Despite having a lower unemployment rate than non-veterans in the workforce, veterans still face many struggles transitioning to civilian life after service and feeling like they truly belong in the workplace. One great resource for establishing inclusion and belonging are employee resource groups (ERGs). We recently sat down with Dave Erdmann, United States Marine Veteran and Valvoline’s Director of Pilot and Incubation Enablement, and Eric Bevevino, United States Navy Reserve Veteran and Valvoline Global Operations’ Senior Director, Channel Partner & Heavy Duty Sales to discuss their roles as co-leads of their organizations’ joint Veterans ERG. Listen in on the conversation as we discuss barriers to getting started, gaining momentum and buy-in from the organization, and how the benefits can extend beyond the workplace to touch the lives of your veteran employees and their families for an even greater impact.
Mikey Meagher:
What have either been some barriers that you and Eric have run into with running the Employee Resource Group? And what are some benefits you’ve seen come out of this outside of maybe just camaraderie, more thinking along the lines of a strategic business plan?
Eric Bevevino:
I’ll take that on a little bit. One of the challenges is that our employees are very spread out across the United States, for Dave and myself, but also across the globe for Valvoline Global Operations. There’s a small core group in headquarters that does a lot of the work. So, you can quickly get overwhelmed if you’re not delegating and if you don’t have a structure. HR brought a nice structure into that, but there may only be 10 people at headquarters managing that and then trying to replicate that structure out to demographic clusters of employees. Because we have plants, blending plants in Houston and Pittsburgh, Dallas and other places around the country, that’s a little bit of a challenge. But, Microsoft Teams helps with that, getting everybody on.
That was one of the benefits of Covid. It showed us that we can do all this stuff whenever we want. It’s not as good as face-to-face, but it’s better than just picking up the phone, I suppose, and talking to folks. But that’s been a big challenge. Sometimes the budgeting perhaps can be a challenge, unless you know exactly what you have and people who are experienced with how much these different types of things cost and being able to get things for free perhaps or donated, as opposed to having to go out and buy them and stuff like that. I think those are some of the challenges. I’m not sure if I answered the entire question, Dave. Did I miss anything?
Dave Erdmann:
No, well said, Eric. On my side, there’s 11,000 total Valvoline employees, and 9,900 of what we call Vamily members, because we’ll put a V on anything. 9,900 of our Vamily members are in the stores across the U.S. As Eric said, Teams is difficult because it’s not that in-person feel, but it gives us the ability to reach more team members and just connect. Because again, as Eric said, if one good thing came out of COVID, it was our ability to “Semper Gumby”, be always flexible and connect with each other virtually.
Mikey Meagher:
Yes, it definitely has. I always say too, because even before the pandemic, I was remote in our company. I think I met and connected more with each person in the company than I did prior to the Pandemic, because then we all were remote, we were always on Zoom in the beginning, and we still are, but just so much more effective and more efficient with our engagement now. I think that has really helped, at least our company culture as a whole. So, you’re so spread out, how often do you meet as a group? Do you do it quarterly, monthly?
Eric Bevevino:
We meet every month on an hour phone call for everybody. Then we have ad-hoc meetings around the two real cornerstone veteran holidays of the year, those being Memorial Day and Veterans Day. That’s one way we meet. Then, we’re just starting a social program where we get together. Dave did, we settle on six weeks? We were between quarterly and…
Dave Erdmann:
Every six weeks or so.
Eric Bevevino:
Yeah. Our plan is to get together at a bar or restaurant, tell some stories, I’m sure they’ll all be true, and have a few adult beverages, or not, and maybe some bar food, but that’s the plan. There are other opportunities to get together. In support of the 4th of July parade, we assembled a small group of five folks and we handed out tchotchkes and we walked alongside the Baja truck, which is a cool off-road truck built by Valvoline and Cummins in a partnership, and we ran the Baja 1000, I think it is. Baja 500 and 1,000. Sorry, I’m not an aficionado there. We did that.
Also, we ran in the Honor Flight 5K. We assembled a team, actually more people came out to that. I think we had 20 or 25 runners at the local horse track here, which is called Keeneland. It’s very nice. We did that and we supported the honor flight in Kentucky. We do little things like that, charity things, and some big things too, around the year to help improve camaraderie and get everybody together.
Learn more about their Veteran ERG by listening to the full episode and be sure to stay tuned for more great content coming to the podcast soon, including a special episode on DEI, recorded live during our 2024 Annual Meeting & Conference, and a conversation on military spouses. Sign up for emails or text notifications so you never miss and episode!
