We&apos;re running a quick poll of readers to find out what would make you stay put at your existing consulting employer - and what would be the factors that would push you into leaving.As this is a topic often commented on in these threads, I&apos;m hoping a lot of you would welcome the chance to make your views felt and will take part in the coming days. All answers will be treated anonymously - but the results will be reported to senior figures across the industry so this is the chance for your voice to be heard...<a href=http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.asp?ID=3561>Take part in the survey here</a>Thanks for helping with this. Tony

bump!I&apos;m curious to see what comes out of this one...

Speaking from experience:a) Factors which would make me leave:1. Unhealthy work life balance (and by that I mean I need/want REAL BALANCE, i.e. regular 40-45 hour weeks with the odd peak once in every blue moon. anything else is unsustainable)2. Having to stay away from home too much. I want to spend most nights in my own bed, seeing my wife and kids in the evenings. Companies which ignore this point usually only end up with young graduates and &apos;odd folk&apos; working for them3. politics, manipulative colleagues, bosses who talk about things behind the scenes, backstabbing during appraisals, etc4. uncertainty/risk combined with pressure, e.g. an &apos;up or out&apos; culture. Many folk want a steady job, they have mortgages and commitments dammit<b>Very important note:</b> You will note that pay does not factor into the above list. This is not to say that it is not important, however. The reason it seems to be at the top of so many people&apos;s lists is because points 1 - 4 are not being truly satisfied (despite what HR might say).b) Factors that would make me stay:1. If factors A1 - A4 aren&apos;t present, then the only thing that would make me stay is a very, very, very substantial pay package. Otherwise it&apos;s simply not worth it.2. A &apos;home working&apos; policy so I can actually be with my family3. Minimal travel or staying away from home4. People I actually like to work with5. A stable team (i.e. without being disrespectful as I very much like our continental colleagues, I&apos;d prefer not to be thrown on a team with a different random cross section of the EU every 2 months. my foreign language skills aren&apos;t up to much either, but pigeon english drives me nuts, plus these people have different interests and tend to &apos;come and go&apos; making it difficult to form any kind of productive relationship)6. a nice chunky guaranteed bonus, to the point where I feel like I&apos;m really paying off the mortgage in bounds and leaps and can see myself getting out of the rat race within a few yearsAs it happens, I found the working conditions at these big companies to be so bad that I decided to set up my own firm, which is successful and has been running for over 10 years now. These big companies take too much and give too little in return.

In my experience the number one scenario when the urge to leave becomes overpowering is either when you&apos;re on the bench for a few weeks or stuck in a project that you can&apos;t stand. The urge can become overpowering as these factors multiply. That said, it can subside just as quickly as soon as an interesting bit of work comes along. Such is he nature of the profession.My advice is look out for people who are not actively involved in engagements in a firm. In most cases they are the most likely to leave - especially when their being on the bench is related more to the ability of the firm to win work rather than their skills.

Oh yes, I forgot about that one - bench time. I can still remember having to spend 12 hours a day in the office whilst literally having nothing to do. Either that or being given crappy tasks that don&apos;t count in your end of year appraisal. And that awful feeling that sooner or later you&apos;re going to end up on a project working killer hours in an industry you don&apos;t care for. It turns people into nervous wrecks.

I’ve been my firm for 4 yrs. It has been good and gave me great experiences although to be honest I had to work damn hard to get those while the majority of my peers languished in the mediocrity of internal consulting projects or worse research assignments.As our business transforms it’s becoming evident that quality assignments i.e. for an actual client, are becoming less common. I feel it’s time to move on because:1. The future of consulting as a proper discipline is becoming less certain in my firm. 2. Client facing consulting assignments are disappearing fast as we no longer own the channel to market and have to go through product focussed account teams (they don’t know what consultants do)3. I’m not enjoying all the bureaucratic nonsense4. I’m ambitious and want to get quality experience and be around good people. 5. I’d like to work for a company with a good brand.I earn decent money, partly because I’ve performed well and partly because my firm pays ok. Unfortunately the above 5 points mean that I’d happily take a pay cut if I could move somewhere where I didn’t have to suffer this rubbish, as long as it was meritocratic and offered the opportunity to progress.

I think you&apos;re missing the point - Tony&apos;s original post has a link through which you can fill in the survey.Thanks for sharing though, I feel in a similar position.