hi everyone welcome to fair code on air today's webinar DoD skill bridge program how to grow your small business with better and talent I'm Lauren Jankowski the marketing specialist here at Fair code and I'll be moderating today's webinar I'm excited to introduce to you our two presenters for today Sam Sussman our veteran engagement manager and Lloyd godson the co-founder of fara code get started we'd like to give you some background information on fara code error code is a woman-owned certified small business association member and provides cutting-edge technology services managed services and staff augmentation to federal state and local government organizations we're proud to have over 270 certifications partnerships with a variety of technologies including ServiceNow Microsoft and many many more we'll be monitoring the Q&A throughout today's session so please send in any questions as they arise and we'll do our best to answer them as another perk of attending today's webinar we'll be giving away a $50 Visa gift card at the end of the session so make sure you stay on until the very end now we'd like to hand things over to our presenter Sam Sussman hi I'm Sam Sussman I'm with fair code better engagement manager I'm a prior CTM I one of the reasons I wanted to do this was because I was denied a program because the word that many promote opportunities out there and I figured the best way that we at fair code can help that veteran community is spreading the word of how to actually get this up and running so today we're gonna be going over what's Gil Burgess how to get started how to build your program the next steps after you've built your program we're to find and recruit potential skill bridge service members and metrics that you should kind of keep an eye on in the future so I have the special kind of announcement we have a special guest day we have Boris Khan director of credentialing and skill bridge for the Department of Defense he's actually going to cover our next slide which is what is DoD skill bridge he is joined today from us over the phone so he's not gonna read word for word or so I'm going to turn this slide over to you I thanks so much Dan I apologize everybody yeah zoom did not work in going computers but thanks everybody for joining today and I hope everybody staying safe and I'm so sorry distancing himself and enjoying their time with their families but I'm also being productive at the same time I'm just real quickly though the DoD's Gilbert it's fairly a new program and Sam as you mentioned you did not have the opportunity to participate in the program and hopefully our fellow veterans to be are able to want to have gainful employment upon separation the program is fairly simple in its implementation it all service members up to 180 days from separation or transition to participate in employment training which can be assistant of training or education towards an occupation or a role that is different from what they did so we know we're the first as going up or rights going and it can take the form of pre apprenticeships apprenticeships mentorship all of those things orientations cultural simulation so very dynamic it's very different than a lot of times you know a lot of conversations like to have a moment like they didn't you and I appreciate the opportunity mrs. if you all as a it's not an apprenticeship by itself it can be really a composition of a true training program or onboarding for any organization to really allow them and individuals participating to fully engage and to be able to be on board at the completion of the program if that is what is desire that organization for employment post service that's the other essence of the uniqueness of the program agenda is really about the service member to really understand what does it mean to be employed outside of the DoD because a lot of times or the service member this will be their first occupation really that not you know going up school high school or being serving our country sir inner country is very different than being employed per se in the civil sector should be a lot different there's a few differences and skill breed of off that individual to really see some of those differences and how to adjust those simulations that are needed for a corporate world learn in our particular case here you know govern with the small business and small businesses really now is really unique and it's a very diverse and I believe even for veterans in general really great for small businesses because we do so many different roles within our jobs every day so having that agile flexibility for veterans to join small business or organizations that are looking to grow or even to sustain their mission or purpose is an amazing opportunity so that's a little bit of skill rich in a nutshell and today's coverage has morphed a little bit from what it originally came out of with we had a very rigid rules before because we already didn't know what the folks at of the authority could be on today's service members can really go to the organization to the small business word are gonna be at to get the full immersion of their experience what it would be like to be employed there which is very different than you in a year ago and we were very much tying them to neared installation within 50 to 75 miles or on the installation programs so prior to almost about a year ago surf numbers are really tied down to the locality of where they were stationed at whereas today it's really about where is the opportunity or where would they like to or intend to go to so I'm I'm really excited about it I believe them it's a really good opportunity for servicemembers it's really a great opportunity for our partners out there in the economy and yes it's a very different time right now with Cove it but we all know we're looking forward to beating this time but also the enduring kovin being agile and me in being adjusting to this ecosystem environment we're all living in and the great opportunity to still look at veterans and how they how they can be a great asset to your team and make your team better or stronger and help you grow as you're looking to res Avadh the impacts that are on me into your business strategy