Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia has earned the Virginia Values Veterans certification.

The certification is a free training and certification program for employers to help them implement nationally recognized best practices in recruiting, hiring and retaining highly skilled and dependable veterans.

“The training and resources we have received through the certification process will make it possible for us to connect with veterans and understand how their military experience and skills translate into the civilian workforce,” said Diane Taylor, director of human resources at Senior Services. “We have made it our priority to actively recruit and employ veterans who match our organization’s needs.”

As one of the hundreds of Virginia Values Veterans certified employers, Senior Services has gone through hours of training and developed an organizational veteran hiring plan that implements best practices into its process for onboarding and retaining veterans.

“With one in five seniors being veterans,” stated Senior Services Chief Executive Officer John Skirven, “our strategic plan identified that it is critical to hire qualified veterans who can understand the special issues older veterans have.”

As reported by Virginia Values Veterans program manager Andrew D. Schwartz, Virginia has the highest veteran labor force participation rate in the United States. “We have more veterans available for work per capita than every other state,” he said.

While the state previously had numerous programs that worked with veterans on their employment challenges, not until 2012 with the Virginia Values Veterans program did it have one focused on training curriculum for employers.