Emphasizing a multitude of benefits and services to its 9 million Veteran customers, as well as promoting the organization as a great place to work, VA kicked off its new “ChooseVA” marketing campaign July 5.
“We know from a recent research study as well as feedback from Veterans who use VA benefits and services, that VA provides some of the highest quality care and benefits available anywhere,” said VA’s Acting Secretary Peter O’Rourke. “The ChooseVA campaign not only highlights VA’s longstanding commitment to caring for Veterans and their families, but encourages all stakeholders to make an ultimate decision to ChooseVA.”
The ChooseVA campaign includes testimonials from Veteran customers and employees, and will run initially on social and digital media platforms, then later on traditional media channels to include billboards and banners, as well as through broadcast media. The campaign focuses on the following three areas:
- Spotlighting VA’s foundational services in the areas of rehabilitation, prosthetics, spinal cord injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health, home loans, memorial services, women’s health, etc., and how these services benefit Veterans. The foundational services focus area encourages Veterans to ChooseVA to meet their needs.
- Attracting future employees, especially Veterans, who want to give back those who have served in the U.S. military. Potential employees are urged to ChooseVA as their next career move.
- Retaining the “best and brightest” employees by leveraging industry best practices that acknowledge talent, external competitive forces and a work environment with improving infrastructure. Exceptional employees are inspired to ChooseVA.
“The ChooseVA campaign was developed to inform and demonstrate to Veterans, their families and our employees the foundational services that VA provides and how it benefits all our customers and stakeholders,” said John “Wolf” Wagner, principal deputy assistant secretary for VA’s Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, who is leading the initiative. “The campaign’s focus on attracting future employees shows how they can serve their communities by caring for Veterans.”
As of May 2018, VA’s 386,630 employees included over 125,670 Veterans, representing 32.5 percent of the workforce.
“We invest a lot of time and money training our employees,” Wagner said. “Coupled with the on-the-job experience that they gain over the years, retaining them is critical to VA’s overall success, and the ChooseVA campaign helps us do just that.”
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Really. Hiring veterans as future career employees. What a crock of ….. As a veteran I wasn’t hired by V.A. despite being VRA eligible and qualified for the jobs I interviewed for. As a VRA eligible I should have been hired into a position I was qualified for (called excepted hire) but instead HR made each position “competitive hire” and I had to compete against other candidates. In one case I wasn’t hired because the interviewer wanted someone who could do a song and dance routine for the customers the office served instead of someone who would get the job done. It was a “security” type position issuing ID’s to employees, but instead of hiring me (I had worked for the state police and was more than qualified when it came to confidentiality) he hired a vet who had been a store clerk. That candidate, by the way, was quite a bit YOUNGER than me. Another job I interviewed for, a younger person was hired instead of me and I was better qualified. As to the PIV job, I still HAVE NOT received a formal letter telling me I wasn’t hired. And they won’t tell me when to report to work. The HR person is incompetent and proved that to me more than once but she still has a job at V.A. After a period of time I did receive a letter in the mail from a guy at HR telling me that my V.A. would no longer be keeping applications at their office and if I was still interested in working there I would have to apply for jobs posted on the USAjobs site. I had been told by an HR person that only their competitive hire positions were posted on USAjobs, otherwise having to compete in interviews was excepted hire. Really???? When did the laws, codes and regulations change so that my V.A. or any other for that matter, doesn’t have to accept and keep job applications from veterans locally????? It’s quite obvious that I wasn’t hired because they wanted YOUNGER people (this is called AGE DISCRIMINATION) and because I challenged them on their hiring practices they have informed me I can no longer apply directly to them, I HAVE to apply only for competitive hire positions (their definition not mine). This is how they show they want to hire veterans. BS, the only people who get hired are those who aren’t veterans themselves and because THEY HAVR A RELATIVE already working there!!!