thank you so much Boris going to one of the things you said one of the reasons I was in able to participate was because I was stationed in Japan and some of the opportunities that are coming up through our fare code skill bridge program and other programs like I think SkillSoft is also online where we have these online opportunities actually starting to come up and actually be accepted into the skill bridge community where they haven't been accepted before and it's an awesome way for companies that are growing that are in the IT sector or in sectors that are more remote than they are on-site and it's phenomenal that program starting to move that way which kind of leads us into the next slide which is telling you a little bit about we're not just preaching this to other small businesses we're a small business that does this ourselves we have a skill bridge program but instead of the traditional class type programs that are out there we prefer that one-on-one attention with our trainer and a mentor because that helps build and actually develop them as a consultant and teaches them how to interact so all of our training is done through our sister company glide fest consulting who is an authorized training partner of ServiceNow 20% of our staff right now is all veterans so when it comes to finding a mentor in whichever area that that individual wants to pursue we let them run with it they want to go the developer route or the business analyst route we can help them get there having a large veteran portion of our staff finding a mentor in that area is pretty impressed enough you remote training opportunities with skill rich and part of our program we actually give them real-life stories that are coming in from clients that way they get to that real experience portion on their on-the-job training so for instance we had one of our skill bird interns where we created extensive amount of duplicates which is common for us when we go into a client where they have duplicate CIS and we made him clean it just gave him the amount of information we had when we got that story and it was the story that came into me and made him run with it and see if he could figure it out and helped him guided him throughout that process we also trained them how to write a consultant profile which is important to the consulting industry along with multiple certifications through ServiceNow and we also provide them resources in both the commercial and federal space for them to grow so that ranges from the ServiceNow dev slack to the ServiceNow community pages we want to ensure that they have the opportunity to network with other professionals during our program that way they can pull in learning opportunities to help build them when they get stuck so that way when they move on and they start being a developer they know where to look for the information yeah and Santa oh I just wanted to add to what Boris said earlier like aura said veterans wear a lot of hats during their service and so they make phenomenal employees for for small businesses but really for anybody they work very hard they learned that from their tiny little service and and and they're they're creative and we've had great success with what the veterans we've hired and I would encourage any business manager there's a business owners that may be on the webinar to really explore the veteran community and skill bridge is a great way to get started with that and then that leads us to our next slide and that comment leads right into perfect where I was heading so why bring on a skill bridge intern department defense spends a ton of money training us it's insane the amount of training that just goes into do your job but then there's also a cool thing called collateral duties which is extra jobs that you have to do on top of your regular job this allows for diversity for them to do the job that you're bringing them on to do but they can also see problems in other areas and provide potential solutions there as well some of the stats are just a lot of the common stats from the veteran community 65% of veterans have some sort of college education or higher which makes them more educated than their peers 68 of 68 % of employers that perform report that veterans perform better or much better than their peers 57 percent of veterans stay at jobs longer than the median tenure of two and a half years so when you bring these people on board you have a higher chance of them staying with you beyond that two and a half years then there's also the tax credits and if any business is trying to make a financial decision you get a free employee and you get tax credits once you bring them on board depending upon their veteran status if you want to actually learn and get more in depth detail I did provide a link which is veteran tax credits com at the bottom of this slide they are a great resource not only for you as the company but for the individual that's going through your program because in order for those tax credits to be applied you do have to get a certification it's very simple and veteran tax credits does not charge the veteran a single done to help them with getting that certification so the small business can actually claim those tax benefits and for those of you that I piqued your interest you're probably wondering where we should start that leads us up to where to start so if you're not sure whether or not a skill bridge program is great for your company that's fine getting the conversation started is the first step to figuring out when to start a lot of companies right now are very fearful with everything going on with cope at 19 but that also opens up a huge opportunity as well a lot of companies are having to make budget cuts due to shutting down so a lot of the construction industry and landscaping industry that's here local and Dayton Ohio they're having issues with being able to actually meet the goals they need to survive the winter the things that I just spoke with a lawn care company about was pulling in some veterans through skill bridge to train them to run their own lawn care business and they are in full swing of building that program up and building the foundations that way they can participate and pull in