousness, and then ask chat to be to do the first draft. And then you know, however, there's lots of support out there with the white and send lots of other chances will help people then craft a CV that goes to a future employer. But and then the future employers need to be able to understand that there are, for example, 14 different roles within the army alone for W2 rank. So the rank of some major and when you take that across all three services is incredibly difficult and complex field to translate. So I think that all of the organizations here will help help businesses to to interpret military CVs, but, of course, the best way to start with the source individual and help them to produce something that almost doesn't need translation. It doesn't need translation. It needs to be clear and identify the skills that the individuals bring, but it's it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing to do.
Speaker 2:
James mission community of you. Are you seeing similar?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, absolutely, and you know how do we know we've been working on this for some time. Really interesting, yeah, getting a to do something. You can't not kind of seen that yet, but yeah, what? I think that could be a really great idea because, culturally, people who serve tend to be rubbish about talking about themselves in the first person and it's that, culturally, from week one, day one, training, the military is trying to drum the I out of you and instead getting you talking about we, and it means that I see being performance related interview, which are just tools of HR to help HR.
Speaker 3:
Actually, I'm stick a really tricky problem.
Speaker 3:
How can you, when the great world out there, find somebody who's going to be the right fit for your organization?
Speaker 3:
The tools that we tend to use for it are ones which I'm really really bad at unpicking things where the people, culturally, are bad about talking about themselves and putting their service career into terms that I can kind of understand, and that's not anything is wrong and it's not that actually, that selflessness is a bad thing in service leaders, but what I'm talking about is getting some external support to talk about you in a way that you really struggle to Check.
Speaker 3:
Gpt, I think it's just the latest way of doing it, but very much talk to friends, veterans, people who are already out, get people to prove free to your CV. Lean on all of the support which is available out there for service leaders of veterans to be able to help themselves in order to get something that really articulates your qualities, to help companies to kind of understand it. On the flip side, I think companies have just got to recognize that the tools which they use Might not be ideal for the audience that they're looking for and one of the best ways they can help that internally is, if you've got some veterans in the organization, you can just help you unpick and see through the word so that this is self-promoting CV, to see if there is the right kind of fit for your organization underneath and that can be really powerful.
Speaker 2:
No, absolutely great advice. Thank you, james. I'm just going to go over to Gareth because we've seen, definitely within local government tenders and central government tenders on the Toms framework for social value, that there's a scoring mechanism in there to employ veterans. It's almost seen as a vulnerable group is the way that it's portrayed within that. So, gareth, the reason coming to you, veterans can it's a great initiative, really like the work you're doing on wanting to change that narrative and focus on the benefits that the military experience can offer. So, from your experience, what can HR and talent teams do and is there support for them to do it? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 7:
I think there is support and for me it's about mentality or mindset shift in terms of you know, I recognise there's an ED and I in box, that sometimes there are lots of boxes that need ticking and for me it's trying to break out the reason why people think they have a box that needs to be ticked.
Speaker 7:
Don't just employ veterans because you think it's the right thing to do or you've got a box of tick. Employer veterans because they'll bring value and add value to their business, and here's 10 examples. Employer veterans because there will be huge amounts of benefits to your wider organisation and I think that you're trying to move away from that doing the right thing because we have to, because we've pledged, because you know all these other sort of softer reasons, but actually make it a business decision. Make employing a veteran the right thing to do for your business. And I think that when we try to reframe that to a certain degree enable tech time, but I think if we reframe that thinking and we reframe the purpose that people put behind tapping into the veteran as a leave, a community then they'll start to see a different impact and they'll start to see and create a different mindset internally.
Speaker 2:
And, gareth, do you think that it also is the work that veterans can going on around the veteran themselves? I'm just saying back to my time you're in that safe space, you're in that safe community of everything that's happening. Your last day you hand your ID card in as you're going out the gate and it's that you're going into the wide world and you've lost that support blanket that's there. And a second question to that is actually is that part of the career transition? Does that happen there? And again, just going back to my experience, it feels like or from my memory, the way back when of leaving, it felt like it was sort of setting me up to say you're probably better off where you are.
Speaker 7:
Yeah, I think there's definitely an element of that. There's definitely an element of from inside the wire of retention, and I get that. We understand that. We understand that they understandably, lots of aspects and elements of the military don't want you to leave, because they've built you up, they've trained you, they need you, they want you particularly in the situation you're at with recruitment and the like as well. So, absolutely, there will always be a it's a big, scary, wide world out there. They won't employ you properly. You will be underemployed, which is another piece.
