Military spouses face one of the highest unemployment and underemployment rates in our country. A 2021 report on employment stability conducted by the Military Officers Association of American and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University revealed that 90% of spouses of active-duty service members are working in positions below their education and experience level. Despite laws preventing discrimination against this demographic, this workforce is still undervalued.
Long Capture Management (LC) is dedicated to ensuring military spouses are no longer overlooked. This commitment has recently earned the company The HIRE Vets Platinum Medallion Award in recognition of the company’s focus on employing military spouses and veterans. The award recognizes employers who hire and retain veterans, including their efforts to establish employee development programs, and veteran specific benefits to improve retention. The HIRE Vets Medallion Award is the only federal-level Veterans’ employment award that recognizes employers.
“Really early on it became obvious that there is an awesome talent pool that has been untapped,” offers Russell Long, founder and CEO of LC. “There are a lot of spouses with multiple degrees and five to seven years of experience, but they can’t keep a [traditional in-person] job in their career field because of moving and limited opportunities around their new duty station.”
When Long, an Air Force veteran, founded LC in the fall of 2017, he had no immediate plans to hire anyone. “It took a really long time to get some traction,” he explains. But by 2019 when his business started to grow, he looked to his Air Force Academy classmates for help. “Through our academy networks, I met other small business owners and entrepreneurs and came across FREEDOM Makers.” That company helps small business owners by providing highly skilled military spouses to work as virtual assistants. “I thought it was a great idea to work with military spouses and to add the virtual piece to Long Capture,” he adds. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, “there was almost no one doing true remote work.”
Combining his recruiting efforts toward military spouses and aligning his firm with fully remote work, has allowed his company to expand and succeed in ways he never expected. Creating a virtual work environment alone created a massive talent pool, Long explains. “We get a ton of applications for our positions from spouses that are really excited to join a fully remote company,” he says. Career options for military spouses are so limited and to have to the opportunity for professional advancement without starting over every few years is invaluable.
Currently 85% of LC’s employees fall under the military spouse or veteran demographic. The platinum medallion matches our values, Long continues. “It is an external marker showing all the work we have put in over the last four years. It is nice to have the external validation and recognition.”
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