these guys to teach them how to essentially be their competition but to help make it through the winter when you're a growing business overhead can be kind of a drag one of the ways to cut that is through the skill bridge program you can bring on an intern train them to do the job of how you want them to do it and you don't have to worry about that overhead during the onboarding process then there's also contract opportunities so doors do open with the skill bridge program when you are actively involved when you have a successful skill bridge program and you're going for government contracts you can include that in with your contracts that you're going to use skill bridge interns or mention that you have a program and it could potentially help your contract opportunities so once you decide to start that's when we're gonna start heading into build your program so when you're looking to build your program you need a way to train a weight of a crew and a team to support them these are three things that are critical to your success as a program so one of the things you do need to do is identify the training gaps so for instance being in a former CTM I was trained in IT networking I worked on the platform called BMC remedy but I had the skills gap where I'm at now which was service now learning that skills gap is exactly what's needed for our program so we take that training that we're giving them to fill that gap so that way they can be experts in the area and building the team I know from my experience being a veteran and having the conversation and being that first conversation with these skilled bridge applicants it significantly helps us actually get the conversation started because a lot of these programs are currently local to their commands but they don't understand that different bases might have different local instructions so you have to have that flexibility if you're going towards that online approach of adjusting what you have to meet those local instructions all right you can head over to the next slide which is part of building your program but it's identifying the MLS's and rates that would fit your skill rich rolls so like any recruiter you need to figure out who is your target market what service members are gonna provide the best quality training prior experience to succeed in the career you're training them for so for our skill bridge program essentially any IT rating if you work with a computer more than likely you will be able to succeed in ServiceNow because in some shape form or fashion you either use ServiceNow or you use one of the competitors whether it's BMC remedy ASAP you name the IT ticketing system we've all worked on them and all had to get some sort of reports out of them and that's basic admin work that starts the Foundation's to understanding how to actually do the work with us the other kicker is you might not want to do an MLS write specific but also consider their collateral duties so let's say you're looking for an HR manager and you're wanting to use an HR manager or a skill bird intern to fill that HR manager role you can have somebody who has a completely different MLS that's not HR but there's a per victim advocate so they know about the sexual assault response and how to have those conversations and how to address the issues that occur in everyday business that you are required to train a bell and you have a vast set of skills because of all those collateral Duty hats that some of these service members are wearing military starts teaching leadership right at day one and when you get to boot camp that is one of the biggest thing that it I got out of the military was the leadership potential as soon as you join so boot camp I was the port watch section leader for my boot camp division where I assigned watch duties on a daily basis I determined who was going to sleep that night and he was gonna be standing watch and filling out the deck log and I had to figure out a way how do I be fair I don't think I would ever have known how to schedule without that little piece of help in boot camp and when you start identifying those service members you just need to figure out those little skill gaps those skill gaps is what you have to train to get them to be successful in the career you're training them for which that leads us to how do you pick your training so when we look at what training they might need there are several different routes of training and individual whether it's professional certifications on-the-job training or just straight-up work experience for our program we work with a platform called ServiceNow so we know what professional certifications are needed just for our everyday consultants to do their jobs that made it very easy as for us to figure out what professional certifications they need and how we need to get them for them beyond the job training that one was a little bit difficult because at first when I was working with Lloyd to help build this program up we didn't have a clue of how to do this on the job training portion how do we get them real on-the-job training that's going to help them succeed because I think this was one of our first interns as well where we just didn't have this before so we had to learn how to do the on-the-job training one of the good things is we get stories on a regular basis from real clients that can be done on out-of-the-box instances which helped us phenomenally to be able to build that on-the-job training the experience portion as soon as they get comfortable and in the groove they're able to actually start working on these projects with supervision and busting out great quality work and as soon as you figure out those training steps that's when you need to start addressing okay what team do we need in place to support these service members so and the military teamwork is critical because if you don't keep your bow buddy safe bad things happen this is true when you set up your skill bridge team as well when you set up your skill bridge team you want to make sure that it's somebody that's going to be engaging with them have conversations and actually be involved with their training that is key to their success because if they don't feel comfortable in their