Supporting Veterans in the Workplace

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Graig Paglieri, CEO of Randstad Technologies Group U.S.

This episode of the HR Happy Hour is brought to you by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and software solutions for businesses of all sizes. The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed how many people work, leaving millions of job seekers reevaluating their priorities and making it vital for employers to find new ways to keep them supported and engaged. That’s why Paychex surveyed more than 600 HR leaders and more than 2,000 employees at different-sized businesses across the U.S. to find out what employers are getting wrong when it comes to the needs of their workforce. What they found was a large discrepancy between what employees want, and what employers think they want, when it comes to their organizations. For a look at why employees say they’re leaving their current companies, and what you should be thinking about in order to attract and retain talent, download their findings here

This week, we met with Graig Paglieri from Randstad Technologies Group U.S., to discuss how to support veterans in the workplace through skilling and career development opportunities.

– The transition veterans face entering the civilian workforce

– Skills and training programs for military members during the transition

– The modernized approach to connect the military and corporate world

– How HR and business leaders can help

Thank you, Graig, for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript follows:

Announcer 0:12
Welcome to At Work in America sponsored by Paychex, we welcome a wide and exceptionally impressive array of guests, business leaders, HR leaders, academics, practitioners, consultants and authors to talk about the most timely, relevant and challenging issues that are influencing the workplace today. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts, Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane Steed.

Steve 0:46
This episode of At Work in America is brought to you by our friends at Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement and software solutions for businesses of all sizes. COVID-19 has completely changed how many people work, and lots of job seekers are reevaluating their priorities. And that makes it more important for employers to find new ways to keep them supported and engaged. Paychex took a look at this problem and surveyed more than 600 HR leaders and 2000 employees at businesses across the US to find out what employers are getting wrong when it comes to the needs of their workforces for look at why employees say they’re leaving their current companies and what you should be thinking about in order to attract and retain your best talent. You can download the findings from Paychex at payx.me/attractingandretainingtalent.

Steve 1:33
Alright, welcome back to At Work in America with Trish and Steve. Trish, we have a great show today, the subject we just figured out we haven’t talked about in about five years or so, four or five years on the show. And it’s worth revisiting for sure. And it’s about supporting veterans in the workplace and in the workforce. Right and helping veterans succeed make that transition from service to the civilian workforce and helping them succeed in their roles and getting helping what employers can maybe even do to get connected with veterans. So it’s a great topic. I’m super excited for it today.

Trish 2:04
Yes, me too. I hadn’t realized it has been that long. So high time that we did this.

Steve 2:10
No, let’s get on to it. We will welcome our guest. He is Graig Paglieri. He is the CEO of Randstad Technologies Group U.S. He’s responsible for day to day operational leadership and strategic direction for Randstad, professional staffing and solutions, including the technologies engineering life sciences and sell a line of businesses as well as the company’s technology consulting brands celerity supporting Randstad globally. Graig manages the Randstad offshore services team to bring efficiencies and deliveries back to the US market, starting his career with the US Marine Corps. Great. That’s why we have him on the show to talk about this topic. I think after college Graig has since spent the last two decades in professional staffing and managed services management consulting. Graig, welcome to the show. How are you?

Graig Paglieri 2:57
I’m doing great, Steve, thank you so much for having me.

Steve 3:00
Great to have you. We’re really excited for the topic, by the way, just as an aside, like we were all in Asia a couple years ago, Trish, remember we were in China, and like one of the presentations we had in the entire session was from a Randstad executive Asia Pacific, like talking about a big slash small world at the same time. I think about that all the time. So Graig, welcome the show. Love for you to maybe share a little bit about, look, I read your professional bios, right, it’s really impressive, etc, etc. Let’s maybe, I’d love for you to talk a little bit about like your story, right? How you sort of getting back to maybe what connected you to this topic, obviously, you were Marine Corps for 11 years, you transition out of Marine Corps, kind of maybe some of the steps you had to take and making that transition into the civilian workforce. Obviously, you’ve been really successful at it, but it must have been an interesting kind of transition for you. And I’d love for you to maybe share some of that.

