Military and Veteran Hiring: Strategies for Success from United Rentals

In our previous post, we discovered how USAA accomplishes its military hiring goals. In part two of this series, we learn how United Rentals creates a win-win situation by hiring military, veterans and their spouses.

“Veterans and military personnel make a great fit for our company because of our culture and values,” says Judy Brozovich. “People within the military exhibit the traits and qualities we seek: loyalty, integrity, dedication, service excellence and a focus on safety.  We build on what they’ve learned in the military, so it becomes a solid match for United Rentals.”

Judy Brozovich is Director of Talent Management for United Rentals, the world’s largest equipment rental company. We spoke with her recently and she shared why her organization hires military and veteran candidates and how they achieve recruitment success.

According to Brozovich, United Rentals makes a specific hiring commitment to military candidates not only because veterans make great employees, but also because we, as a company, feel an obligation to support our military men and women who have served our country.  “Our commitment to veteran hiring starts at the top with our CEO and senior leadership team,” says Brozovich. “Our mission is to proactively seek out to hire veterans and assimilate them into our workforce. We currently have 11% of our employee population who are veterans.” she says.

United Rentals partners with Workforce Opportunity Services and Universal Technical School to execute on their internal STEP (Service to Employment Program), an on-the-job, 10-week work-study rotation program helping veterans transition back into working life to fill our service and maintenance roles in the company.

“United Rentals also attends recruiting events on military bases throughout the country and invites their veteran hiring managers to attend to talk to transitioning veterans about job opportunities,” says Brozovich. Veterans United, a military employee resource group, lends a hand at these events focused on veteran recruiting.

United Rentals has an entire section on its career site for military hiring, including a translator tool that enables veterans to find positions that are a good match for their background. Candidates simply enter their MOC/MOS or military title to search for jobs using the Military-to Civilian-Occupation Translator.

United Rentals proudly supports a number of charitable organizations, with a primary focus on those who support military members, veterans and their families.

• Partnering with Fisher House Foundation in the U.S. and Valour Place in Canada to provide comfort homes with free or low-cost lodging for vets and military families receiving treatment at military medical centers
• Supporting Soldier Strong, which focuses on providing Ekso Bionic suits for disabled veterans
• Offering programs that also support military spouses
• Encouraging word of mouth: veteran employees get to know the United Rentals culture and refer other veterans

Support for active military members

For those who are actively serving, United Rentals provides associates and their spouses with the flexibility needed to serve in the National Guard or Reserves. United Rentals:

• Safeguards the jobs of employees who serve in the uniformed services
• Provides pay during active duty deployments
• Supports reserve training commitments
• Provides job protection for both service members and eligible family members during an active leave or medical leave

“Our support of veterans comes down to our culture, values and commitment. And, we have an internal community of veteran employees that support each other and welcome new veteran hires to the company,” notes Brozovich.

For more information about military hiring strategies for your organization, contact NAS.

• Military and Veteran Hiring: Strategies for Success from USAA
• What we learned at SHRM 2017