training they're not comfortable asking questions and that's something that every business you would much rather have a difficult question than have to explain in action so getting that started starts with having somebody who can engage and have a conversation so that is the person that you want to kind of designate as your skill bridge lead your skill bridge lead is going to be the person that is your face to face with everybody that's in your program and everybody coming in this person can also wear that recruiter had as well they don't have to but veterans typically are good at finding active duty service members who are transitioning and that's thanks to a lot of the networking capabilities that we'll get into a little bit later on then there's also the training piece you need to figure out a way of how to actually provide that on-the-job training and not take away from your everyday business as well that way you can keep your operating cost of the program low but keep the quality of training high so if you don't have a training team already you might want to bring somebody in that's dedicated to training not just for your skill bridge people but for your company as a whole for doing safety trainings and stuff like that so once you get this done what do you do next you have the foundation set up and now you're ready to actually get started with DoD skill bridge first thing you should do the current introduction is DoD i13 - decimal 21 however Boris as informed me and the previous interview that a new instruction is actually coming out here soon that new instruction you want to keep an eye out for it because that number is going to change currently robber ating under that but you still should register on the DoD skill bridge dot-com website so that way you get the approval at the DoD level and when it comes down to those local instructions you might have to get it at their base level and branch level as well so you have to kind of be flexible for when the new instruction hits so a lot of these were taken right off the DoD skill bridge site so the big one that I wanted to point out to everybody in attendance is it looks like two hundred thousand service members are separating every year that's two hundred thousand potential skill bridge interns that are free to you you can check out their website and find the closest base and work with that base or if you're a remote opportunity you're gonna have to kind of be a little bit flexible of how you're gonna recruit one of the other things you need to do is connect with your transition offices that's key for those local instructions so if you're working with your transition office more than likely they will have the correct version of the MOU that you will need to participate in the program they will know the local instruction of what needs to be routed and what check marks that are at the local level that aren't at the national on the DoD skill bridge program itself the other portion is the MOU the Memorandum of Understanding this is the actual contract between your company and their command that is what's going to be able to allow them to draft the orders for TDY so that way they can be stationed with you instead of their command I'll be providing everybody in this meeting with a blank MOU that I got from Boris when I was initially starting our program and work with your transition offices because there might be local differences and that MOU of how it needs to look so this little will get you started with a real MOU you can just plug your data in plug the servicemember data in and they're commanded a tin and it's ready to roll you also need to make sure that you have a mentorship network if you don't have a mentorship network there are tons of free military veteran networks out there there's veteran mentor network you have better Otte which will you can even register as your company yourself and have your skill gradually register to handle those mentorship calls through veteran which will give you phenomenal phrasing questions you learn how to ask questions they give you rubrics to have real conversations on building each other up because that mentor mentee relationship isn't one directional towards the mentee the mentee actually will help your mentors grow as professionals as well so that leads us over to getting connected which is how do you actually find these service members so I've brought up a lot of these before but it's great to bring them up again and reiterate them because they are very important to you the success of your skill bridge program so the first one is LinkedIn I have yet to hear any service member state that they were not told in their transition class to create a LinkedIn account LinkedIn has become kind of the gold standard of professional networking this is your go-to place for news for everything going on in your industry for starting sales conversations to even just networking for jobs it's a great tool and part of that tool is groups as well so veteran mentor network is one of the largest groups on LinkedIn and it's all veterans helping veterans through mentorship it's one of the best groups in my opinion on LinkedIn right now because we see the veteran community engaging with service members who are up to four years before they get out of service asking advice for how to transition your based transition offices those are going to be your local opponent contact for those individual bases because every command can have a different routing process for the DoD skill bridge it to go up to the commanding officer you have to look at that instruction and adapt what you information you're providing the computing community based networking so originally a brought up that we got our interns involved in what's called the ServiceNow developer slack channel that is a slag Channel that is open to any and everyone that is working within ServiceNow there's actually a military veterans Channel and that's that group that is just military veterans exchanging conversations with each other doing that professional networking and sharing leads with each other there are more than likely other groups out there for every industry I know there's a veteran group on LinkedIn that's for construction