Accounting Principals employees celebrate Dorothy Brooks’ 25th anniversary with the company. Photo by Caroline Martin
When Shannon Patel joined Accounting Principals about six years ago, she was two months away from giving birth to her son. After onboarding and training, she left for maternity leave — not expecting that her newborn would be in a pediatric intensive care unit for three weeks and continue to suffer from health problems throughout his first year.
But with support from company leadership and flexible work hours, Patel was able to balance work duties with caring for her son, who has Down syndrome. This workplace standard continues amid the pandemic with “no question,” she says, as she balances remote working and helping her son with online school lessons.
“The support I got from our team [from] Day One was amazing,” says Patel, who is now a senior manager in the company’s Parker+Lynch consulting group. “It was very much, ‘Whatever you need, we’re here for you. We believe in you, we hired you for a reason.’”
This camaraderie is a pillar of the Jacksonville, Florida-based professional recruitment and staffing firm’s Glen Allen branch in Henrico County. But that close culture changed when the pandemic hit and employees were faced with working and socializing remotely.
