Onward to Opportunity (O2O)

IVMF research indicates finding employment is one of the top priorities for transitioning service members, and simultaneously the most challenging part of their transition. Similarly, employers also face challenges accessing and understanding the talent exiting from military installations.

Operating within the DoD’s Skillbridge authority, O2O pairs industry-validated curricula and technical certifications with comprehensive career coaching and placement services to match program candidates with relevant civilian career opportunities. O2O purpose is to advance the post-service career opportunities for veterans and military spouses, by enhancing the skills, competencies, and awareness of those transitioning to civilian life. 

Launched in 2013, IVMF 's O2O program is a proven scalable model. O2O is offered online and at 19 military installation communities, enrolling 1,000+ individuals each month. Since inception, O2O has reached over 30,000 participants and has a total employment/enhanced impact of over 15,000 and over 24,000 total unique positive outcomes for service members and spouses.

The DoD and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimate that as many as 200,000 service members transition or retire from the military each year. When you include their family members, this number nearly doubles. According to a study published by the IVMF and Google, finding employment is one of the top priorities for transitioning service members, and simultaneously the most challenging part of their transition. Additionally, unemployment among members of the National Guard and Reserve has been consistently higher than veterans, which could be attributed to the lack of accessibility of Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and the lack of similar career development programs.  

 Moreover, research also shows that military spouses are largely overlooked as a viable talent pipeline, despite the fact they are often well-educated and qualified. Frequent relocation can create gaps in employment, unemployment or underemployment and caregiving responsibilities can have a significant impact on their ability to pursue their own professional and educational goals.

 Similarly, employers also face challenges accessing and understanding the talent exiting from military installations. For example, many employers report a limited understanding of the skills gained in the military and how these skills translate to civilian job roles.

O2O provides a solution to the unemployment & underemployment of transitioning service members, veterans, and spouses by providing at no cost courses and professional certifications that are in high demand in the labor market and then connects them with a portfolio of employers seeking to fill their open positions. O2O starts with an assessment that acknowledges skills and experiences gained in the military and seeks to complement them with industry-specific trainings. Recognizing that most transitioning service members intend to pursue a career different from their military occupational specialty, an Enrollment Specialist will meet with the participant to review the assessment and help them select their career track. O2O offers more than 50 different learning pathways (i.e. PMP, SPHR, SAS, CISSP, etc.) across three career tracks; IT, Business and Customer Service. Once enrolled each O2O participant is assigned an O2O Advisor for support in the program and a Veteran Transition Specialist from HHUSA to receive employment coaching/matching services. Once courses and practice tests are completed, participant is scheduled for a certification exam and if passes the exam, they will receive the professional credential.  Meanwhile the participant is working with HHUSA Employment Coordinator to be matched for interviews with O2O employer partners.

Eligible participants include transitioning service members, veterans, and spouses. O2O is executed on military installations and through a robust distance learning operation. Current military installations include Camp LeJeune (NC), Camp Pendleton (CA), Hampton Rds. (VA), Fort Bragg (NC), Fort Drum (NY), Cherry Point (NC), Tri Base Jacksonville and the Emerald Coast (FL), Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman (HI), Joint Base Lewis-McChord (WA), Navy Region Northwest (WA), Navy Region Southwest (CA), Fort Bliss (TX),  Joint Base San Antonio (TX), Fort Knox (KY), Fort Campbell (KY), Fort Carson (CO), Fort Bliss (TX), Pittsburgh (PA), and DC.

Since launching in 2013, O2O has reached over 30,000 participants and has a total employment impact of over 16,000 and over 24,000 total unique positive outcomes (UPO) for service members and spouses.  Of these participants 73% male/26% female, of which 57% were veterans, 26% active duty, and 13% spouses. Of all participants, 63% were unemployed, and 73% are between the ages of 30-49 years old.

The military-connected community is both unique and highly varied. Through O2O’s flexible program delivery model, high touch advising services, curriculum development, and custom employment support services, we accommodate/serve these differences securing their future with successful transition into the civilian workforce.

O2O aligns by providing a solution that accelerates pathways for the military community to employment across the US. The program is free, increasing accessibility. O2O utilizes Skillsoft technology and faculty to ensure the highest quality of in-demand courses are offered. The assessment given, enables learners to select a career pathway based on their experience/strengths. After completing one certification the student has access for a year encouraging lifelong learning. O2O would like to partner with Workforce Development Partners in Hampton Roads or San Diego as these are military communities and would be a good match based on both organizations’ capabilities.