management for plumbing you name it it's out there and after you're connected that's when you can actually start that recruiting process once again I'm bringing a veteran mentor network I will keep repeating it and keep saying it if your employees are not in veteran mentor network you're missing out on a huge talent pool not only for skill bridge but the entire veteran market anytime a veteran is looking for a job typically that's the first place they're going to look for one you also have VR OHS which are veteran resource organizations which are typically nonprofits or not-for-profits that are dedicated just helping veterans that will be your VFW and that's American Legion disabled veterans of America there's several out there and getting connected those potentially could help you actually reach out to the service members and help build your veteran community veteran employees those are gonna be your best tools for finding somebody who's transitioning because typically we have somebody who's still serving that we know that would be perfect to work with us and those individuals are gonna be perfect because they've already had exposure to what you do through that a veteran employee so the next slide is going to be about metric before we continue we actually have some great questions for you and Boris that I'd like you to start to address if you don't mind can you see them there I can see them all right yeah let's start from the top down an ad for Boris you could just read them out all right II could Boris or Sam speak to the idea of an MoU going across all branches and all bases sure okay so to address that question so today we do have an MoU that goes across all the departments with regard to the bases if you have a if you were going to have a program on the installation each installation the best way to categorize it is each installations don't city so then you would be required to have an MOA for that installation so if you're going to be using water or utilities etc facilities in MOA the only outlier right now out of the services is the Army but we're working with them continuously so we hope to have eventually all the services wrapped into our one MOU like we do with tuition assistance but for now it goes basically we do have a blanket mo-mo you and that covered all this all the services and if you go to if you need assistance in one element just how each service does it with regards to sir remember applying for the programs or participating skill bridge we actually have that on discovered on how to apply for all the services and then also for industry partners as well so they don't no longer actually do mo use for individual other than the Army if you're gonna do it a one-off or anything like that so but for services for the Navy Air Force Marine Corps it's just a request chip so it looks like the other questions one will be answered here in a little bit and I would like to save the other ones for a Q&A session because they might spark other questions and I have a feeling this slide is going to spark a few questions which is the metrics right now the metrics are pretty vague where you have to offer a job at the end and you record your own one of the big things is I've noticed is a lot of different companies are tracking so many different things however these four points that I have right now are typically what I'm asked by the service member every single time so tracking those metrics seems to be what the service member wants to see so Boris might be able to speak upon what the new instruction might have but I just want to cover strictly what these service members are looking for when they are asking these questions about specific metrics of our program they want to know the acceptance rates how many people will apply so they know how many people are accepted that way they know their odds before even applying for the program post employment numbers they want to know are you actually hiring these people or are you making a job offer and they're going with another employer or are they deciding you know what I want to go back to the military those are key critical components to your skill bridge program that they are definitely going to ask the other one is training hours this is not only just for your information and for their information but sometimes branches will have their Education Office reach out to you and ask what are your training hours you're an online opportunity but we want to make sure they're actually getting eight hours of training a day how are you going to account for those numbers when you start recording those metrics and having those metrics behind you it makes it a lot easier to justify your online training program and then retention how long are your skill bridge interns staying with you when you're starting out you're probably not going to have that number but you're just gonna keep watching it you're gonna track it and make sure that you're seeing all these trends and you want to share those trends not just with your potential skill bridge interns but with people like Boris because those numbers could potentially help skill bridge in the future become a funded program potentially doesn't mean it's going to happen but if we start seeing all 200,000 seperating service members every year participating in skill bridge that could be huge for Department of Defense so for some of you I did kind of float the idea I might be working on a white paper for this presentation I was but it'd be irresponsible of me to release a white paper when it really should be a workbook because a white paper will just give you information but it won't allow you to actually build up to your program so I'm kind of in the final stages right now of building this out but I'm including stuff like a training plan so you have an Excel spreadsheet where you can type in the certification or the on-the-job training fill it out and actually get the data that you are looking for and that some of these commands are requiring for service members to participate in your program it's also gonna go into how to actually track your metrics give you those spreadsheets out for free as well and also a lot of Venn diagrams of cost benefit analysis because for me