Workforce Reintegration

I am one of the fortunate military retirees who was able to land a good post military job. I am very thankful to have separated from the military in a location where the defense industry is thriving and post-service employment is plentiful.  As mentioned in an earlier blog, landing a good job post military would not have been possible without my team of veteran buddies providing wise counsel during the job hunt.

Although my recently retired veteran friends shared their experiences about rejoining the civilian workforce, I’ve determined that becoming a productive civilian worker is really something we each have to figure out on our own. After a little over a year back in the workplace, I’ve identified three differences from the military I had to come to grips with in order to reintegrate back into the civilian workforce.

First, in the civilian world, leadership skills are desirable but good management is paramount. This is a stark contrast to the military. In the military (and especially in the Army), we are taught from day one to be students and practitioners of good leadership. As the old saying goes, “there are no bad Soldiers, only bad leaders”. From the “be, know, do” leadership model to striving for transformational versus transactional leadership, becoming a respected leader is the ultimate quality every Soldier aspires to.

But when it comes to being a good manager, there is much less emphasis in the military. In fact, being an excellent manager but perceived as lacking in leadership is undesirable. This dynamic is what creates those leaders in the military that in combat, we’d gladly follow to hell and back, but in garrison, can’t manage a personnel system to save their life. To be fair, most very successful military leaders are proficient in both leadership and management skills, but I think we’ve all encountered a few senior leaders that couldn’t manage the administration of a fire team, much less a large formation!

In the civilian world, it is just the opposite. Leaders are expected to be superb managers first and foremost. Civilian managers must be able to allocate resources (time, personnel, equipment and budget) in an efficient manner to achieve desired business goals. Additionally, civilian leaders must be detail oriented and understand the metrics behind the performance of their organization to effectively manage resources. This is very different from military leaders who, especially if they have a deputy, may not take an active role in the management of metrics.

Please don’t infer this as a dig on civilian workplace leadership. Quite the contrary, most leaders I’ve encountered so far are exceptional and as dedicated to leading as many with whom I served in the military. Interestingly, many don’t realize they are good leaders! Some civilians aren’t exposed to leadership training and are unfamiliar with the attributes the military assigns to leadership. Their backgrounds are much more focused on business and program management.

While civilian workplace leaders are focused more on managing than a military leader, it doesn’t mean they are any less effective. For the veteran returning to the civilian workforce, it’s important to understand this very different view on leadership. Respect civilian leaders in the work place even though they may do it different than we experienced in the military. Don’t try to make military leadership models fit in the civilian world!

My second big takeaway after a year back in the civilian workforce, taking initiative is just as important as it was in the military. As service members it is beaten in us to show initiative. But let’s be honest, for most day to day tasks in the military, there was usually some level of prior planning. Additionally, most tasks have defined standards, checklists or other instruction that guided us in performing the task. There are still numerous opportunities for Soldiers to show initiative, but for the most part, service members are fairly well prepared to perform their job.

I am convinced in the civilian workplace initiative is absolutely a required quality! While I received some level of initial training, learning how to perform my day to day duties was mostly on the job training. In some cases, if I didn’t take initiative to actively seek out assistance and ask a ton of questions, I wouldn’t have been able to learn my job.  In a way, this actually helped me to become proficient in certain tasks quicker. Or at least it helped me to make connections with others who were subject matter experts I could go to for advice in a particular area.

Additionally, civilian leaders sometimes won’t come right out and direct action. Often they will provide more subtle instruction. It is important to listen carefully and understand what needs to be accomplished, then show initiative to complete the task. If unable to pick up on these subtleties, one could quickly fall behind!

In the military we were trained to automatically look for a technical manual, field manual or checklist to guide us in the performance of a particular task. Also, we were conditioned to respond to leaders barking orders and specific instructions. Don’t expect either of these in the civilian workplace! It takes a little getting used to, but after a while it’s actually been a nice change.

Lastly, patience is every bit a virtue in the civilian workplace as it is in the military. Service members learn early on, hurry up and wait is a part of military life. Holding formation four hours early to prepare for an in ranks inspection was par for the course. Yet when it came down to mission execution time, a task gets accomplished at remarkable speed!

This is where the biggest difference between patience in the military and patience in the civilian workplace lies. While I haven’t experienced any hurry up and wait scenarios in the civilian world so far, I have noticed it just takes longer to get a task completed.

Part of this maybe due to many businesses using a “functional” organization construct. Specialist within a certain work function such as contracts, engineering, or business management are assigned to support larger organizations within the company. While this arrangement is not dissimilar the force structure one may see in the military, it seems like the civilian functional support teams are almost always task saturated. There are several competing tasks and they must allocate time based on priorities received from their management.

What does all this mean? Unlike the military where often, if you wait to the last minute it will only take a minute, if waiting to the last minute in the civilian workplace the job probably won’t get done. Plan ahead and be patient! Thankfully, our prior military service has provided us with the patience of Job!

Eventually, I will become completely reintegrated back into the civilian workforce and my military service will be fond memories of a cherished former profession. But in the meantime, as a relatively new returnee to the civilian world, I find it helpful to reflect on what’s similar and what’s different between the two.  I am sure I’ll come to some more conclusions over time. I wonder what other observations are out there regarding reintegrating into the civilian workforce.

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