O2O FT direct employees = 29

O2O FT direct support employees = 18

O2O PT contractors = 20

Total O2O staff = 67

IVMF is building a diverse team that understands the veteran population and preference is given to veterans. Today's Veteran population is racially and ethnically diverse, and includes more women and individuals from vulnerable populations, such as those identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), than at any other time in history. Our current IVMF team of 92 staff members is 18% diverse and 52 female staff members.  

Currently, there are numerous workforce readiness programs and nonprofit-led initiatives focused on aiding the military connected community. All told, more than 100 Career Skills Programs (CSPs) are operating in one way or another on DoD installations. However, traditional CSPs are narrowly focused on a single employer, trade union, or trade skill. Additionally, although almost 40 percent of veterans seek work in the private sector post-service16, many of the existing programs do not provide training or employment opportunities relevant to private sector careers, or continuous support to participants. According to research conducted by the IVMF, considering career-field preferences and existing skills in a job search also helps facilitate a smoother transition from military to civilian life or to a new career. In addition, veterans who secure employment in their preferred career fields exhibit longer average job tenure, higher salary, and greater perceived quality of life.17 O2O is a one-of-a-kind CSP that trains participants for a much broader range of skills and employers at a scale that exceeds all others.

Current programs also require service members and spouses to educate themselves on their options to determine which provides the best return for their time investment. O2O’s end-to-end employment support model addresses this by codifying these resources into a unified program experience, maximizing the limited time set aside for program participation and packaging the pieces together to generate the best outcome for each participant.

O2O currently uses an existing technology, the Skillsoft learning platform due to its ease of navigation for learners and current course content. O2O will be moving to Skillsoft Percipio Platform next year to enhance the learner experience through providing learners with a personalized homepage and the ability to create playlists, pick up learnings where they left off, receive assignments and allow user to learn how they want to learn, using video, books or audio. It also is a cloud based application which will allow 24/7 access from anytime/anywhere, where better supporting the military community worldwide. Skillsoft Percipio will allow reporting with graphs and charts increasing O2O ability to track learners. 

Skillsoft was founded in 1998. It is a learning management platform. It is widely used and accepted. Skillsoft is an award-winning intelligent learning platform. Moving to Percipio, O2O will work with an expert Professional Services team that will offer a wide range of solutions from learning strategy and analysis, to custom development and curation, to learning administration and reporting. Another O2O goal for utilizing Percipio is to increase usage and learner engagement.

The IVMF has built a professional measurement and evaluation staff that supports ongoing extensive program evaluation and benchmarking, as well as research to inform programmatic innovation based on emerging trends and proven best practices.

The measurement and evaluation team has developed a core set of metrics that are tracked by individual, by installation, as well as across all 19 O2O locations. Using our Salesforce, the IVMF can store, collect and analyze data for each program participant throughout the program lifecycle (through initial interest and assessment to program completion, as well as post-program employment and employment retention information).

Post-program survey tools are used to collect information on program participant satisfaction and employment information. O2O new key impact measures are a set of Universal Positive Outcomes (UPO). Given that the program accepts participants at all stages along the employment continuum (unemployed and job-seeking, employed and seeking a career change or promotion, or simply looking. O2O felt it necessary to extend our outcome & impact measurement beyond simply 'employment.' O2O have also taken this approach to account for the long-term nature of the intervention. Similar higher education programs, training programs often do not see obvious immediate 'returns'. UPOs allow O2O to account for the skills gain and long-term benefit of program participation. O2O UPO's include new employment, certification, entry into a higher education program, and online training completion. Many participants achieve multiple UPOs, so for the purposes of external reporting and our UPO rate, O2O reports one outcome per participant. All these outcomes are verified through Skillsoft, survey, or direct staff communication with the participant. Key performance measures are:

 ·Skilled: Completed assessment and orientation

·Completed Training: Completed online training track

·Employed: Got a job

·Enhanced Employment: Came to program with a job, completed online training

·Universal Positive Outcome Rate: the full scope of positive outcomes participants can achieve: Employment, Entry into Higher Ed, Certification, course completion

·Entered Employment Rate: % of job-seeking participants who complete online training that are hired

O2O program's course completion rate of over 65% speaks to the work our installation-based and advising teams do to support our participants.

The O2O program’s one- and five-year goals are nested within each other and include the following components:

-        Maintain our status as an industry leader in career preparation and training for transitioning service members, veterans, members of the National Guard/Reserve, and military-connected spouses.