Graig Paglieri 3:58
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was just joking with someone earlier. There’s a lot of things nowadays that make me recognize my age, or my experience level. And when I started thinking about my military experience, I still feel like it was yesterday. But crazy enough, it’s a little over 20 years, since I was actually in the Marines. And but it was a nothing was was probably more crystal clear is in two ways my my entry into the military, the reasons why I pursued it, and then also the reasons why I departed. You know, there’s I think many of us in managing our careers and making, you know, important decisions in our lives. Some are more crystallized and others and I think fortunately for me, both of those key decisions You know, really came very naturally. So, yeah, you know, I, I didn’t have, like, you know, my father wasn’t in the military, I mean had grandfathers that were in World War Two certainly grew up during a time period of patriotism in the 80s, and the Cold War. But you know, I didn’t have an interest in military academies or ROTC.

Graig Paglieri 5:24
But I found myself in college, after a couple years, doing well, but just kind of feeling unfulfilled. You know, I played a lot of sports in high school, and now I was at a bigger college was much more competitive sports. And that wasn’t really there for me, and, you know, it’s kind of just doing my thing. And fortunately, you know, some good friends of mine alerted me to some opportunities. In a program in the Marines, that was still very light responsibility in college. But if you got accepted into the program, you could go to Officer Candidate School, between your junior and senior year of college. And if you’re, you know, if you make it through, and you really like it, you can actually get commissioned as a second lieutenant and join the Marines as an officer. And I took that path. And it absolutely, you know, filled that personal void, right, I was looking for something bigger. I wanted something more meaningful service certainly was in my background and upbringing. And in the Marine Corps, couldn’t have been a better situation and experience for me. And I actually was I was I was in for four years. And I was also very lucky during that period of time, it was before September 11. So it although you know, we were, I was an infantry officer. I was deployed in, in Asia and Okinawa and Korea several times. But it was a different world, right. We were we were preparing for threats in the world, but nowhere near the military servicemen and women experience, you know, from 2001 until today.

Graig Paglieri 7:12
And, you know, again, I had an amazing experience learning. It’s interesting to you talk to a lot of a lot of folks that were in the military, we glamorize, we remember all the great parts, often we forget about some of the things we really didn’t like. But as I kind of got to that, my third or so year, completing that timeframe, but just like any organization, there’s there’s programs and methods for what, what’s next. Right? So you’re going to take that next step in the military, in this case, the Marine Corps, what are those options for you? If you’re going to transition out? You know, what are those options for you. And this is probably what I would say my biggest kind of disappointment or frustration with the military in the Marine Corps. And in some ways, it’s improved, but it’s still a big, big challenge. And a big opportunity for improvement is you don’t really have a lot of control on what your next step is going to be. And for me, in a time period, this was, you know, the late nineties.com is booming. There’s a lot opportunities in the private sector, I just didn’t have enough trust or confidence that I was going to be able to advance my career in the military in the areas that I wanted to. And again, like I said, unfortunately, a lot of fill serve servicemen and women experienced that. But for me, when I say it was clear, you know, because of that element, I knew that I wanted to kind of disrupt myself, challenge myself get into the private sector, where I did feel like I would have more control to decide what I wanted to do, you know, and what would be the best way to go about that. And I use this as an example because again, I was very, very fortunate. I was in a position where my wife was a nurse, and we were newly married, and I was able to go full time to business school, because I wanted, you know, kind of a bit of kind of guardrails in my transition to the private sector.

Graig Paglieri 9:29
So rather than just kind of taken the first job that was out there, because companies love hiring Junior military officers, you know, and even, again, 20 years ago, there were programs, there were sales training programs, there were, you know, different types of opportunities that companies had, but they sounded a little too, you know, static or you know, not really what I wanted. So I said, let me invest more in education and training, prepare myself maybe learn more again, I was able to do that, which was a huge advantage, because now I had two years, number one to really kind of enhance my business skills, which, you know, I didn’t get in the military, and I wasn’t an undergrad in business. I was a poly side major. So, you know, what do you do with that? And I found myself though struggling with how am I going to find a role, though, that is going to be as rewarding as what I had, you know, what I felt in my core and my heart, you know, serving my country, right? Alongside my, my, my peers, my teammates, the ability to have the opportunity to lead be responsible for for people, it was, you know, so there’s so much gravity to that. So I then did go through a little bit of a struggle in selecting but I, I, I honed in on that service. And that’s what got me into professional services, right. So I was able to kind of rationalize that, okay, I know, I want to kind of get into business. And this idea of serving clients and helping them improve and become better organizations really kind of fit that. So maybe I’ll stop there, if that kind of helps from a kind of a historical perspective.

