Nebraska as an Employer of Choice for Military Spouses

Nebraska as an Employer of Choice for Military Spouses

Veteran’s Day gives all of us an opportunity to reflect with gratitude on the service of our country’s military service members and the freedom their service affords us.  In public administration it’s also important that we give back by looking for ways to help the military and veteran’s communities.  This fall the Rickett’s administration took another strong step toward being an employer of choice for military families by fully implementing rules to extend a hiring preference to the spouses of active duty military personnel.  The changes implemented LB639, passed earlier this year with Governor Pete Ricketts support, and will help us grow Nebraska and create more opportunity for military families.

I testified on behalf of the administration before the committee that advanced LB639 to the floor for consideration of the full legislature, and offered this perspective from my experience as a military veteran and HR professional:

One of the main challenges that military families face is the difficulty in finding steady, career enhancing employment for the spouse of a military service member.  Frequent deployments and duty station changes mean that military spouses are in an almost constant job search.  I can speak on this from experience.  I changed duty stations twice in a one year period during my service in the Navy, and each time my wife had to go through an arduous job search to secure employment for herself.  The State of Nebraska and her government have always been supportive of military families.  We need to do all we can to alleviate these stresses for our men and women in uniform and the families that support them.  By providing a hiring preference in State Government to the spouses of military service members, we’ll help make state government an employer of choice for military spouses and alleviate a significant source of stress for military families.

Government policy makers and elected leaders at the state and local level should look for creative opportunities to expand opportunity to our military community.  Not only is it the right thing to do, but government benefits directly by hiring from a talent pool of some of the most highly trained, dedicated, patriotic, and selfless public servants in our communities.