How businesses can honor veterans as they serve employees and customers
Military service has always been at the heart of my family’s history. Between my father’s naval service of 28 years—including time served on the Tennessee in Pearl Harbor—my sister’s 22-year career as an army nurse and my own 3-year career in the United States Marine Corps, my family’s service has spanned every major conflict between 1940 and 1989. Alongside us in all of those conflicts were men and women with their own stories of service and sacrifice, some at the greatest price. Those years and experiences profoundly impacted the person I am today and, consequently, how I lead ViON. Though I’m no longer on active duty, my goal has always been to continue serving and protecting our nation in new ways as a civilian, while also honoring those who have fought with us and those who continue to put their lives on the line. So, in more ways than one, “service” is at the heart of ViON too.
Ask any veteran what lessons they have learned because of their experiences and the list will undoubtedly be long. Some of those lessons are so profound they become part of who you are and how you live your life, and ViON was founded with many of these principles in mind.
Espirit de Corps – Think People First
Across every branch of the military, the message is clear: always look out for the welfare of the people who work for you and with you. In service to the country there is a spirit of always being “in it” together. That’s been very important to the ViON culture since we began decades ago. It’s why we’ve been providing pay increases annually for the last 26 years, a healthy retirement structure, world-class healthcare, and continuing education. In the military, you could be a Navy Seal or a cyber analyst, but the emphasis is the same: “never stop learning.” ViON shares the same belief. Every day we invest in our employees so they have a better understanding of the solutions we sell as well as our customer’s challenges. When we invest ourselves in continuing to learn, we can provide the best value for the dollar to our customers and enrich the lives of our employees.
Find New Ways to Serve & Contribute to the Greater Good
We also want to create an environment where people feel good about their career. Since 9/11, we have provided a tremendous amount of support for intelligence agencies as they fight to end terrorist attacks. In this way, even if our employees have never been active duty or in harms way, there is a feeling of serving our country by helping the DOD, Homeland Security and the DOJ to keep our country and our military safe.
Give People Freedom to Express their Talents
My military history forms my operational philosophy: that if you are competent in what you do, the people you report to will give you the latitude to be creative. I know that as I stepped through the ranks this attitude was incredibly empowering. I want everyone at ViON to have the same experience. So I try to say “yes” as much as possible. We hire for the expertise and let our employees run their piece of the business so they feel connected to our mission and see how important their talents are to our collective success.
Support the Individual & the Family
The military cares just as much about the family who supports the soldier as they do the individual serving. If the family isn’t properly supported, then it deteriorates the morale and attitude of the individual. So we pay attention to the personal needs of our employees and what they care about. We sponsor baseball teams and participate in causes that help the family and children. We do this in the hopes that the entire family can take pride in what their parent does for a living.
Hiring Veterans Brings New Meaning to Our Mission
By virtue of supporting intelligence agencies, customs and border protection, we get exposure to many former active duty military personnel, many with 25+ years of service under their belts. All of them help us better understand the importance of our mission and help other civilians within the company connect with how we can impact the lives of our citizens. These people have been on the front lines of intelligence organizations and the like and because of this, we are better able to empathize with and address our customers’ biggest challenges.
So, in this month of military appreciation, we stop to thank the many people who have served and continue to serve. It is a small but significant percentage of our population who answers the call. Our hope is that we can model the same spirit that drives them to serve our country in the way we serve our customers, employees and each other at ViON. If we can do that, we show our appreciation and honor our military every month of the year.