I have previously covered two “turnover tipping points” in AE that have professional origins, including a downturn in the business cycle and a change of management.  The final two triggers for turnover are personal in nature, yet have a direct effect on an employee’s psyche as it relates to work.

This third tipping point, in my experience, is at least 90% accurate. I have been reticent to mention it because it is gender-specific to men, but upon reflection, it is too important not to bring to your attention.

Without a doubt, within the AE consulting space, the pending or new arrival of a child into the family is a major contributor to job search behavior. I say this is gender-specific, because we gals are not dummies…we are inclined to “stay put” for the FMLA benefits. **

I am neither a psychologist nor a scientist, but if I had to boil it down to biology, I’d guess that this is some type of latent “provider gene” in action, the modern-day equivalent to stepping up the hunt for food to feed a growing family. It might be the first child, it might be a successive child, but when I find a candidate with a bun-in-the-family-oven, I know he has anxiety about advancing his career.

It’s not overt; he doesn’t recognize it as a factor at all. What is he thinking? If the family is considering becoming a traditional one-income household, his motivations are fairly obvious. However, I see this behavior occur equally in families with two income earners. Is he thinking about braces, summer camp and college tuition this early?

I tell these blokes it’s a lousy time to be looking for a career move. Since so much of the world as they know it is about to change, why shake things up even more? They don’t listen to me.

Corporate Ladder
Male readers, look back on your own careers. What life events were in play when you made certain job changes? I guarantee that you will be able to correlate a job change, a promotion sought or another career milestone directly with the pending or recent arrival of at least one child.

The feedback is the same whenever I share this tidbit of information with managers: they were not even aware of it when it was happening to THEM! They quickly begin to catalog the life events of those recently hired and recently departed.  I smugly enjoy their epiphanies.

** Reasons why the gents are not equally motivated by this perk is a separate discussion that we can cover over a few glasses of wine, ladies.