Article on LinkedIn by Tom Moore

Today, I’m happy to announce a major partnership with workforce utilisation start-up BenchOn to change the way veterans transition from the defence force.

BenchOn is a Queensland based start-up which is solving the issue of employee underutilisation by matching businesses available staff to short-term contracts from reputable companies. Underutilised staff are an untapped resource in the struggle to find talent, but with BenchOn, businesses now have access to the hidden talent inside Australia’s best organisations. With this partnership, this access now extends to our highly trained veterans. Tim Walmsley, CEO and Founder of BenchOn, is a former Major in the Australian Defence Force, meaning he understands better than most the issues facing veterans in the transition process. 

BenchOn has a very interesting model and one that is growing in government, advisory and defence sectors. The partnership with WithYouWithMe will allow transitioning veterans the opportunity to gain real, paid work experience with Australia’s best companies while still in the defence force and is compatible with flexible work arrangements and Project Suakin the new dual employment model being trialled by the Australian Defence Force.

Personally, I think Tim and the BenchOn team have built a great product to take advantage of the growing underutilised candidate pools in the Australian market and it has also allowed us to identify a veteran employment market whereby employers can trial veteran talent prior to offering permanency to remove any doubts of military member performance and hammer home the message of military members being highly transferrable. It also allows the key fear of instability in transitioning from the military to remove for the military member whereby a paid part-time or full time position between 3-12 months can be offered whilst still actively serving.

The partnership will see veterans who sign up to WithYouWithMe, the opportunity to be registered as employees of WithYouWithMe on the WYWM Bench. The WYWM Bench allows veterans to find paid work on short term projects from three to 12 months across Australia for top tier organisations, mainly in the Project Management and Management Consulting field. Average project manager and consultant pay on the WYWM Bench is $1,500 to $3,000 per week if completing the program full-time.

The rise of ex-military members starting up technology companies to solve industry leading challenges through software and business strategy is a fantastic message to promote. In this case, both organisations are committed to shaking up the way companies approach talent management and both are tech start-ups growing at a rapid pace lead by ex-military members. This hopefully supports the line that veterans are highly competitive in industry with the hope this trend will continue to grow.

If you would like to join the WYWM Consultant Bench or learn more about startups – please register to attend our free webinar with Tim Walsmley on the 20th of Feb AEDT. You can register here.

If you are an employer seeking to trial veterans in your workforce and have a short-term contract please reach out to me directly to discuss the offering.