Excerpt from the written testimony of Theodore Lewis Daywalt, CEO and President, VetJobs, (http://vetjobs.com) the online category leader for identifying U.S. military personnel and veterans worldwide - presented to the Congressional Commission on the National Guard and Reserve.

Exploring the Challenges Facing Self-Employed Reserve Component Members and the Employers (small, medium and large businesses) of Reserve Component Members

Employer support is on the wane

There are definite reasons why the support for the National Guard and Reserve system as it is currently operated by the DoD is not receiving support from employers.

Historically, employees participated in a National Guard or Reserve program on weekends and most used two weeks of their vacation time to participate in their active duty for training. But current policies by the DoD is calling National Guard and Reserve personnel from their employers for up to a year a time or longer, and in many cases the employee has been called up several times.

While Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Dr. David Chu maintains that most of those who have been sent for a second or third time are volunteers, I would agree to a point but add that the National Guard and/or Reserve member volunteered for the second or third tour because they could NOT obtain meaningful civilian employment equal to their education and experience due to their continued participation in the National Guard and Reserve. Several cases of this were documented during testimony on January 31, 2007 before the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

The DoD policies as they apply to National Guard and Reserve employees makes it hard for employers to plan and depend on having their human capital available to fulfill their corporate mission. While large patriotic companies like Wal-Mart, BNSF Railway, Caterpillar, CACI and many utilities and municipalities actively support the call-up of their National Guard and Reserve personnel, it is much harder on smaller firms, especially those firms with less than 200 to 300 employees and companies in rural areas. And an overwhelming percentage of those who participate in the National Guard and Reserve are employed in small to mid-sized companies, many of which are veteran owned.

As mentioned earlier, companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to run an efficient and profitable operation. Companies can not do so if they can not count on having their employees, their human capital, available.

Given a company’s fiduciary responsibility, the DoD policies regarding the use of the National Guard and Reserve is disturbing to human resource executives as it puts them in a quandary. One senior vice president of human resources of a major company explained it to me this way: If I have three final candidates for a position who are all equally qualified, and one mentions they are active in the National Guard or Reserve, with the new policy (ref. January 11). I now have two final candidates, especially if it is for a critical position in the company.

Another senior executive commented that in light of the new policy, they will, under USERRA, continue to support their current employees who are active in the National Guard or Reserve, but they will no longer actively seek out to hire candidates who are active in the National Guard or Reserve.

I have heard this same sentiment from a large number of human resource managers. All these executives were not willing to be quoted publicly due to USERRA and other applicable laws, but they represent a trend that is taking place in Corporate America.

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