1. Having It All: How a shift Toward Balance affected cpAs and Firms

Ten years ago, many Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) would have considered any emphasis on issues such as work/life balance and women’s initiatives overly trendy. Today, these concerns are viewed as mission-critical by a profession that believes people are its primary competitive advantage. To meet the challenge of attracting and retaining enough qualified professionals to serve a growing array of client needs, CPA firms have focused on providing both opportunity and balance.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) work/life and women’s initiatives executive committee surveyed public accounting firms and professionals to gauge the progress being made on theses issues in 1994, 1997, and 2000. Responses to last year’s survey suggested three trends:

1. Women CPAs continue to advance at a slow rate within firms and are outnumbered by men in all areas of firm management.

2. Firms are offering more flexible work options to allow professional staff to balance their professional and personal lives.

3. Changes in the profession, including the expanding role of technology, have presented new challenges and opportunities for public accounting professionals.

Advancement/Upward Mobility

Women represented approximately 40% of the full-time professionals at firms responding to the 2000 survey. There were more women than in the past, at the partner, principal, director and stuff levels and about the same number at the senior manager, manager and senior level. Despite gains, only 15 % of female CPAs were partners, principals, directors or senior managers, compared with 41% of their male colleagues (see figure 2). Firms reported that females held 10% to 30% of all senior management positions – as regional partners, office managing partners or practice directors – up from 6% to 24% in 1997. The majority of women in senior management positions were at firms with less than 20 AICPA members.

Despite improvement in the percentages of women in higher positions, most worked at the staff, senior/supervisor and manager levels. With women representing more than half of the graduating accounting students, entry-level staff positions showed gender balance. The survey revealed while a greater number of women were being promoted, most of those promoted at the senior level continued to be men.

The Changing Workday and technology

In its 2000 survey, the committee examined the degree to which professionals achieved flexibility through informal changes in behavior rather than formal policy. For example, professionals were asked how often they left the office to take care of personal business, making up the hours at another time. More than half said they did so occasionally, while a few reported leaving frequently or occasionally for family, or school activities. On average, women left the office 2.4 times each month for nonbusiness activities and men 2.6 times. Technology changes the way people do their jobs. CPAs had an extremely favorable view of technology. Professionals overwhelmingly agreed that it improved client service (96%) and helped them to be more productive (96%). More than half of male and female respondents agreed that technology had improved the quality and quantity of their personal time.

Fig. 2

Demand of the profession

Despite the expansion and acceptance of flexible work options and improvements in technology, many professionals said there was always more work to be done, additional client deadlines to meet and never enough time for a personal life. Many worried that the unrelenting demands of a professional service firm might deter the best and brightest students from pursuing a career in public accounting. Their attitude provided a warning against complacency about the progress made over the last decade.

Although flexible work options are now more common, economic factors and improved technology created increased pressure on CPAs. Those who had achieved some measure of balance might have sacrificed their chances to advance at firms where the traditional business model reward hours of client service.

The three surveys over the last decade showed some slow and steady progress had been made and that the future was likely to bring additional challenges. New technologies, changes in professional certifications and educational requirements, and increased client demands are just a few of the developments likely to make it more difficult to attract and retain talented professionals seeking both career and personal satisfaction. CPAs and their firms will have to work together to develop policies and incentives that offer opportunities for advancement and balance to professionals who still want to believe that it is possible to have it all.

Exercise 11. Now answer the questions to text A:

1) What do these abbreviations mean?

a) CPA

b) AICPA

c) vs.

2) What words are used while describing trends? Divide them into three columns: verbs, adverbs and adjectives. What words can you find in the text?

sharing, increase, flex-time, go up, recover, balance, slightly, dramatically, develop, steady, incentive, slight, decrease, fall, rise, dramatic, good, bad, badly, lucky, go down, sharp, improve, steadily

3) What is the main idea of the passage? Support the main idea chosen by giving 4 specific ideas.

1. Today such issues as work/life balance and women’s initiatives are viewed as mission-critical by auditors.

2. The AICPA work/life and women’s initiatives executive committee surveyed public accounting firms and professionals to gauge the progress being made on such issues as work/life balance and women’s initiatives in 1994, 1997 and 2000.

3. Responses to this survey suggest three trends.

4. What are the main results of the survey?