Trish 11:30
No, that’s great. It’s such a great story. And that’s the that’s the main reason that we wanted to have you on the podcast. First of all, Graig, thank you for your service to the country. I mean, that’s a huge sacrifice to begin with. I know that Steve and I probably both have 20 questions about sort of this transition and how things are now. But before we change gears, before Steve changes gears, I do want to ask one question, you mentioned early on in the story, you know, the level of commitment that you had to the Marine Corps, for example, because it was a meaningful way to give service to others. And one of the things that strikes me is you talked about, there were parts of the job you didn’t like, but you were still really committed to the Marine Corps at that time. Could you maybe talk a little bit about what makes that different? And, and the reason I asked this, my ex husband is, is still a Marine, right? Once a Marine, always a Marine. But but every Marine I’ve met, there are a lot of Marines in my family, historically, as well. And there was always this talk about how the Marine Corps not only recruits you, but once you’re in, even though there might be some very bad, scary, horrible parts that you have to have in your career, there’s still this really strong level of commitment can maybe talk about how that is different for the Marines as an organization?

Graig Paglieri 13:01
Yeah. Well, I would say, yeah, definitely different, distinct, but I would say similar to just other strong, thriving organizations that have been around for hundreds of years. Right. And there are there are real ones, in the United States and across the world. And I think it’s that it starts with core values. Right, it starts with a clear mission. And these are things I think the military does very well. And obviously, I’m biased, but I think the Marine Corps does it better than any of the other services.

Trish 13:37
Every other marine, right?

Graig Paglieri 13:39
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and obviously, it’s real, right, when you have that much of a consistent voice or following, you know, from that standpoint, but there’s, you spend so much time understanding, learning, appreciating the history, you know, and I think that that’s, that’s overlooked a lot in the, in the, in the business world, or, you mentioned earlier, Steve, my background in management consulting, that was the first thing I did at a business school for for about four or five years. And that was a fantastic opportunity, because I got to work with so many different organizations, you know, and I saw some really good things and I saw some really weak things. You know, since your point, Trish, it’s, you know, why is it different? I just think they do it very well. You know, the, and you’ll hear words like esprit de corps, and, you know, the belonging and the Brotherhood, but it’s just, it’s based off of that history, right. And then there’s, there’s, you know, a lot of ritual and a sense of every Marine goes through the same type of training and, you know, indoctrination. And again, these have been improved and evolved over time, but there’s, you know, just these central elements that are that have stood the test of time. So I think when you have, you know, again, I’ve seen it so many times in business companies that try a million different things and change their hiring profile, you know, every every quarter or, or Tinker tinkering with their, their strategy or the direction and haven’t really found, okay, here’s, here’s our core focuses. And these should be our core capabilities. And this is the value that we bring. Even even though they may be successful, right, you know, they may be successful out of gate, but they don’t have that foundation. And I think that’s one of the key strengths, you know, of an organization like the Marines.

Trish 15:44
Thank you for mentioning that, especially the part about the history and ritual, because, as you said, that I thought, wow, that seems so obvious. But when you really think about, especially in the corporate world, you don’t see that as much at least in the companies I’ve worked for, I don’t know that we’ve ever really dove into the history and how we got where we are. And you know why that’s important that you’re joining that sort of richness that you are that rich culture. So, thank you. I just wanted to know.