when cost-benefit analysis a Venn diagram is perfect because sometimes there is a cost and a benefit and both of those categories so it will either be an expense or a bonus for you it will also include sample mentoring questions of how to guide and get your mentoring started and a lot of those questions you can build up upon and I've noticed a lot of the mentoring questions that are out there are not specified for service members which those mentoring questions can be as simple as are you going to the VA are you making sure you're being healthy are you doing okay and just simple things like that that are important to the veteran community that seem like little miniscule things that don't typically happen in the civilian world you also want to it'll go over how to set up a steering committee which will be a board of representatives whether it's just within your company or outside your company so if you're like us who's a consulting firm you can pull in board members from your clients and say hey we're looking for kind of a way to build up our skill bridge program we would like your input of would this be beneficial for you to learn too and they will bring in they'll say you need to focus in on this area this is a huge area of where we're going in our direction because then that helps you guide your training in whatever direction you want ahead and then goal-setting one of the biggest goals is your first skill bridge and turn finding that for a service member you can help out then what goals would you have after that I'll put in some suggested goals and stuff like that as well then that leads us to the Q&A session which I promised you would get back to our portion of the QA so if you have any questions be sure to type them in that chat hey Sam could we start with some some of the questions that have already been asked and answered just for anybody who might not have seen them yes sir I'll just quickly read through them first we've got a nice high from marina this is just say melodia Sam Nick Nick next comment was we accidentally used the word no KN o w instead of the word no and oh but that was a good catch that's true we did do that in the first slide next question was for Horace is there an opportunist is from Eddie Dunn or is there an opportunity to get more employers together to share knowledge best practices and talent in response to Cove in 19 so we are so Eddie and I as we talk we've been trying to we actually I'm talking with my art counterpart at TVP o for outreach and we're working to see what we can do with that regard and just to put things together as Sam mentioned where my program unfortunately is not appropriated so I have to reach out to my colleagues who have at least something that or capability that we can utilize that would allow for us to do something similar to this where we can have a discussion with that regard but we can do Tom house on similar to dis if you all you know this was regard to how to get more small businesses involvement we can have a very similar discussion with you know how can we do that on covert outreach so maybe make it a you know I'll put that out there as well that sounds great and we're happy they don't facilitate that and I just want to mention for everybody that welfare code and glide past are conducting a number of meetings with multiple companies to do just what Eddie was asking yeah facilitating shared knowledge best practices in response to coded nineteen let's see the next question Sam are be answered here we have another question from anonymous and the Lloyd Fair code seems to be passionate about the skill rich program what was the deciding factor in getting a skilled rich program started I as a we've tried to hire veterans where possible and you know when Sam told me about skill bridge I knew that we had a great way financially to train veterans to launch their careers in our space so Sam how big would you say we were when you first mentioned skilled rich to us I think we had fifty-three people yeah so really small yeah between both companies yeah so now now we're a little larger we've got a little more flexibility but as you might imagine it would have been a big financial strain for us to try to hire people with no experience in our space because they would not be immediately available so skill bridge was a perfect way for us to have six months of runway to to get people up to speed to where we were comfortable having them serve our customers let's see the next question we have and I think Sam you should probably speak to this to me why is a training plan important to have when developing a skilled rich program just quickly I said it enables the business to fulfill its responsibilities to the veteran who has high hopes of launching a career you know they served all of us and we owe it to them to help you know to hold up our end of the bargain however that doesn't mean that it's got to be a perfect perfectly crafted training program it can be shadowing mixed with a certification path but usually the rest of your employees have to follow anyway along with maybe assigning a couple mentors at the company to make sure that they're feeling good and staying on track with that Sam I'll leave the rest to you so one of the big things for me is exactly what Lloyd said the business aspect of making sure that these rubrics aren't disappointing all to your skill bridge interns but it also helps your professional development within your own organization the other kicker is your potential skill Bridget participants are going to ask that exact question what am I going to be learning what certifications will I be able to get your program and what are the timelines between training and experience all those questions if you have a training plan in place you can go week by week day by day or learning paths for instance for our program with ServiceNow you have so many different aspects of ServiceNow that if we set one training plan up for everybody it wouldn't work because you have people who want to go down that business analyst route you have people who want to go the developer route and then once you're on the developer route you have multiple scopes of ITSM items so IT Service Management IT operations