To help achieve balance between work and family demands, firms can provide free or subsidized daycare for all employees, either year round or during heavy workload periods. Affordable childcare should be available for all employees with children, not just women employees, because gender equity means providing all services and opportunities to all workers. In addition to family friendly policies, accounting firms can provide programs to advance women into higher positions by providing them with opportunities that men enjoy. In public accounting, careers are built around, and depend on, informal relationships that help determine the kinds of assignments one receives. Traditionally, networks of cooperation and connection develop to monitor problems and opportunities for individuals.
Networks are often tight knit and exclusive.
Studies have shown that women often leave firms because they feel excluded from mentoring and networking possibilities. Without an accessible road to a partnership position, successful women will leave out of frustration. Companies can construct a formal mentor system, when a manager or partner can provide guidance and support and serve as a role model for aspiring female managers. Mentor programs can be used for women who are newly hired into a firm. This would enable women who have been successful to help colleagues deal with some of the same problems they faced.