Are you getting paid what you're worth?       Our final report compares the salary and benefits of accounting and finance professionals by a variety of categories, including gender, sector, geography, certification, level of responsibility, and much more.   Go to the survey and sign up to receive the final report at its earliest availability.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal*, E&Y wants both genders to embrace flexible work arrangements. To demonstrate a commitment to this end, the firm recently displayed a 9-foot poster along the sidewalks of Times Square that highlights employee Rob McLeod's paternity leave and subsequent promotion to senior manager. The poster was scaled down and sent to every E&Y office in the U.S. as part of a campaign to spotlight successful men who value their personal lives.

E&Y's flexibility strategy leader, Maryella Gocket, said the firm wants to make flexibility "gender-neutral." A summer trial in 2005 of flexible work arrangements within the company's U.S. firms received high praise from employees, who told executives in a follow-up survey that they want flexible work arrangements year-round, not just during the summers.

Gockel acknowledged that both genders fear that flextime would hurt career prospects. But in its efforts to retain women, it seems to be working. E&Y reports a smaller percentage of senior managers who are women leave the firm each year than men in the same group.

WSJ reports that another accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche, is testing a "mass career customization" program with a small sample of employees, 74 percent of whom are men. The program encourages alternative work arrangements, such as reduced workload, less travel, and less client pressure.

While flextime is generally viewed as a concession to women, getting more men on board is a way of "making it legitimate," Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, told WSJ. 

*"To Retain Valued Women Employees, Companies Pitch Flextime as Macho" by Jaclyne Badal. The Wall Street Journal Online, Dec. 11, 2006