Risk manager invests in training to grow career
Sometimes the right career just falls into your lap. For Erica Commons, joining the field of risk management had never entered her mind until her employer recommended her for the role of risk manager. Now, thanks to the Risk Management Professional Certificate program, she’s getting the formal training she needs to grow in her new career.
A self-described “lifelong student,” Erica completed her bachelor’s in First Nations and Indigenous studies, then pursued graduate studies before launching her career in higher education. “I loved working in higher ed,” she says, “but I started to get a nagging feeling that I wasn’t using my undergraduate degree to its full potential. I’m non-indigenous, and I want to work towards reconciliation, but my job at the time was not working towards that directly.”
Erica then found her way to BC Infrastructure Benefits Inc., the Provincial Crown corporation that provides skilled tradespeople for the construction of public infrastructure projects such as Vancouver’s Broadway Subway. For Erica, BCIB’s values were a perfect match, as the organization emphasizes diversity and inclusion and prioritizes the hiring of qualified Indigenous people, women and other traditionally underrepresented groups.
“I’ve now been at BCIB for three years, and my job has changed four times,” she laughs. “It’s lovely, because it means people recognize that you’re probably a good match for new opportunities, which you didn’t even see for yourself. I just feel lucky that somebody said you’d probably be good at this.”
Erica chalks up her risk management abilities to her university-honed skills in critical thinking and writing. “Coming into the risk field,” she explains, “I realized that not everybody has the gift of hearing information and being able to translate it in a way that makes sense in a risk context—because there’s a language to it, and you need to be precise. I think that makes risk a good career fit for me.”
While she’d learned an enormous amount on the job, Erica wanted to supplement her knowledge with formal training. Fortunately, she says, the SFU certificate program was covered by the StrongerBC future skills grant, or she might never have enrolled otherwise. Until she saw it listed on the StrongerBC website, she notes, the program wasn’t even on her radar.
Through the program, Erica is now building her understanding of how risk management is handled in different organizations and sectors.
“One of the challenges as somebody who’s learned on the job is that I only know how risk is done in my organization or by the framework we receive from the government,” explains Erica. “I didn’t know how other people do risk. I didn’t know what the norm is for certain industries or the standards they reference.”
She’s also learning about the financial side of risk, which is currently handled by an analytics team in her office: “Right now, I’m much more on the qualitative side of risk management and not the quantitative side. But I’m learning about cost calculations and how to come up with the projections. I know it is an important skill to have.”
Erica notes the flexible online format of the program has been ideal, allowing her to juggle her full-time job and family responsibilities with her courses. “I can finish this in a year and it’s just three courses,” she says. “It feels like a very smooth, well-planned experience, and it’s very manageable.”
Through SFU, she’ll not only earn the certificate later this year, but also complete it well prepared to write the exam for the Canadian Risk Management (CRM) designation.
“At this point in my life, I’m thinking about how do I grow, how do I get to a higher leadership level,” says Erica. “I probably need some designations, I probably need credentialing, and this fills that need. So, I’m extremely appreciative of this learning opportunity.”
By Kim Mah