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OSCPA Town Hall discusses reframing accounting profession’s story
Written on Oct 20, 2023
By Jessica Salerno-Shumaker, OSCPA senior content manager
OSCPA is doing its part to amplify and promote the true story of the accounting profession.
“This is a challenge,” said Haley Boehning, founder and CEO of Storyforge. “There is a need to reframe and change the story of how we talk about the profession.”
Boehning joined OSCPA CEO & President, Scott Wiley, CAE, at the Oct. 19 Town Hall to discuss how to best tell the profession’s story to attract the next generation of accounting professionals.
“We recognize we have a massive workforce challenge,” Boehning said. “We are not alone. But we need to reach younger people in ways that they find meaningful and they find relevant, and we need to reach them with stories that are relevant.”
While there is a need to amplify the true story of the profession, she said, there are also improvements accounting needs to make at the same time. This means doing the sometimes uncomfortable work of looking at ways the profession could improve.
Boehning said there are four major questions the profession needs to address to begin reshaping its story:
Why do you exist?
Who are we here to serve?
What do we stand for?
How are we going to get there?
“You speak the language of business and help people use it,” Boehning said. “And you can help people use it for good.”
Shifting the perception of one that is boring and stuffy to instead an exciting career of solving real-world problems and making an impact on businesses is crucial, she said.
“We know the meaningful work that this profession is doing for good,” Wiley said. “And it's important this profession really starts to think about their work and why they’re doing it.”