Steve 16:12
And well, I think some of it is too, Trish and Graig, so many organizations these days are short lived, right? And every year when the fortune 500 list gets published annually, right? Someone will create that analysis that says, oh, you know, only four of these companies were in the Fortune 500, you know, 50 years ago, whatever the number is, it’s like that kind of thing to you. There’s certainly a lot more dynamism and churn etc. And and the ones that last are real, they’re few and far between, but they do last for a reason. And I think there are some parallels there as well. So great, thank you for sharing so much about your story and kind of your your history and your background. And it does shed a lot of light, I think on why this is an important topic for you and then larger Ronstadt as well. Maybe we could talk a little bit about what’s happening for veterans sort of today, right? We know, there’s lots of stories about no one can find workers, right? 11 million or so open jobs in the US, right? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s an all time record. Unemployment really, really low, right, nearing the panda pre pandemic, era low prior to the pandemic is three and a half percent or so. But yet lots of veterans out there struggle. It sounds like it seems like we know this right, getting transitioning out of service into into the civilian workforce. Graig, I’d love for you to maybe just give us a couple of thoughts on why do you think that happens? And then maybe we’ll get into some of the things that employers can do about it. And some of the things Randstad is doing actively to try to help these folks.

Graig Paglieri 17:43
Yeah, I think that when I when I get that question, I’d say my answer or my commentary around that has changed over time, or certainly over the past several years. And I’ve become a little bit more knowledgeable on, as I mentioned, you know, the impact to our, our, our military members, you know, post 2001, right, you know, the amount of combat type of responsibility that has occurred, the CIO. So when I say change my answer, I start with the fact that we have to recognize, you know, and I think these numbers are pretty accurate. But I want to say it’s reported like over four, I think it’s over 400,000. military servicemen and women have experienced PTSD or TBI traumatic brain injury, from you know, I think, I think it’s like from 2004 to 2019. And that’s a daunting number. Right? And so, you have to you can’t really start any where we’re thinking about skills and training programs and transition, you know, without recognizing that massive obstacle. That’s probably doesn’t do it justice. So, you know, that that’s kind of point number one as far as the challenge. And then it because I don’t think that people are, it’s surprising, I think, you know, yeah, you hear about it. There’s some great organizations out there like the Gary Sinise foundation.

Graig Paglieri 19:30
You know, there many that we work with, that really, you know, Wounded Warrior, and people have awareness, but I don’t think they recognize that, you know, you have these, you know, proud men and women standing aside you that have veteran backgrounds, military backgrounds, and now they’re looking to enter the civilian workforce or the private sector. And they bring the baggage of war. So that recognition is number one. And, you know, what do we do about that? I think it’s companies, again, want to do the right thing want to leverage this channel of it highly motivated, you know, highly disciplined, you know, trained in specific fields could be technology fields, could be leadership could be HR. So there’s great value in that, but it’s not, you know, a simple, straightforward, easy transition. So, are they creative enough? You know, do they change their approaches to how they bring folks into their organization? Are they kind of stuck with? Well, this is how we hire, you know, this is what we’re looking for. This is the programmatic type approach we have. And I don’t know that that necessarily lines up, you know, as well as it could or should for veterans.

Trish 21:06
You know, before we get into some of the specifics that Steve mentioned, you know, with Randstad and what you’re doing there, could you just give up a brief answer on this part, in follow up to what you just said, whenever someone is transitioning out of the military, whatever, you know, branch of service, that is, do you know, is there any kind of training to get them ready, from a work perspective to enter civilian workforce? Because it can be different, right? Everyone isn’t sort of following orders as rigorously? And would you say, is there training needed than on the receiving end as well? Should we be doing more as human resources looking at if we are wanting to seem more welcoming to you know, our our future employees who have served in the military? Have you seen training on either either side there?

Graig Paglieri 21:59
Trish, this is this is this is the crux or kind of the core of the issue. And it’s that the the military again, I’m not an expert, you know, it’s been 20 years, I still obviously work closely with a lot of the organizations and, and we work very closely with veterans. So, you know, I put a little bit of a disclaimer, and I don’t want to discredit some of the good work that the military does do or attempts to do. But I would say, you know, kind of overarching, comes up short. Right? You know, it’s it’s, their mission is to train and prepare their people for, you know, their their main focus in their roles in their jobs. Yes, of course, they want to see successful transitions. But it doesn’t necessarily get the same level of attention and infocus that, you know, the previous portion that I mentioned, aren’t so the SDR programs, but I don’t think they’re as robust or as rich, and they’re limited. So to your point, yes, that’s, it’s kind of the bridge that needs to be, you know, it needs to be modernized. You know, or we need stronger bridges and wider bridges, you know, with more pathways. And that needs to connect both from the military and the the corporate world in order for it to be more effective, for sure. Thank you.

