Military spouse employment is a national security issue. If military families cannot achieve upward mobility due to their higher-than-average 18-23% unemployment rate, we will fail to retain our best and brightest military leaders, resulting in decreased readiness. Addressing military spouse unemployment can make military service more sustainable and allow more families to continue to serve their country.

Booz Allen’s goal is to be the nation’s leader in hiring and retaining military spouses, and to lead the business community in supporting military spouse career mobility. We have created training materials for managers that emphasize the value of our military spouse employees, highlight the challenges military spouses face, and underscore the firm’s commitment to retaining them. Our goal is to increase military spouse hiring and retention each year, and target military spouses when recruiting for our most mobile and telework-friendly positions.

We also encourage military spouses to self-identify in their employee profile.  All spouses who self-identify receive a welcome letter from the Executive Chair of our Military Spouse Forum, an employee resource group dedicated to military spouses at the firm.  They also receive a welcome packet from the Military Spouse Forum, including a local military spouse contact who can help with their transition to Booz Allen, and a Military Spouse Handbook. This handbook helps our military spouses leverage the opportunity and choice Booz Allen offers, empowering them to build a lasting career that is authentic to their journey, with flexibility for their lifestyle.

Booz Allen’s Military Spouse Forum is an highly active resource group at the firm.  The Forum has created two cohorts of mentoring circles in the past year, and holds regular webinars with internal and outside speakers to teach military spouses how to maintain a career.  These webinars are attended by 100+ people each year.  Booz Allen has also created external-facing versions of our hiring and retention guides. We recently shared these with top business leaders at the Hiring Our Heroes Military Spouse Employment Advisory Council meeting, where we were featured as a top employer of military spouses.