Speaker 7:
But I think for me and some of the reasoning and the purpose behind the Veterans Can initiative and the campaign is actually to provide people the confidence and to provide people a connection to others that have gone before them and have done well, and it's celebrating their life and their ability and their performance and things they've done since the day they hung their boots up. And I think there is so much success out there, there is so much positivity out there, yet it's sometimes hidden behind a beard of negativity. That's the thing which is a bit of a concern. So, absolutely, there's people that have made it, there are people that are making it. So let's unpick that positivity and I think that, to answer your second question, it is a challenge sometimes.
Speaker 7:
It's very rare that people nail their transition or their employment first time around, and I often talk along the lines it takes about five years and or about three jobs to start to get that right. Is that best practice? Is that right? I don't know, I suggest not. Ideally, it would be great if someone takes a uniform off on the Monday, walks into a great job forever or however long they want on a Tuesday, if that's what they want to do. But I think that it is a period of finding yourself, or finding your civilian self, which sounds worse than it actually is. But I think that again, it's going into your transition or going into your new employment with your eyes open, that it's probably that I'm not going to smash this first time. It's probably that I'm going to test and adjust my new world and my new life and again, that's very normal.
Speaker 2:
Yeah and I think it just comes back to that network, doesn't it? And having those people I know. I remember after three years of my first job outside of the Navy, where I was then starting to think I should be looking for something else or I should be changing, because that's what had always happened before in terms of changing drafts and changing ships. So it's just having that person that you can say is it okay for me to be thinking this and am I okay staying where I am to have that longevity? And I'm still there now.
Speaker 2:
So I'm not so sure whether having that community would have helped or not. It might make me do something different, but no, thank you. Yeah, great, and I'd say veterans can. I think is a great way of being able to do that and looking forward to seeing that grow. So just want to move on to government initiatives to support organisations, to connect with the community. So, james, within TechVets and the work that you're doing, are you aware of any government incentives or guidance that businesses could latch onto and start googling while they're listening to this podcast?
Speaker 4:
Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, the National Insurance Contribution, which is in place to help support employers removing that added burden for the first year that you employ a veteran. There's certain eligibility requirements, but you can quite easily Google that and find it on the Gulf UK pages. The other bit that's worth mentioning is the Office for Veteran Affairs, which has been established with their mission that the United Kingdom is the best place to be a veteran anywhere in the world. That's led by Minister Jonny Mercer, who has led the charge on a lot of the work there. An incredible team behind him as well. Their key focus at the moment as part of their strategy is all around employment, or certainly some of their focus is around employment. As a result, they established the Veterans Employers Group, which is designed to bring in best practice, those delivering best practice these recognised very successful programmes and to find a way to help shape policy, to help smaller and medium enterprise employers, as well as the wider ecosystem, to have a better opportunity, more informed opportunity, at breaking into accessing the veteran talent pool. Very recently, the OVA published the Employers' Guide to Hiring Veterans and that outlines some great tips and recommendations based on the current best practice to help those companies that may be an experienced or brand new to actively employ veterans. It gives great signposting to things like the Armed Forces Covenant, the ERS side of things, the career transition partnership. But that initiative, that contract with MOD, is established specifically for employers to access those aggressively looking for their next career freshly coming out of the military. There are some incredible opportunities there and far more have success coming out of the military than not.
Speaker 4:
I would suggest I spoke about the Armed Forces Covenant Employer Recognition Scheme. That does also very much help you on your way because as part of that work as you move into bronze and then towards silver and gold, that scheme is all about recognising the proactive work that you are doing as a company in making new policies, putting new policies in place etc. To employ those in the Armed Forces community that may be actively recruiting. It may be internal support to improve on boarding and employee experience, amongst other activities, as James Cameron and myself mentioned earlier the importance there is also on developing that internal group which can really help engage in that activity. But there is plenty out there. You have the official offer through CTP. You have the support coming down now from the OVA to help organisations better understand and navigate that world around the talent pool that we're all part of. You have the ERS scheme to help you along that journey. The account managers within Defence Relationship Management are very experienced and very good at helping you along that journey.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, james Jenna. You mentioned you do a lot of work with spouses and military families. Are there any initiatives out there for businesses to access those groups as well?
Speaker 5:
specifically, yes, absolutely Following on from what James Murphy was just saying about the Armed Forces Covenant. Depending on an organisation's bespoke pledge, there are elements within that which do support or encourage businesses to support the spouses, partners and wider families. It is actually a criteria, I believe, for silver, but definitely for gold, to be engaged with forces, families, jobs, which is another platform which businesses can use to reach the military spouse. The currently serving military spouse talent pool, the Defence Relationship Management Arm of the Government, are very supportive in encouraging and recognising that the spouses and partner community do add a lot of value. There is also the families team within the Ministry of Defence and they actively promote the spouse or community as well as a great source of talent for employers.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, jenna. In terms of rounding this up, I just wanted to go round the table and just get one thing from each of you that an organisation can do straight after listening to the podcast to access the talent pool of candidates.
