You hired a great veteran. Strong record, sharp interview, real leadership. Then week one hits. Nobody told them where the badge office is. The acronyms fly past. The unwritten rules of the team are a mystery. By month three, they are quietly looking for the door.

This happens a lot. And it is rarely about the person. It is about the landing. A new hire who feels lost early starts to doubt the move. A veteran feels that doubt fast because they just left a place where everyone had their back.

The fix is simple and cheap. You pair the new hire with a person, not a packet. That person is called a sponsor or a buddy. They walk the new veteran through the first weeks so the hire sticks. This guide shows you how to build that program for a midsize team.

One note before we start. This article is about the peer-pairing piece only. If you want the full week-by-week roadmap for the first three months, read our guide on onboarding veteran employees with a 90-day plan. The sponsor program lives inside that bigger plan. Here we zoom in on the pairing itself.

What is a veteran sponsor or buddy program?

A sponsor program assigns one current employee to support one new hire. The job is to answer questions, make introductions, and help the new person feel at home. It is not a manager role and not a formal mentor role. It is a friendly guide for the first stretch.

The military already runs this exact play. When a service member shows up at a new duty station, a sponsor is assigned before they even arrive. That sponsor handles the welcome, the lay of the land, and the first hard questions. The VA for Vets Onsite Sponsor Guide built its civilian version on the same idea. In that model, the sponsor partners with the new veteran during the first 30 days to help them get oriented.

So a veteran walking into your company already knows how this works. They were a sponsor once, or they had one. You are speaking a language they trust. That is a head start most onboarding programs never get.

The buddy version is a bit lighter. A buddy is a peer who checks in, grabs lunch, and answers the small stuff. A sponsor often carries a little more weight and a longer commitment. We will break down the difference in a minute. The core idea is the same. One person owns the new hire's soft landing.

Why does pairing work so well for veteran hires?

The first weeks decide a lot. People form their opinion of a job fast. If those early days feel cold or confusing, the new hire starts to pull back. If they feel supported, they lean in and stay.

The numbers back this up. HR research consistently shows a large share of turnover clusters in the first 45 days. One widely cited figure puts it at around 20 percent. That is a brutal window. You spent weeks recruiting, and one rough start can undo it. A sponsor is the cheapest insurance you can buy against that loss.

Pairing also fixes a problem specific to veterans. They come from a world of tight teams and clear roles. Then they land in a place where nobody seems to have time to explain things. That gap feels jarring. A sponsor closes it. The new hire has one person to turn to, just like they always did.

There is a productivity payoff too, not just a retention one. Microsoft studied its own buddy program. SHRM shared the results in its writeup on how work buddies help new employees transition. The more the buddy met with the new hire, the faster that hire felt productive.

Read that chart again. One meeting helps. Frequent meetings help a lot more. The lesson for your program is clear. Do not pair people once and walk away. Build in regular check-ins.

Sponsor versus buddy: what is the difference?

People use these words in different ways. That is fine. What matters is that you decide what each role means at your company. Here is a clean way to split them.

For a midsize team, you may not need both. Start with one. A sponsor model maps best to the veteran experience, so that is a strong first pick. If your team is large enough, you can layer a buddy on top later.

The key is to make the role real. Give it a name. Give it time. A sponsor who is told to help "when they can" will help when they cannot, which is never. Block the time on purpose.

How do you pick the right sponsor?

The wrong sponsor can do harm. A burned-out employee or a quiet loner will pass that energy straight to the new hire. Pick on purpose, not on who is free.

Look for someone who likes the company and shows it. Look for patience. Look for a person who explains things without making others feel dumb. Those traits matter more than tenure or title.

When you can, pick a veteran. A veteran sponsor gets the transition in a way nobody else can. They have felt the same culture gap. They can name the unwritten rules because they had to learn them too. That shared ground builds trust in days, not months. If you want more on why this matters across the whole employee journey, see our guide on veteran employee retention and why military hires stay.

One more rule. Do not assign a sponsor more than one new hire at a time. The whole point is focused attention. Spread them thin and the program dies fast.

What does the sponsor actually do, week by week?

A program fails when nobody knows what to do. So spell it out. Give the sponsor a simple plan. The VA model starts before day one and runs through the first month. Here is a version you can use for a civilian team.

Notice this is light work. A few minutes a day, then a few minutes a week. It does not pull the sponsor off their real job for long. But it changes everything for the new hire.

Managers play a part too. The sponsor handles the soft landing, but the manager owns the role and the goals. The two should talk. If you want help getting managers ready, read our guide on how to train managers to retain your veteran hires.

What common mistakes sink a buddy program?

Most programs do not fail because the idea is bad. They fail because of a few avoidable slips. Watch for these.

The pattern across all five is the same. A program needs an owner, a clear plan, and real time. Give it those and it runs itself. Skip them and it fades in a quarter.

How do you measure if it is working?

You do not need a fancy dashboard. A midsize team can track this with a few simple numbers. Pick two or three and watch them over time.

Start with early retention. What share of new hires are still here at 90 days? At one year? If a sponsor program is working, that number climbs. Tie it back to the 45-day window where so much turnover hides.

Ask the new hire how often they met their sponsor. The Microsoft data showed that more meetings meant a faster ramp. If your hires report only one or two meetings, that is a signal to push for more contact.

Keep it simple and keep it regular. A short survey at 30 and 90 days tells you most of what you need. The goal is not perfect data. The goal is to catch a weak program before it costs you a good hire.

Where do you find veteran hires to pair in the first place?

A sponsor program only matters once you have veterans on the team. That is the part many midsize companies struggle with. You want military talent, but you do not have a pipeline to reach them.

That is where Best Military Resume comes in. Our platform is built around a large and growing pool of veteran and military spouse talent. We add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. These are people actively planning their next move.

The hiring and the keeping go together. A strong sponsor program means little if you cannot find the talent. A strong pipeline means little if your new hires leave in 45 days. Build both. To get veteran candidates in front of your team, reach out through our veteran hiring page.

If you want the full picture on building a workplace where veterans want to stay, our veteran-inclusive workplace checklist ties the pieces together. A sponsor program is one of the cheapest, fastest wins on that list. Start there.