When starting this post, I dug through the article Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® 2020 and discovered the following Military and Veteran based organizations to be within the top 55:
Veterans United Home Loans
Ranked at 17/100, 95% Veterans United employees say this is a great place to work. At VU, employees truly feel like the are family. The company is invested in the people that make up the company and doing the best for their clients. As such, they have a very strong work ethic, that is followed in turn by a very strong drive to play hard. Through this, they are able to retain employees.
navy federal credit union
NFCU is a member owned credit union catering to military, veterans, and family members. They are a member-owned firm with what employees view as a very supportive environment. This culture offers a family feel to the business, that creates hardworking employees who feel cared for by management, and care for their clientele. Unsurprisingly, NFCU was ranked at 19/100, just 2 rankings behind Veterans United.
USAA (United Services Automobile Association)
Similar to VU and NFCU, USAA offers a mission focused, inclusive, and supportive work environment. This firm, in contrast, to the aforementioned, places a little more emphasis on member/client focus. While this company still is one of the best ranked firms in the reviewed article, it has landed this firm at 55/100.
Leadership Trait Goals
In both the military and the construction industry, I have had the fortune to already have some experience as a manager and a leader. This has allowed me to see first hand the type of leader I am, learn from leaders that I admire, and most importantly, learn what type of leader I do not want to be.
As a leader, I try my hardest to be supportive and understanding of my team, maintain good communication, and make sure that my team knows I view them as a priority. I strive to always put my teams needs first. I do this because a management is a support role. In construction, the labor force is what brings in profit for the company, not the management team. If a labor crew of any trade is fast, the company comes in ahead of schedule and potentially under budget. It is the management teams job to make sure that these crews have everything they need to be as productive as possible. Because of this, I feel like I have seen success (mostly) in always having a team that openly communicates any issue they may have. This allows me, if needed, to step in early to help resolve the issue so that the team can keep working.
As a manager, I find a few things challenging. The most challenging so far, is negative conversations with a team member about their performance. Often this is not too challenging as I can shift the view into a conversation about where improvements can be made and offer some understanding, which allows for the tension to be lesson. The hardest cases are when the previous conversations have been held previously and an employee needs to be fired. No one wants to be the bad person, and not matter what you say or do, in that situation, you know you are viewed as the bad guy. The easiest way to handle this is to make it fast, simple, and stand by your decision.
“Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work for® 2020.” Great Place To Work®, https://www.greatplacetowork.com/best-workplaces/100-best/2020.
Working at Navy Federal Credit Union: 1,837 Reviews – Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Navy-Federal-Credit-Union/reviews.
Working at USAA: 4,165 Latest Reviews | Indeed.com. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Usaa/reviews.
Working at Veterans United Home Loans: 164 Reviews – Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Veterans-United-Home-Loans/reviews?fcountry=ALL.
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