-        Sustain programmatic throughput, i.e. maintain the current level of individuals served on an annual basis across both the installation- and distance-based models.

-        Sustain funding from current funders at current or increased dollar amounts as well as the continue to develop and diversify new funding opportunities.

-        Grow our curriculum offerings with a data-driven approach based on projected areas of industry growth and feasibility analysis of proposed curriculum pathways.

-        Increase the number of participants who pursue IT related certification pathways.

-        Explore and expand public/private partnerships, and work to better involve the federal government in the support and resourcing of our program.

-        Continue to explore opportunities for delivery model efficiency gains.

-        Continue to expand our services to identified underserved populations.

Current barriers that exist with regards to the ability to achieve our stated goals include:

-        Sustainment funding

-        Curriculum/Certification Costs

-        De-centralization of curriculum access points – more certifying bodies are internalizing curriculum delivery away from modes such as Skillsoft which often increases the costs associated with access.

-        Limitations of curriculum and resources offered within primary learning management system (Skillsoft) – while Skillsoft’s Content Development team continuously produces new training resources associated with in-demand topics, we have nearly no control over what training resources are developed nor the industry in which they focus. At this time, all of the complete certification training packages within the Skillsoft platform are offered as O2O learning pathways; O2O cannot expand its certification offerings within the Skillsoft platform until Skillsoft develops further resources in line with new certifications. 

-        State by state certification/licensing requirement variances – as we look to expand our curriculum offerings in certain areas such as healthcare, real estate, and finance, we are faced with challenges pertaining to a non-universal national certification for many of these options. This limits our ability to expand in these areas as it is cost-prohibitive to deliver this content. 

O2O hopes to partner with the organizations involved with the MIT Solve Challenge to seek insights, resources, and possible further funding opportunities to expand, enhance, and sustain the program 

Barriers: 

Funding: O2O program team along with the IVMF development team will continue to explore additional funding opportunities. Additionally, we will continue to evaluate the feasibility of monetizing of our model for private industry to establish an additional revenue stream. Additionally, we plan to continue efforts of the formation of public/private partnerships to engage the federal government in the cost-sharing of program delivery costs. These efforts are currently underway with the IVMF’s policy team and certain agencies/departments in Washington, DC.

-        Curriculum/Certification costs:  O2O continues to work with curriculum providers/certifying bodies to establish or further establish partnerships that are mutually beneficial to both organizations. Chiefly, on our end we will aim to address opportunities for cost efficiencies and participant access. One strategy on this front has been the execution of pilot offerings which prove efficacy and ROI for the partied involved. 

It would be incredibly valuable for the program to be able to collect and report on certification data – specifically, pass/fail data by certification type. This would benefit the program twofold, both improving our ability to communicate programmatic success and the full scope of post-program outcomes, as well as providing valuable information to program leadership on the efficacy of our programming in supporting high rates of certification. This detailed information would help us better manage expectations with participants surrounding difficulty levels of exams, target additional resources to low-pass-rate certifications, and provide another layer of data-driven decision making for curriculum management over time. Unfortunately, we are limited by the current data privacy protocols of certification bodies to report externally on this information. We rely exclusively on our participants to report back to us on whether they pass or fail the exam. As such, our current data is incomplete at best.

O2O is part of Syracuse University's (SU) Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF). IVMF is committed to advancing the post-service lives of America’s service members, veterans and their families. IVMF delivers unique and innovative programs in career, vocations, and entrepreneurship education and training to veterans, active duty military, and spouses. The IVMF also provides actionable and national impacting research, policy analysis and program evaluation; and works with communities and non-profits across the nation to enhance service delivery for the 22.5 million veterans throughout the United States and their families. IVMF staff executes the O2O program and is responsible for raising all funds to do so, including personnel. SU supports O2O with accounting, legal, and human resource support, but does not provide any funding to execute O2O.

Of the eleven IVMF leadership team members, four of them have served in the military, which gives them the insight into the culture and challenges of transitioning service members and their families.  Also, the leadership team combined brings over 50 years of corporate, financial, communications, and higher education experience.  

IVMF is led by Dr. Mike Haynie is Syracuse University’s Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation, and the Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship. As Vice Chancellor, Dr. Haynie leads a broad portfolio of responsibility centers and innovation initiatives, including the University’s robust portfolio of entrepreneurship and innovation programs, and cross-campus efforts to develop and enhance academic offerings for online and nontraditional students. Haynie also oversees the University’s government and community engagement strategy, as well as defense- and veteran-connected programs and initiatives across the Institution. In 2011, Haynie founded Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans & Military Families (IVMF). Haynie served in the USAF for 14 years. 