Speaker 5:
If we start with Jenna, there are so many things you could say here, isn't there? There are so many things that have been suggested already. I think I'm going to stick with my promotion of the family's side of things. I think for me there is evidence that indicates that for somebody who is going through the transition process from being a service leaver or serving personnel I should say through the service leaver to veteran process, something that really does support that individual as they go through the process is if their spouse or partner is established and settled in a career of their own already. Essentially, it means that the service leaver can focus on the process that they're going through. They've already quite often have.
Speaker 5:
They might be moving out of military accommodation and buying a house and going through all that, which is additionally stressful. But to be also dealing with that, to be dealing with going through the resettlement process but also having to be concerned about their spouse or partner, it's just adding an extra level of stress. Essentially, if employers can support the spouses and partners so that they are established and settled before their service person starts to go through the process, it can have a massively, massively positive impact on the person who is moving from military life into civilian life. I think for me, people could go away and just appreciate and understand that it's the whole family that's going through the transition process. If we can make that easier by supporting the non-serving partner, then we absolutely should.
Speaker 2:
No brilliant. Thank you, jenna and Adam.
Speaker 6:
One thing that can do is just to pick up the phone to any one of us and talk about how they can get on with it and start hiring and employing veterans. Very simple.
Speaker 2:
No, brilliant, we'll make sure that everyone's details. I think all of you are on the veterans in parking Community on LinkedIn already, but we'll make sure that those details are shared as well, adam, to so people can access you guys, I'm just changing the conversation with anyone. Absolutely, james Murphy, tech Vet.
Speaker 4:
I would suggest that a good start point would be to for companies to start looking internally to find those veterans if they have them within their organizations and engage with them to ask them about what their journey was like, how their talent team can be better place to support future veterans coming into the companies and to work with them to understand the sort of skills that they're missing out on by not bringing that talent in.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant Thanks, james and Gareth.
Speaker 7:
Yeah, absolutely. For me it's against sounds cliche, but it's asking yourself a few questions why? Why do you, or would you, or will you hire veterans or service leavers? What will you do with them when they're in the business? What do you do with them when they're in the business? And are you doing as well as you can? Could you do it better? What improvements could you make to your recruitment, your onboarding process, the way people are managed and the way they're squeezed to add to your bottom line? Ultimately, because you know, when all is said and done, that's what recruiting good people is about. It's about, you know, performance, as I said before. So, and yeah, and again, to reiterate what everyone has said, if you want to do it and do more or do it better, then please do pick up the phone.
Speaker 2:
No. Brilliant thanks, gareth and James. We've given you the hardest job of having to think on the fly as the last speaker.
Speaker 3:
No, that's fine and it's been grand listening to sort of colleagues who work in this sort of space. You know, and we're saying the same things. Fundamentally, the country invests an awful lot of money in the armed forces. The most important single thread of the armed forces isn't the equipment program, it's the people who manage it and that investment by the nation in our armed forces personnel and the families that they bring with them do extraordinary things on our behalf.
Speaker 3:
If we allow that subsequently to service to not be capitalized on, then I think we're missing an opportunity and for any business out there to have an armed forces component to their people strategy is just really harnessing what for the country is a strategic economic asset, our fantastic assets of our people, our veterans and their families that come with them, and the joy of it is that's recognized by government. There are systems out there like career transition partnership. There are things out there which recognize the wonderful work that companies do in this space, like around the covenant. So there is support which is available there from government to help your business tap into this wonderful source of people and if you can do that, make it part of your business and make it part of you. Just the behaviors, of the way in which you go out, go about doing your business, and that's an investment that will pay off for you and for your business for years to come.
Speaker 2:
Brilliant.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, james, and now I've got a follow-up with that with that end, so I'll give it a good go.
Speaker 2:
Firstly, just want to thank all of you for giving up your time to be part of this podcast and share your views. Thank Parking Live for putting all this together and look forward to seeing this message continue to grow through that four leadership portal. I think it's become clear that the businesses can do more. There's people out there that will help them access this talent pool of people and, ultimately, the talent pool is also there and I think, in the reverse, the industry the parking industry can do more to access the community. So things like the Veterans in Parking Group getting out to the career transition partnership shows and, as an industry, being able to show the military community that parking isn't just about sticking the ticket on the wind screen and things, and there's far more technology levels and operational levels that come for that. So, yeah, thank you for everyone for your time, thank you for the listeners for joining and listening, and look forward to many more of these and the follow-ups that come. So thank you. Thank you, dean.