Steve 23:31
Yeah, for sure. Right. You think great. The military service is really there ready? Designed to get ready for that next mission? Right, that’s coming up, or the one that they don’t know that’s coming, which is going to come in, inevitably and right, supporting folks after they’ve transitioned out? It’s, yeah, you’d wonder where that falls on the priority list. It’s probably somewhere but it’s probably not near the top right. And I get why that makes sense. Good. That’s the case and Graig, I want to pivot just a little bit to talk about Randstad, a little bit. And what Randstad is doing specifically in this area, right, because restaurants mentioned at the top right, big global firm, all over the world, just helping organizations of all kinds and all sizes, right? meeting their talent needs. It’s obviously a huge challenge everywhere, right for any type of talent, but specifically around making these connections between employers who ultimately right or the rents that clients right. And these transitioning servicemembers getting back into private sector or civilian workforce. And you’ve seen, it seems like you’ve seen that as an opportunity and a challenge and you’ve done some specific things in this area. I’d love for you to maybe to talk a little bit about them. And maybe what folks who are HR people or business leaders who are listening to this show can can maybe take away from some of the things we’re doing and what what they can do themselves.

Graig Paglieri 24:59
And one thing I’ll just I just want to add to a question you had earlier Trish, about organizations and why, you know, does the Marine Corps have a bit of a reputation for the strength and the and the camaraderie and the history. Randstad is a great example, though of being formed on core values and 65 year history and a founder, you know, who’s still very, that our founders, you know, elderly now, but the fact that he started, you know, a company that has now become a global, you know, fortune 1000 organization, riding his bicycle, to ensure that one of the new, you know, talent, was going to be able to make it to their client, and, you know, start their first job. And, you know, there’s that kind of history that is still kind of permeates throughout the organization today, around providing opportunity for people and talent. And that’s been key. So how do we take that forward, and ensure that we’re addressing such an important part of the workforce, in veterans, you know, we realize, we realize that we have to invest in this, we can’t, you know, just be on the peripheral, or say where we’re supportive. And, you know, and think that that’s going to achieve, you know, the mission or close the gap. So, we created Veteran Center of Excellence. Within the Randstad Technologies Group, we brought in people that came from different organizations that specialized in upskilling. And training, you know, specifically for veterans, and we knew that the technology field is so talent deprived, and you know, talent scarcity is such a, you know, giant, giant challenge, it’s that you talk to most any, you know, CEOs and CIOs, they’ll tell you, their their biggest challenge is talent. And when you dive into the tech space, it’s 100%, you know, the number one issue for growth, yet, we have such a willing participation group of the workforce being veterans coming out. So the Veteran Center of Excellence really, you know, at its essence, is working directly with organizations saying, How can we customize solutions and an a pipeline of talent for you, and we need to work together, you know, to understand some ways, it may not be traditional, right? They, I think, you know, some of our conversations earlier, they may not have, you know, some of the immediate skills that you need. So, can we partner together and CO develop an apprenticeship program, you know, and here’s what we bring to the table. As far as the hard skill training and the technical training that we can provide. And we partner with universities and colleges and, and technical organizations to do that.

Graig Paglieri 28:15
We also work the same way with soft skills, and but we try to do that as much as we can, with that kind of CO sponsoring organization, really, you know, our end client, but the future home for the veteran, and that has been tremendously successful. And, you know, there’s some fantastic companies out there Cisco, in particular, that we work very closely with, you know, and we’ve, we’ve even gone into fields like cybersecurity, and we’ve built programs, very, you know, technically oriented, which I think 10 years ago, people, you know, would have said that, how’s that gonna work? Or maybe, yeah, but it’s going to be such a small portion of the population. Well, you know, we’ve expanded that considerably. So, you know, that it’s apprenticeship, mentorship, I those words I think it used a lot or they can sound soft, but it’s that’s really what we’re talking about here. You know, so again, things that for hundreds of years, right organizations have had some version of that but I think in more recent times the the speed of business right the demands of business and especially results and corporate quarterly earnings and you know, it’s everything is now now now so I can only hire the person who’s ready to go right now. Now now, though, that’s, you know, we got to change that we got to continue to try to shape that one because we we have this huge scarcity issue. And we have a big population of already ready to go people, we just got to get organizations to, you know, really cooperate and understand in order to get the benefit of it. And that’s what our Veteran Center of Excellence is, is aimed at.

