Bridging the Divide: How Grandinetta Group Is Redefining Military Transition
Each year, thousands of service members leave military life; for many, the real challenge begins after the paperwork is filed. What looks like a simple career change is, in reality, a complex identity shift few veterans or the organizations that employ them fully understand.
“Leaving the military isn’t just changing jobs or moving to a new duty station; it’s an overhaul of the veteran’s life,” said Emily King Grandinetta, behavioral scientist, master certified coach and founder and president of Grandinetta Group, an organization dedicated to accelerating military transition and veteran employment success. “When someone transitions, they lose a built-in sense of mission, structure and belonging that civilian workplaces rarely replicate.”
Current programs such as the Transition Assistance Program focus too heavily on hiring, interviews and résumés, and not enough on the psychosocial components of transition. The result: nearly half of veterans leave their first civilian role within one year of being hired.
A Cultural Translation Problem
Many veterans believe they are “civilian ready” right out of the gate based on their military experience.
But once inside their new workplaces, a real disconnect often emerges between the veteran’s potential and
the organization’s ability to leverage it. The responsibility of solving that shouldn’t fall solely on the veteran.
“Veterans enter new roles fluent in the language of mission and hierarchy, while employers operate with unspoken expectations and norms. It’s not that veterans can’t adapt,” Grandinetta said. “It’s that the environment often doesn’t know how to anticipate predictable pitfalls and accelerate the cultural learning curve.” Cultural translation is the accelerator.
That translation gap contributes to early turnover and frustration on both sides. Veterans report feeling unseen and underutilized, while employers struggle to understand why top recruits “fail to adapt” and leave within the first year.
The answer lies in shifting from what Grandinetta calls a veteran hiring strategy to a veteran employment strategy—one that extends beyond recruitment to include onboarding, leadership training and cultural fluency.
Accelerating the Identity Transformation Curve
To address that challenge, Grandinetta Group developed the Accelerated Military Transition Course (AMTC), a self-paced, veteran-specific onboarding and support program that reframes members’ sense of identity and purpose for civilian work. “We call it accelerating the identity transformation curve,” Grandinetta said. “When veterans connect their purpose to a new environment while quickly gaining insight to their operating assumptions and impact on others, performance and retention follow naturally.”
Employers looking to go beyond the veteran-hiring checkbox and truly see their veteran talent succeed can integrate AMTC into their onboarding process. Measurable improvements include retention, engagement and time-to-performance. The data tell a consistent story: when veterans are emotionally and culturally supported through the transition, they stay longer and contribute faster.
From Hiring to Integration
Grandinetta’s approach reframes success for organizations that hire veterans. “Hiring gets them in the door,” she said. “But integration and that sense of belonging keep them there.”
Her work combines behavioral science, organizational consulting and leadership development to help employers build what she calls veteran-competent cultures: environments that understand the nuances of military experience and translate them into value for the business.
That means teaching managers how to navigate and shape the communication differences, creating onboarding structures that acknowledge the psychological shift from service to civilian life and ensuring veterans see how their skills map to the company’s mission. “It’s about designing systems that recognize people, not just résumés or skill sets, and providing line managers with knowledge and tools for retaining this valued talent segment.”
The Human Return on Investment
The financial benefits are clear and include lower turnover, higher engagement and stronger performance —but the human ROI matters most. “You can measure the numbers,” Grandinetta said, “but the real success is when a veteran says, ‘I feel seen here and I can achieve success here.’”
Redefining What Support Means
As Grandinetta sees it, supporting veterans in the workforce isn’t about charity or gratitude; it’s about accountability and readiness. “True success doesn’t come from hiring veterans to put a check in a box. “It comes from providing developmental support and integrating them quickly and effectively. It comes down to protecting your organization’s investment in hiring veterans by accelerating success and increasing retention over time.”
That belief continues to shape the Grandinetta Group’s mission: helping employers and veterans alike navigate transition not as an endpoint, but as the beginning of sustainable success.
For more information, contact Grandinetta Group.
Comments