The NSW Government Veteran Employment Program (VEP) was founded in 2016. The VEP was recognised as the inaugural winner of this award category for their framework and focus on supporting veteran employment. Since then the NSW Government have continued to champion and support veteran employment at a State, National and Local Government level by continuing to raise awareness to the value of employing veterans.
In November 2018 the NSW Premier committed to a four-year extension of VEP with a target to recruit 1,000 veterans in the NSW Public sector by 2023. As at 31 March 2021, 1094 veterans have been employed, exceeding their milestone to employ 125 veteran every six months by almost 75%. Recent survey results indicate that approximately 2% of the overall NSW Government workforce are veterans, with 79% retained for more than two years.
The program has developed a range of resources, approaches and tools to assist veterans to understand their transferable skills and support NSW Government human resource personnel and hiring managers to promote roles to veterans and understand the transferable skills veterans can bring to the work force. NSW Government has developed a champion network across all clusters to communicate the value of hiring veterans and provide informal mentoring to veterans to help them gain insight and an understanding of government. In addition they have developed a Veterans Employment Workshop to aid veterans in understanding the NSW public sector job application process from job search through to interview.
“Staying in the Army always seemed like the easier option. After completing the Veterans Employment Workshop I now feel I have the confidence and knowledge to successfully apply for roles within NSW Government.” - Nadine I
In November 2020 the NSW Minister for Veterans facilitated a Veterans Employment Roundtable as part of the VEP initiative to foster further veteran employment opportunities across the NSW public and private sectors.