Steve 30:18
You made a great point. You mentioned cybersecurity, I can’t remember the number. So I won’t try to guess at it. But I just read a piece about how it was in the millions, right? I know it was in the millions like of how many train cybersecurity professionals that industry in general is going to need over the next, let’s call it decade or so. Right? And whereas I think you’re right, Graig, and saying most organizations want to hire that person who’s ready to go right, as soon as they step into the door? The truth is, they can’t find them. Right, right, cybersecurity, or even truck driving, right, I don’t care what the I don’t care what the field is, right now, certainly a lot of the technical fields in the manufacturing types of roles, there just aren’t people out there who are ready to go right out the door. So getting involved in these kinds of programs, like through the Center of Excellence makes perfect sense for for the organization, I would think,

Graig Paglieri 31:06
Oh, completely. And here’s a here’s another thing that could kind of get your head spinning a little bit. But in some ways, talent, talent scarcity, especially in the tech fields, is actually can be an accelerator for groups like veterans, because it is it is it is put, you know, the the global economic industry, on, you know, turned upside down in the sense that we can’t operate the way we used to. So we have to train, we have to upskill, we have to bring in people, you know, that don’t have 100% of the skill. And then you can combine that with, you know, again, the great organizations that we work with the great clients that we have, they want diversity, they want to open up these channels. So there’s a desire to I feel like more than anything, it’s it’s just enabling, and that is unlocking that, and ensuring companies like Randstad, you know, as we’re the largest HR services provider in the world, right, if not us who, you know, are going to be at the forefront of developing the models, the mechanisms, you know, these these talent streams for organizations to benefit from.

Trish 32:26
I think that’s such a good point, Graig. And I think the other thing too, you mentioned, even if they don’t meet all the 100% of requirements, right. But they’re probably going to come in really high on the things like commitment, leadership, follow through some of the things that are very difficult for employers to measure. I’d rather hire someone all day long.

Steve 32:47
That’s a big one, honestly, quite. I mean, I don’t need to be flippant, but that’s important.

Trish 32:53
Yeah, I would rather hire someone who I know has a history of that type of work performance, and commitment, and train them right into what I need them to do. Rather than have someone maybe that on paper has 100% of the, you know, the technical skills, and I have no idea what kind of commitment they might have, or what kind of just leadership skills or you know, some of the other things that you might get from hiring a veteran.

Graig Paglieri 33:24
Spot on, you know, absolutely spot on. And I think, again, it’s the education, it’s the communication, it’s building talent pools so that organizations can see what’s possible, really is what is what enables and opens that up?

Trish 33:41
Well, I think right now, it’s just it’s being very intentional about that, too. You know, we had the luxury maybe a decade ago not to have to actively be thinking, as HR professionals, like, oh, gosh, where now can I look for employees, right, people were coming to us. And so now that it’s sort of flipped, we really do have to be creative. And it is our obligation to make outreach to different types of, of workers that we maybe we haven’t even thought of pursuing before. So that’s a great way to partner with you.

Graig Paglieri 34:12
I just think that’s a great point, too. I mean, let’s be let’s be honest, as you know, kind of professionals in this space, I don’t know that I would always say HR or procurement groups are high on the creative, you know, scale, right?

Trish 34:24
Oh, we didn’t have to be, you know, our job was more around compliance and doing things the way that they had been established. And, again, ourselves probably is rule followers more than out there being innovators, but that that too, has changed over the years, I think for the better.

Graig Paglieri 34:42
Right, you got to get your business partners, you know, to be on board and support that. But yeah, I think it’s a much improved environment. And I think it’s just it will continue to and it has to.

