Health Care Service Corporation has earned national recognition for its ongoing investment and success in creating a positive workplace for veterans.
Viqtory, a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business, awarded HCSC a silver ranking on its 2024 Military Friendly® Employers list. HCSC ranked bronze in 2023 and has earned yearly recognition since 2010.
“This acknowledgement is an extraordinary complement to the organization and its work with military veterans,” says Kelly Butler, vice president of customer service and enterprise chair of the company’s Supporters of Military Veterans at HCSC (SMVH) business resource group. “Military veterans are extremely successful, and this helps amplify the good work we’re doing within the organization and our communities.”
The annual award measures an organization’s commitment, effort and success in creating sustainable and meaningful benefits for the military community. Organizations must demonstrate success across multiple criteria, including hiring, retention, advancement opportunities and culture.
Two-thirds of veterans experienced a difficult transition from military to civilian life, and nearly half didn’t feel ready to transition, according to a veteran employment report from Prudential. Nearly 70% said that finding a job was their greatest challenge to the transition.
Those figures are driven in part by the difficulty many veterans face shifting to civilian life, says Jason Fry, strategic product manager at HCSC, who served six years in the U.K. Royal Air Force. New decisions, forming relationships, less daily structure and career planning can all be challenging.
“We love what we do but it’s very different than what we are used to,” Fry says.
SMVH is a foundational piece of HCSC’s ongoing commitment to make former service members and military family members feel welcome. The group has five chapters across multiple states with events and programs dedicated to veterans and their families.
About 6% of HCSC employees self-identify as veterans and participating in SMVH groups helps them connect with other vets from around the company.
For example, Fry says he met like-minded individuals through SMVH his second day at HCSC. A happy hour on a patio near the Chicago office served as a welcome introduction.
Fry now serves as chair of the Illinois SMVH Chapter and says he embraces the opportunity ever since a colleague helped him enter the workforce 24 years ago. “I’ve been paying it forward ever since,” Fry says.
“I’m excited that HCSC won this recognition, because it’s not easy,” he says. “Veterans are looking for that badge as a stamp of approval — that this is a safe place for them to come and they’ll be given a fair shot.”