BDO USA added its first diversity, equity and inclusion officer earlier this year as accounting firms and other organizations try to improve their recruitment of employees from wider backgrounds.
In April, the firm announced the appointment of Bernadette Pieters as its
"This is an appointment that really demonstrates the firm's ongoing commitment to DEI investment," Pieters told Accounting Today this spring. "I see this as an opportunity to really build upon the firm's progress that BDO has made for quite some time. While we have always had a really long history of focusing on DEI, like so many other companies we've really dedicated ourselves to listening, evaluating and enhancing our strategy on DEI."
She has seen progress at the firm on recruiting candidates from varying backgrounds. "Though we have so much more work to do in that arena on our candidate attraction and candidate selection, we have made progress," she said. "We now have dedicated recruiting resources for our Black, Latinx and Pan-Asian recruiting efforts and we are also collaborating with our inclusion leaders. We have many inclusion leaders across the firm so that we can better tell the BDO story about why BDO, why our prospective colleagues, because that's what I call any candidate or any applicant I'm speaking with, prospective colleagues, we are working very hard to tell that BDO story to any qualified candidate that applies to the roles we have within our firm."
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"We have found that we have to be more intentional with our job postings," she said. "We need to be able to describe our opportunities within the firm in a very clear and concise way. One of the many things we are doing is we are really revisiting our job postings to talk more about not just what qualifies an applicant, but what you can expect from the experiences that we do have available within our firm so we are really boosting and updating what our job postings look like so we can draw in individuals more. We are really enhancing our relationships with HBCUs [historically Black colleges and universities] so that we can go on campuses and talk more about who we are in communities, who we are as members of the accounting arena, the opportunities that exist within our firm, the broad range of opportunities that are within our firm."
The study also found disparities in the diversity of women achieving upper management positions in the profession. "Here in the U.S., a lot of our discussion of DE&I, especially in the accounting profession, focuses on the lack of representation for people of color in the profession, which is most definitely a problem, especially here in the U.S.," said Angie Brown, senior vice president of product management at Becker, a provider of educational materials for accountants. "The study was interesting because they took a global perspective, rather than a U.S. perspective. The most prevalent issue with diversity and inclusion globally is the imbalance between the career paths for men and women in the accounting profession."
Many women continue to face barriers in their advancement. "Statistics show that slightly more than 50% of accounting grads are women," said Brown. "But the higher you get in the firm structure, the fewer women you have at the top. I think that's true with corporate America, as well as in the firms. It's an interesting conundrum to have when we have so many women who come into the accounting pipeline, but so few who make it to what we would call the top echelon of the profession, if you want to define that as partnership, or CFO or chief accountant or some other role like that."
The pandemic has helped expose such disparities. "There was a lot of really good discussion during the pandemic about the fact that when people all of a sudden shifted to a remote environment, although in some ways that can be beneficial, many found that it was even more difficult in the pandemic, given the circumstances for parents with families at home, for women in particular, to try to balance all of the different directions that they're pulled in," said Brown. "We did see quite a few women selecting out of the professional pipeline or being very overly taxed during that period of time because of the choices that that many women have to make as far as how they balance their career and the other responsibilities that they have in their lives. I don't think that it's an issue that only women are tackling, but it certainly does create imbalance and has been pretty widely recognized over the last couple of years. It's certainly something that I experienced in my own career, having to try to figure out how to appropriately balance all of the areas where I wanted to succeed in my career or in my life, which included my career but also included my family, and having to try to chart for myself a career path while also trying to chart for myself a path that would lead to what I would consider the greatest level of success for me, in my home. That is pretty common for women in the profession, especially given that the accounting profession — if you're on the top track — does really require a lot of time, and therefore a lot of choices about how you're going to use that."
Conferences sponsored by the National Association of Black Accountants, the Association of Latino Professionals For America and Ascend can help expose firms to new recruits from diverse backgrounds. "We can tell not just the BDO story as to why, but we are offering mentoring opportunities where we're bringing some of our professionals who can teach relevant classes in today's financial and accounting arena so that we can share our knowledge with others who are interested in learning more about the profession," said Pieters. "These are some of the ways that we are hoping to get our message and give back to the community as well because that's one of the things we want to do better with, how we give back to the community as well."
Mentoring is one way for firms to retain talent from diverse backgrounds. "Mentoring is one of my focuses, not just any kind of mentoring, but I call it intentional mentoring," said Pieters. "I truly believe that mentoring through shared experiences is a very important component in how we develop a diverse workforce. As a firm we have made inroads to encourage, support and guide our people on how to mentor. That is one of the many things we are going to continue to do more to help people understand the diverse skill sets, backgrounds and varied perspectives of others because we truly believe that will undoubtedly position us for success."
BDO has employee resource groups where staff from different backgrounds can support each other. "Our firm is quite diverse," said Pieters. "These are individuals who are helping to create an environment where everyone can bring their best selves, and their authentic selves."
Pieters herself grew up in the South American country of Guyana and she is able to bring her experiences to the firm. "My personal story is that I grew up in another country, and I was fortunate to have parents who truly believe that, for my siblings and me, our potentials were limitless," she said. "I recall conversations from early on in my life where my parents would say to us that we could achieve anything we want as long as we have the desire, passion and perseverance to chase our dreams. And that belief, that foundation meant that I always had a supportive environment around me. And so, with that in mind, that is what I intend to do with our operational leaders at BDO, create that same type of environment, because I do know, when you have a supportive environment around you, then there isn't anything that you don't have a desire or a feeling that you couldn't achieve. I know that the leadership that is around me supports such an environment for our people, and we intend to help our people achieve everything and anything that they themselves would like to achieve personally and professionally."