Steve 34:56
Last thing I wanted to ask you or just maybe we could talk about briefly is just what have you seen, either through the work that Randstad has done with the Center of Excellence or some other programs you’ve done or partnerships, or perhaps relationships you’ve developed with some of the other veterans support organizations, you mentioned, Wounded Warrior, Hiring Our Heroes, etc. There’s a lot of them out there. What are some of the things maybe that either you’ve learned through rounds that or you’ve learned through working with these other organizations that can really, I don’t know, help facilitate kind of the exiting service members sort of get themselves sort of prepared you you mentioned you were fortunate enough to have a little time and you went to business school and got you really sort of set up? Maybe not everyone can do that. So what are some of the things that that can can sort of help folks manage themselves through this transition?

Graig Paglieri 35:47
Yeah, I think and again, I couldn’t be more on point, Steve with I think, you know, one of the challenges is awareness, you know, recognizing that there are so many of these fantastic organizations designed specifically for this. But it’s ensuring that that’s accessible that, you know, let me let me let me add to this, there is a personal responsibility here, though, that is also very important, right? There’s, whether you’re coming out of the military, or you’re in your current role, and, you know, you’re looking to get promoted, I mean, I, you know, speaking for myself, or people around me that I’ve been very successful, they’ve taken advantage of different programs and opportunities and information to help them be more successful. So when I’m speaking to, when I’m speaking to, to veterans, that’s the first thing I said, What have you done? What have you researched? You know, what, come back to me with, you know, a couple of different approaches that you’d like to take? Well, you know, well, have you ever heard of Google? You know, I mean, it’s, it’s it, there’s so much out there. And I said, I’ve had the privilege of working a little bit more closely to with the Gary Sinise foundation, I was embarrassed how little I knew about what they do in so many different dimensions for existing service members, for spouses of service members, and for veterans entering the workforce. And I can only imagine, you know, the hundreds of 1000s of veterans we have every year, moving into the civilian sector, you know, not recognizing that. So, there’s that personal accountability first. And then it’s all of you know, organizations like Randstad, and the ones that we’ve mentioned, and the corporations you know, throughout the US, ensuring that they’re doing everything they can to maximizing the reach, you know, of that access and those programs.

Steve 37:50
Really, really good stuff. Last thing I’ll just mentioned just as an aside, when you make when you mentioned like what are you doing what you know, take advantage of what opportunities are available to you, etc, etc. I was watching this on a plane the other day and I watched this documentary about Julia Child. Trish, I think I mentioned it to you the other day.

Trish 38:06
I love this documentary, French Cook was coming up.

Steve 38:10
You know, how Julia Child learned how to cook. As well as she did, she went to the French cooking school, the Cordon Bleu paid for by the US Army, she was in the army. And yeah, and after World War Two, the army paid for her to go go to cooking school in France. How about that?

Trish 38:29
Okay, I feel like you’re gonna have a new book out, like everything in life can be related to Julia Child. I mean, that’s where we are.

Steve 38:37
She’s quite something. So. Alright. And that was true, though. I didn’t make that up. So great. This has been great stuff, I really do appreciate you, sharing some of your experiences, some of your background in the history, some of the things that Randstad is doing and honestly being like really frank about some of the challenges that exist to write for folks who are exiting the service. I, you know, I feel bad. Like, I didn’t really think of it that way, either. Like, a lot of the folks who are exiting or have exited in the last, you know, decade or so really do have a lot of challenges that maybe we don’t always think about and always appreciate. And we need to make sure that we’re aware of them and also doing what we can we do and through what organizations and working with great partners, like Ron said to do to support these folks, because they’ve really, they’ve given a lot for all of us, right? There’s no doubt about that.

Graig Paglieri 39:23
Yeah, I appreciate that. All right. Good

Steve 39:25
Graig, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking some time to join us. We’ll put some links to some of the resources that we talked about in the show notes as well. And thanks so much. Great to meet you. And great to have you on the show today.

Graig Paglieri 39:38
Likewise, Thank you, Steve and Trish. Really appreciate the opportunity to speak.

Steve 39:41
Thank you some good stuff. Trish, loved it. I’m glad we came back to this topic after a really long time away, and let’s not wait too long to do it again. So for our guest, Graig Paglieri from Randstad, for Trish McFarlane, my name is Steve Boese, remember, you can catch all the show archives for all the shows on the HR Happy Hour Network, go to HRHappyHour.net. Thanks so much for listening, and we will see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai