BC's Top Employers (2025) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 34
34
SPONSOR CONTENT
BC’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2025)
CPABC champions equity and diversity for all
W
ith 159 full-time
and 12 part-time
employees,
the Chartered
Professional Accountants of
British Columbia (CPABC) is
not a large workplace. But as the
training, governing and regulatory body for more than 40,000
CPAs and 6,000 students across
the province, it represents and
embodies the membership in all
its diversity. That’s why it adopted
a formal equity, diversity and
inclusion (EDI) plan in 2022.
“The intent is really to ensure
that we are creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment
that really supports our employees
as well as our members,” explains
president and CEO Lori Mathison.
“Having a diverse team enables us
to achieve our goal of protecting
the public.”
As soon as she heard at a town
hall meeting that the organization
was establishing an EDI Alliance,
Brianne Formosa volunteered
to join. The associate director,
practice review, a CPA herself,
had served on a similar team at
her previous employer, a public
accounting firm. In its short history, CPABC’s 15-member alliance
has launched an EDI book club,
suggested topics for lunch-andlearn sessions and is now working
on an employee guide for the use
of appropriate language.
The work is just an extension of
moves CPABC management was
already making, including changes to health benefits to embrace
the diversity in the workplace,
Formosa says. She appreciates
having that support.
“That’s helpful because even
if you make suggestions, if
your leadership isn’t behind it,
meaningful change isn’t going to
happen,” she says.
The CEO is certainly on board.
“We want to make our staff more
aware of the EDI issues affecting
different people, with the ultimate
goal of creating a culture of
belonging, where everyone feels
they can bring their full selves to
work,” Mathison says.
To nurture that sense of
belonging, CPABC also employs two different mentorship
programs. When they join the
organization, new hires are
assigned a buddy under the
organization’s Buddy Program
who can help them navigate the
unwritten rules and conventions
of the workplace over their first 90
days. It’s important that the new
recruit has a “trusted point of contact beyond their direct manager,”
Mathison says. “That way, they
have someone to go to with even
the silly questions.”
We want to make our staff
more aware of the EDI issues
affecting different people,
with the ultimate goal
of creating a culture of
belonging, where everyone
feels they can bring their
full selves to work.
— Lori Mathison
President and CEO
Brianne Formosa, associate director, practice review, at CPABC.
More seasoned employees can
enrol in the STARship program
– an acronym for support, teach,
aspire, reach – which pairs
workers, usually from different
departments, to lend an ear and
share knowledge with each other
on an ongoing basis.
It’s not all serious. Many CPABC
employees have embraced an
annual Halloween costume
competition. Some take advantage
of a Day of Giving once a year
to volunteer for a cause of their
choice rather than coming to
