EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT: Ericca Goforth
We’re so proud of our team; they make the difference in
everything we do. This year, we’re recognizing and celebrating our people with
a monthly spotlight that gives a little more insight into the individuals that
make up the JR Merit Family.
JUNE SPOTLIGHT
Ericca Goforth
Ericca is our payroll Administrator and has been with JRM for 5years. After several years working in hospitality as a bartender and server, Ericca started looking into new career paths when she had her son. “I started thinking about what I wanted to do, and talked to my mom who has always done accounting. I thought maybe I could do that, but I can’t stand math. My mom said to look at it as managing money, not math.
“I enrolled in an accounting certificate program at the community college, graduated with honors, and found a job in payroll with a third-party company that processed for multiple companies. I caught on quickly and became familiar with a lot of different industries and clients, from small mom-and-pop shops to construction to the medical field.
“Construction and medical are the most challenging industries for payroll; construction especially because of specific job costing, splitting time to different clients, jobs, and phases, understanding union requirements, tracking different overtime requirements, and understanding different crafts and wages. It’s definitely not a one size fits all.”
Ericca continued to grow her skills and career in construction payroll working for a general contractor in Portland for several years. She then took a short break from payroll to move back to Idaho and help her grandmother through a health scare, and then moved back to Washington and was hired on with JR Merit.
“I’ve been in payroll nine years as of June. It’s been a journey!”
Ericca thrives in the challenges of construction payroll. “I work well under pressure and do best when things are challenging. I’m also competitive—throw a challenge at me, and I got it. It fuels my fire.
“My first payroll job set the groundwork. Accounting is all about accuracy—how to look for things and how to avoid mistakes. Coming from the food industry, I learned new things in communicating via email and corporate professionalism. It’s so important to be careful about what you say in payroll, so that you don’t promise something you can’t deliver.
“What I love about this industry is that you learn lessons continuously. There’s constantly something new in construction because each job is different. I love that at JR Merit I’m given opportunities to learn and grow in my career. A lot of companies say that if you’ve never done something before, there’s no opportunity to do it. At JR Merit, we teach and train and help people grow into their positions.”
While Ericca has been working primarily from home since the start of the pandemic, she loves that her team gets together for bonding events and participating in JR Merit’s all-staff celebrations. “Our holiday parties are great fun because I get to meet a lot of the folks I talk with on a regular basis but wouldn’t see even if I was in the office because they’re on project sites, like our superintendents and craft foremen. JR Merit really strives to create connections between our office and field teams. We don’t see each other often because that’s just the nature of the work—they’re in the field, but we make sure we build relationships through team events.”
Ericca is excited about JR Merit’s growth plans and rising to the challenges of helping the company succeed. “It’s good but scary if you don’t have the tools, resources, and plans in place, but we’re doing the right things. We’re continuing to streamline and automate our processes for ease of use and accuracy. It can be hard, though. No one likes to change, but we’re accommodating and making sure to provide information and resources to help everyone adapt.
“It’s even created a few laughs. There are always quirky things when you roll out new systems. We recently made some changes in our time tracking system, and I was working with someone who insisted he’d entered his time, but I wasn’t seeing it, but he was. I even talked to the system developer because we couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. It ended up being something simple. We solved the mystery of the missing time!
“My hope is that we grow to a point where we need a payroll department; if we grow to where I need additional resources, that’s great! To be part of this growth will be really cool.”
Outside of work, Ericca and her son, who just turned 14, are both outdoorsy and athletic. Ericca is an avid swimmer and her son does boxing. Together, they enjoy camping and kayaking, attending the Portland Rose Festival and Starlight Parade in the summer, and going to the farmer’s market each week for produce. “I love cooking, it’s my passion. Food blogging, food prep, canning, being in the kitchen—that’s huge. I teach my son how to cook, too. Once a week we pick a dinner, we get the ingredients, and I teach him how to cook it. I’m big on health stuff and understanding what’s good for our bodies.”
Ericca and her son share their home with a bearded dragon named Cobain.