Mike Bianchi is the Senior Director, Education and Career Training, for the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF). Mike served in the U.S. Army for 28 years, retiring in 2015. During his career, Mike made numerous worldwide deployments to during his career and his experiences include assignments as Recruiting and Operations Officer and Professor of Military Science Army ROTC, at Syracuse University. Mike joined the IVMF team in 2015 as the National Program Director for the DoD Skillbridge Program, Onward to Opportunity. 

O2O’s success and growth is made possible by a diverse network of partnerships. O2O’s partnership framework is comprised of five types of partners: employer, collaborative, funding, operational, and federal each bringing their unique strengths, perspectives, services, and resources. This distinctive collaboration helps drive overall program success and deliver comprehensive outcomes for participants. 

Employer Partners: O2O has over 500 employers and actively recruits and engages them at different levels throughout the program. All employer partners commit to interviewing qualified graduates from the program. Some partners commit to additional support, such as building training materials, delivering courses, or participating in networking.

Collaborative Partners, such as LinkedIn, Goodwill amplify impact, O2O welcomes partnerships and opportunities to collaborate with other organizations, government agencies, and private sector companies.

Funding Partners: O2O was launched with an anchor investment from the Schultz Family Foundation and has since been able to boost that investment with further support from SFF additional funders. To support O2O’s rapid scaling and adequately plan for long-term sustainability, IVMF seeks to further diversify the program’s funding sources.

Operational Partners: Such as Skillsoft, HHUSA are operational partners provide direct services and support to help drive outcomes and further enhance the O2O’s value to participants.

Federal Partners: The U.S. Department Of Defense (DoD), Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veteran Employment and Training Service (VETS) comprise the public component of O2O’s public-private partnership and have been crucial to the launch and success of the program.

O2O serves the military community, this includes transitioning service members, veterans, and military spouses with no cost education and credentials. It serves employers by matching them with skilled, experienced, and educated talent pool. O2O indirectly serves communities by helping them gain citizens that are civic driven, employed, and contributing to the local economy.  Since 2013, the participants of O2O have driven the numbers served to increase significantly through word of mouth referrals. O2O participants appreciate the opportunity to gain industry credentials at no cost that significantly make them more marketable in the corporate job market. O2O measures it success through throughput, hires, and universal positive outcomes, such as promotions or degrees.  Although O2O does not make a profit, it is a compelling program that is successful and has been awarded significant corporate and foundation support, particularly from entities interested in hiring veterans.

O2O is supported and sustained by corporation and foundation donations and grants, which the fundraising team will continue to seek renewals and new opportunities to partner with these sectors. In the long term, O2O is seeking federal and regional government support as well as considering possible revenue driving models that could include offering additional low cost courses/credentials after completing the first choice or offering the same opportunity to civilians participants at a charge. 

Some of the O2O funding partners include The Schultz Family Foundation, Google.org, Bank of America, Accenture, JPMC, Prudential, USAA, Motorola, Boeing, WWP, and Symantec. 

O2O continues to seek grant funding and general donations. 

O2O is applying to the challenge for several reasons; to gain funding to continue to support military service members successful transition into civilian life, to partner with other organizations to build awareness for our program and make further connections for recruitment and funding opportunities, and to gain insight and guidance of consultants regarding expansion of curriculum, partnerships and funding. 

Funding and revenue model- we hope to gain partners to increase funding to expand and sustain O2O.

Monitoring and evaluation- we hope to gain partners or consultants that can offer further insight or tools in streamlining reporting, data challenges, and visuazations

Expansion of existing relationships – We would like to further our relationships with existing certifying organizations, including the Project Management Institute and various IT certifying bodies, to realize further cost efficiencies and savings based on the volume of program participants for whom we cover exam fee payments. This would allow our program to prospectively increase the total number of individuals served.

Expansion of pilot curricula – Human Resources: the O2O program is currently evaluating alternate Human Resources curriculum pathways through an expanded pilot with SHRM. The ability to complete this effort hinges on resourcing to cover costs associated with access to their curriculum, staffing, and exam fee costs. Trade/Based and Manufacturing: organizations beyond the Manufacturing Institute in this area are still being analyzed for feasibility, but we would like to further expand into this area given current industry demands and future projections.

Curriculum expansion – identification of potential partners in the healthcare and financial certification ecosystem. Our efforts in this area have been limited to date based on varying state credentialing/licensing requirements.