management IT assets management ITB M so business management legal management it's a huge scope of where they could want to go however whichever way they want to go there is a learning plan so I can easily say oh you come from an asset background where you tracked and managed assets and you want to actually work on that platform that managed that so let's get you down this ITAM path pipeline where you're gonna learn about hardware and software asset management from the ServiceNow platform the other kicker is those local instructions sometimes the local commands will ask for that training plan just to ensured that the service member is not going home and sitting on their couch for the whole 180 days they want some way to have a definitive plan where they are going to see okay here's milestones and those commands our interns commands have both reached out during their programming to ask where are they at what's going on how are they doing everything's still going well and they will communicate back and forth and having that communication with that command will build that trust not just with that command but I guarantee you that CEO will tell another CEO hey I had the skill bridge in turnover at fair code and they engaged us through this learning process and even told us about the job offer before they told the service member which it's those little things he'll grow you or brand of your skill bridge community alrighty so Eddie Dunn has another question a lot of questions about metrics here should I wait till the end or ask them now definitely fire those off now and I'm guessing they're over here now I do have my own consulting practice and would welcome an opportunity to collaborate on this workbook I'm currently running a large skill bridge program for a major healthcare program I'm gonna write your name down Eddie so that way I can get in contact with you any help would be greatly appreciated I'm also having my father help me who is a former educator so that way these lesson plans and the learning plans look very similar to what schools are doing because when you have those training plans it's just gonna be more successful program as a whole do we have any trending or benchmarks on metrics I'm presuming that is a question for Boris sure thank Sam and I just want to reiterate and again thanks Eddie and Sam annoyed first and you guys are doing it's like many other programs again that's one reiterate to the group if anybody's new listening in this is a fairly new program only five years old roughly so we're in our where we're very getting to our crawl stage so it's an amazing opportunity so roughly 25,000 dividuals have gone through skill bridge and if we take a look at maybe $50,000 being the average income which we know many of them have gone more that's one point roughly 1.25 billion dollars in an economic and output to the economy nuts so we know we have metrics like that available so not unemployment that's not gone against our economy if not it means they're doing something productive that's one less suicide and many other factors and that's one of us homeless veteran as well so we understand the meaning of this program we value this program within DoD and leadership so for from a benchmarking from standards a lot of times the leadership we have throughout the service the service departments they really value the training program opportunities and but we are turning more towards because Congress is every year asking well how many people just like Sam mentioned had a job interview but more important how many of them were on boarded correct so we monitor from our end and with your assistance basically how many individuals apply to your program how many people participate in your program because there's always a difference correct now I'm answering your metrics questions here here they are so in the nutshell how many folks have applied to your program how many pigeons participate in your program how many of them completed your program because they're my big difference between how many x-rays started and how many completed various reasons could there can be for that and we free I believe any large program Eddie and Sam you can fire talk to those if you wanted to or we can probably post those afterwards so then how many of those individuals and who completed the program received a job interview from your organization or even a partner in or conviction and then how many of them said yes to the opportunity or said no because just because you offer an opportunity they might have said no to you too and then that's not doing the penalty is not against you and we can report that to Congress as well then the other part is talking about metrics and that is in this idea is the Emily years well is we ask that you are able to if asked to provide metrics unemployment 60 days 90 days and 180 days out the reason we ask that question or we put that into metrics if we ask for it is because then we are still responsible for the unemployment if anybody knows the unemployment laws it's the previous employer and it's still responsible for their unemployment benefits and a little seek religion I'm an economist and we have unusual studying with census and source security and so we can do spot checks that's how Congress has us do it so we can spot check so we do random testing we can do again individuals participate in the programs against those individuals so we have very really good success with our partners just like Sam said because I think personally a lot of individuals in this space across industry partners discovers partners are just dedicated it means it's just an amazing space to be and I thank you for that overall we see an average of about 90% completion and overall about 96% hiring so even though we have some there are less than that but overarching leads an amazingly successful program especially in the more recent years so this question is one for you Boris so this one seems more of could potentially be broomer meal or it could be real so forest there's a memo that's floating around LinkedIn right now sure named in that memo and the subject line was use of unaccompanied barracks and other similarly utilized lodging facilities in support of skill bridge