It's a well-established tip when negotiating pay: If companies won't give you the cash you want, ask for the pot to be sweetened with noncash benefits instead. But in these sensitive times, businesses are taking a new hard line about the noncash items they offer executives.

Spurred on by everything from the governance requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to the public outrage that followed the disclosure of retired General Electric Co. Chairman Jack Welch's hefty post-retirement benefits package, employers are reviewing the perquisites they offer executives. They're axing those that can't be easily justified or asking their executives to pay for their own personal expenses.

Compensation policies -- ranging from noncash items such as retirement plans to performance-related incentive plans -- are being streamlined and restructured to make them simpler and easier to understand. "Ever since [former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard] Grasso's pay package was disclosed, my clients have been asking me specifically to look to see if they have anything in their compensation and benefits system that would embarrass them if it was disclosed," says Dan Ryterband, managing director of Frederic W. Cook & Co., a New York-based compensation-consulting firm.

Potentially embarrassing perquisites still exist. One executive recruiter recalls an executive whose Arabian horse was relocated -- at company expense -- each time the executive was transferred from one branch office to another, across three continents. So it isn't surprising that few companies will talk on the record. But interviews with executive-compensation consultants and executive recruiters provide some insight into the belt-tightening and image-polishing.

These days, more traditional perks, such as a company's ownership of a corporate jet or executive use of the jet for personal travel, are hot-button issues. This is particularly the case since under current tax rules, the amount of extra income an executive is required to declare in exchange for this personal use typically is far less than the actual cost of the flights.

"There is more of an interest in taking away some of the perks like that, when it's possible, and then replacing them with some kind of allowance that will attract less scrutiny," Mr. Ryterband says. That's also true of country-club or golf-club memberships, which some executives may use extensively to entertain clients while others use them only for personal enjoyment. On balance, he says, corporate directors who sit on board compensation committees are increasingly interested in replacing a potentially embarrassing or questionable benefit with a cash allowance or a salary increase and leaving executives to shoulder the financial burden of personal transportation and entertainment.

Still, the most frequently offered perk in 2003 was use of the corporate plane or helicopter, with half of companies providing the privilege, according to a survey by Clark Consulting Inc., a Barrington, Ill.-based benefits-consulting firm. The poll included 227 executives at 220 Fortune 1000-member companies. In it, 47% said a company car is routinely provided to senior executives, with 19% of respondents providing a driver or chauffeur as well. In contrast, only 11% of respondents offered country-club memberships.

Yet over time those classic perks will be phased out, predicts Brad McLane, co-head of the marketing-recruiting practice at executive-recruiting firm Russell Reynolds. "A growing number of companies don't want to flag these things, or have liability for them either fiscally or in governance terms, and executives don't want to look greedy by demanding them," Mr. McLane says. "Instead, you see an emphasis on cleaner, simpler benefits packages."

In fact, Mr. McLane says, companies are leaning toward intangible benefits that don't cost them anything monetarily. This is fine with some candidates, who want assurances that their future employers will allow them to telecommute from home periodically or allow them to spend time with families on holidays, a child's sports event, and other important occasions.

Another relatively low cost but meaningful benefit: financial-planning aid, now offered to 92% of presidents and CEOs, 90% of executive vice-presidents, and 56% of vice presidents, according to Clark Consulting. "This has become increasingly important to executives as demands on their time have increased, and it's a high-value, low-cost benefit for the company," Mr. McLane explains. "Candidates are more willing to assert themselves on this front, and these emotional considerations are nowadays more able to derail an agreement" than whether or not the executive gets a company car.

To Tom Wamberg, chairman and chief executive of Clark Consulting, offering financial assistance is a low-cost way to make a high impact, since shareholders view it in a good light.

"At a cost of maybe $15,000 to $20,000, your executives get help with their investments, their tax planning and so on," says Mr. Wamberg. That's the kind of benefit shareholders like to see reported on proxy statements, particularly since it helps the executive stay focused on business responsibilities, not on completing a complex tax return. Other items in this growing low-cost, high-impact category include long-term-care insurance to help executives cover nursing-home or home-care expenses in retirement.

More firms also are offering nonqualified retirement plans, which provide benefits in excess of the 401(k) retirement-plan contribution limits. And some highly paid executives may be allowed to defer part of their salary and bonus or invest after-tax dollars in supplemental retirement plans.

While perks tend to grab headlines, companies also are making sweeping changes to bonus, stock-option and other performance-incentive plans. Last year, for instance, Microsoft Corp. opted to do away with stock options in favor of restricted-stock grants, whereby the executives can own the stock after a certain number of years. This has prompted other companies to consider using the same strategy -- or seek new ways to tweak existing options packages. International Business Machines Corp. is among them. In February, it announced that traditional options grants will be replaced with so-called premium-priced options that can't be used to buy stock until the stock price has climbed at least 10% from when the options were issued. Compensation consultants expect others to follow IBM's lead.

It isn't surprising that employers are seeking alternatives to stock options. Given the stock market's woes in the past three years, share prices at many companies have been lower than option strike prices, thus making the options worthless, causing discontent in the executive ranks. Then, under new accounting rules taking effect next year, companies will be required to charge the price of traditionally structured options on their books as an expense, making options seem much more costly than they once were.

"Executives aren't quite as keen about getting as much of their package in options," says Mel Todd, president of the Todd Organization, an executive-benefits-consulting firm. Offering restricted-stock grants is one solution. But Mr. Todd and others expect these plans to be adjusted over the coming years to reflect individual and company performance such as growth and profitability. Another increasingly popular alternative: stock-appreciation-rights (SARs) plans that pay the executive, either in stock or cash, the appreciation in the value of the stock between the time of the grant and an expiration date. With SARs, companies don't have to issue new stock grants, which leads to less dilution, and executives make fewer insider sales.

"There is a wholesale re-examination of options and other deferred-compensation plans, with people trying to figure out the purpose of these plans and tailor them more precisely," says James Fox, chairman of Fox Lawson & Associates, a compensation-consulting firm. "There's a great push to be transparent and democratic in whatever you do."