Widelity Provides Meaningful Opportunities for Military-Connected Individuals

Challenge/Opportunity

A mostly remote work force can offer unique challenges in staffing our projects. Employees need a high level of independence, critical thinking, and self-motivation to succeed in the Widelity culture. As with any organization, finding skilled and dependable people can sometimes be a challenge and has required us to think outside the box when hiring for our projects. Military-connected workers also encounter challenges to their careers. These include:

• Higher than average unemployment & gross underemployment.
  • Military spouses face a larger unemployment rate of 13%, which is typically 3 times the national average (pre Covid-19); 92% of military spouses are women, who tend to have higher rates of underemployment.
  • A lack of flexible work schedules & childcare resources may lead to higher rates of underemployment.
• Frequent and short notice moves.
  • Moves may cause short periods of employment or even extended periods of unemployment that tend to reflect poorly on a resume, but have no bearing on the dependability of the individual.
  • Frequent moves also make maintaining professional licensure extremely difficult as requirements differ from state to state and country to country.
  • Some companies don’t want to hire military spouses due to the possibility they may move.
• Military spouses and veterans have unique experiences, sometimes in high-stress and discretionary situations (via volunteer work, interactions with diverse and varied cultures and people, maintaining a flexible and growth mindset) that are not easily translated on a resume or simply don’t count as paid work experience.
• Lack of meaningful work opportunities in various locations particularly in rural or remote areas (which accounts for more than 50% of military locations)
• Unavailability of a viable professional network due to lack of connections and mentors within the local community.
• High levels of family stress due to frequent deployments and the high-intensity nature of the military member’s job.

Solution

Widelity has determined to turn the challenge of staffing our remote work force into an opportunity by finding people who have unique life situations that bring a potpourri of experiences to our many endeavors.  Widelity offers a solution that supports military spouses and transitioning military members by providing various remote employment opportunities to the military-connected community. This relationship addresses Widelity’s business challenges while decreasing turnover within our organization. Currently, 10% of our staff are military connected. These employees come from various professional backgrounds and include military spouses and veterans, who are often under-utilized within traditional corporate environments. Specifically, we offer the following work environment to all our staff, but proves to be specifically beneficial to our military-connected members:

• A remote workplace offering flexible hours and meaningful work that can move from location to location, is easily transferable, and can be conducted virtually from home.
• A healthy respect for family commitments from management.
• An instant network of a skilled and intelligent co-workers and comradery with other military-connected employees within the organization.
• A respect and awareness from management for the unique and varied experiences of our military-connected workforce, as well as the valuable experiences and work ethic that this work force brings to our projects.

Benefits

By utilizing the strong technical and soft skillsets along with the incredible work ethic of our military-connected co-workers, Widelity has benefited tremendously from these working relationships.  Special benefits (such as the possession of security clearances, the ability to obtain a security clearance, and access to unique networks) can be leveraged to obtain new contracts and special projects that will allow us to diversify our offerings to our clients. Utilizing this untapped employment market has allowed us to procure a highly trained professional group with varying professional degrees and multiple certifications, along with unique life experiences that enrich our work culture. Our working relationships with our military connected co-workers have increased our offerings to our clients for not only their benefit, but for the future of Widelity.

**Statistics from US Chamber of Commerce Foundation