Last week, Designing Leaders hosted a small discussion session in Singapore on the issue of hiring leaders and managers who have just left the military (looking here at the regular Singapore Armed Forces, not the National Service that is compulsory for males). Singapore has a long history of integrating retired and other long-term military personnel into the civilian workforce, both in the private sector and the civil service. The gap, however, between the military world and the civilian workplace is getting wider. From organizational structures that emphasize strict hierarchies, to the concept of following orders without question, many military characteristics differ from the rapidly changing civilian world. Companies and government agencies get many benefits from the experience that military veterans bring, but maximizing those benefits requires their adaptation to the modern workplace.

The conversation included participants from Singaporean MNCs, western MNCs, and academia. We looked first at the benefits that military veterans offer, then considered the challenges to maximizing those benefits and how to overcome them.

TALENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS THAT VETERANS OFFER
One participant noted that many companies do not really understand what skills a military veteran brings. Many technical skills might be hard to translate into the civilian perspective — there’s not a lot of call for tank drivers outside the Army, for instance — but what are more important to recognize are the soft skills that veterans develop during their military time. The common ones we think of are attention to detail and self-discipline, but beyond that one person pointed out that “loyalty to the organization” is something that develops during a military career, and that’s an attribute that can be helpful for companies facing serious attrition problems today. There is also a high degree of resilience and persistence that develops in the military — it typically takes a lot more for a military person to get stressed out and feel beaten down. We also talked about the adaptability to new roles that is necessary during a military career where assignments change every few years, leading military people to become very good at learning quickly, a critical talent as companies find themselves growing and creating new roles.

CHALLENGES VETERANS FACE
So how do the differences between military and civilian workplaces come into play?

The Realities of the Talent Market
The combination of low unemployment and high growth has created a market where employees often have many other job opportunities, meaning leaders focus more on employee engagement and retention than they would in the military. Unlike in the military, their civilian subordinates have the option of leaving, and leaders need to consider how that affects the way they relate to them.

Workplace Communication
Military leaders who are used to their orders being followed without question may be surprised by the amount of debate that happens in the civilian workplace. Many companies, especially global firms, are encouraging more inputs from employees and increased communication across functions. Leaders in the civilian workplace often have a choice between clarity and transparency in their original directions, or an awful lot of discussion and explanation later.

Leading a Diverse Workforce
Singapore’s military environment is predominantly male, largely young, and entirely Singaporean (though those Singaporeans represent a few different ethnicities and religions). Employees in a civilian workforce have a wider range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Leading requires understanding employees’ unique needs and finding ways to meet them, taking advantage of the opportunities presented by diversity, and building effective relationships to enable communication within the workforce.

Career Development
The military has career paths that are well understood and development opportunities at certain points in the career. Now, leaders need to know how to identify their own development needs and seek out opportunities to meet them, so they can increase the value they create for their organization over time. They also need to realize that competition for roles has changed — in addition to competing against their peers inside the company, their organization may also hire from outside, something the military does not do. Along the same lines, positions in the military open up on a pretty regular schedule, while the availability of positions in the civilian world often depend on the career plans of the person currently in that role.

ADAPTING TO THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
Military personnel entering the civilian world need to reboot their expectations about the workplace. The Ministry of Defense offers some transition support to departing senior leaders, but many people who leave the military do not get much help adapting to civilian life as they are on their way out the door. One MinDef program that can help (and that is currently expanding) is a civilian master’s degree program, as well as other educational opportunities, offered in partnership with Nanyang Business School. As the US military has found, civilian graduate education (especially when the other students are civilians, not fellow military people) not only introduces new ways of thinking into the military environment, it can also help create realistic expectations about working in the civilian world.

Otherwise, though, the transition is somewhat ad hoc. Some companies recognize the challenges and leave it to supervisors to help their new ex-military people. During the session, we talked about two interventions that can be useful, especially if used together.

Peer Mentorship and Coaching
That military veteran you just hired probably is not the first one you have brought on board, and the others in your organization who have been through this process can be a big help. Assigning a peer coach to help them navigate the transition can be very effective. Provide some structure to the peer coach, don’t just leave them to figure it all out on their own. Have a suggested schedule for regular meetings, questions they should ask, templates for setting transition goals…that sort of thing. Let your people help each other, but don’t make them figure it out all on their own.

Onboarding Training
Consider offering a one-day session that covers the key differences you think might be a problem (or that have already been a problem, based on complaints your HR team has received). Depending on how many people you are hiring, you might have a trainer with the appropriate background offer such a seminar to your folks monthly or quarterly (and by “appropriate background, we really mean a former military person — military folks sometimes have a hard time listening to non-military people tell them how they need to do things differently). To avoid having people work for you for a few months before going through the “expectations reset” process, you might instead consider partnering with other companies to have an off-site vendor provide a session monthly for the new employees you have recently onboarded. (shameless plug: Designing Leaders is uniquely qualified to design and lead such a session). Ideally, any training event would be combined with a peer coaching program, or at least some kind of structured follow up with their supervisor — single-day sessions often have little impact without some follow up.

Military veterans play a very important role in Singapore’s economy, and can offer the kind of leadership that can help your organization grow and be successful. Making good use of those talents, though, often means adapting them to the civilian work environment. Rather than leaving that transition up to chance, it is better to put some structure behind it, so you can be more confident in the results and avoid wasting time while your new veterans reach their full potential.