career skills program so can you clarify what needs to be done for a service member to access this lodging and can you also provide any additional insights to what this memo actually means for the skill bridge program because that's huge sure so first of all it's a rumor no I'm kidding I'm kidding no it's not as is not a rumor as we said if you look at the date of it it was on Friday mr. Drummond signed it out we it in essence that clarifies a statement inside the DoD so in the DoD if anybody reads DoD policy it's already dry so I don't recommend reading it I'm kidding I do have a statement in there that says there shall be no use of appropriate funding so we actually so the the memo in essence Claire fyz that statement and how it applies to space available barracks are being unused or any other really appropriate funding so it was in response to army actually asking the question because they didn't want to under own do it and in the other sources so in essence who are our we are answering the question of because we already have the barracks no more facilities and they're available it is not using appropriate funding correct because already established so either way it's it's available so we're not expelled expanding additional funding and if we are it's it's trivial cost so if the service deems it appropriate and all right they can it would be no different than our other programs like twitch if because the skill bird authority in essence truly allows the individual simply to go and you can be available for participating in the employment training or basically in allowed to be not in their duty assignment that's really what it does so it'll be no different than we are us saying that they can receive credentialing assistance or cool dollars if anybody knows that those programs so the variation or do that because those are already appropriated monies that already dedicate those programs similar to tuition assistance so people are gonna start the rumor mill or can they do that some services they can some search it's just really we're trying to get more standardization and then utility will provide that clarity much more greatly and I see you haven't signed out by the undersecretary will give it a lot more clarity of course so that's what the memo does so when if I can't I can't nor can my office our office tell the services how to administer but basically all the services were an agreement that it is a really good capability to have especially they do have if they do have barracks space available for the storage member who might interested in the program in a different location so there's no additional financial strain on the individual correct to participate in the program that might be available a different installation or within the proximity of that installation to utilize those facilities so that's what is others we've had a lot of service members over interested in that reach out directly to myself and to the service Leeds Army is going to looking to put out a policy from how to go about that to have more of their guidance the Army Navy Air Force and Marine Corps are more likely gonna go not ad-hoc but it'll be no different than them going and applying so it's not gonna be part of the application process the application parcel is always going to the commanding officer and triad and senior enlisted but more likely the senior enlisted or the ESO or whoever on the installation will probably coordinate with you the other installation to assist the service number of course and identifying it there's space available and perks or lodging available so we're still going to flush it out like anything else but something new correct it was in the promised nijah status or to our program here so we'll you know I'll say give us time or not we're going to learn new things and once we do that hopefully it does be a successful element to assist our service members with within this time period long we didn't answer but I joined to clarify me number one on what the memo meant and also where we are at with with that guidance and that is awesome that you provided that clarification and I'm looking forward to seeing the branch level instructions for using the lodging start appearing any time now you also brought up cool which Navy and Marine Corps both those cool programs did announce that they are waiving the sick month require me left in service and extending it out 60 days upon separation for you to access those cool websites with wrapping up we're gonna actually head over and choose the winner for the raffle and while Lauren's bringing that slide up and picking the winner Boris there was a question about can you actually share that data with us if we reached out to you and I came from Eddie Dunn wish data for the Cure I'm presuming it's going to be the economic impact well so anything listed the sort of questions he has learn is there a good way we could connect editing Boris yeah we could suggest that it sounds like we have a great conversation going and we can definitely take this offline Sam can be reached at Sam dot Sussman at fara cocom and Lloyd can be reached at Lloyd godson at fara cocom and you'll also all be receiving an email after this webinar from info at fara cocom so if you reply to that we can definitely make sure everyone gets connected with the right person but that is all the time we have for today's webinar so we do want to announce our $50 Visa gift card winner and it is carmenza jarmila so congratulations carmenza your prize will be emailed to you shortly but if you did not win in today's webinar don't be discouraged every on-air webinar that you attend for both fair code and our sister company Glide fast that will count as an entry into our on-air grand prize giveaway of a mirror the winner for this will be announced in mid-june awesome and we want to thank everyone for attending today's webinar we hope you enjoyed it and on behalf of farrago we would like to say thank you to all the veterans and active duty military members to see more sessions visit fara cocom and finally on air sap section and all of the webinars will be listed there thank you so much for spending an hour with us and we hope to hear from you soon [Music] you [Music]