The recruitment of staff will be a key focus for many financial advice firms in 2022 and practices need to become an employer of choice to attract talent.
Countplus chief executive, Matthew Rowe, said potential adviser recruits were looking for practices that could mentor and coach them, had opportunities to deal with clients or be in a client program, and that they looked for firms with a growth mindset.
“The firm needs to be demonstrated that they’ve got a growth mindset, and that they’ve got technical training on hand as it’s not just around soft skill development that forms part of that mentoring relationship,” he said.
“But they’ve actually got a proper technical skill set framework that they can learn the necessary technical aspects of the profession and have that in-house and that capability.”
Rowe noted that candidates also wanted to feel like they were part of an organisation that gave back to the community.
“We shouldn’t underestimate this as this issue around workplace giving and philanthropic giving is very, very important to millennial people coming through,” he said.
“Firms have to have a think about what it is that they’re doing in terms of giving back to the community as well that their team can engage with them because that’s what they’re looking for.”
He said practices needed to find a way to employ people and have a pathway to get the recruits to be productive and generate a return on their salary back to the firm.
“Then, they can get them into a position where as quickly as possible they’re through the professional year process and they can start to sit in front of clients you know, under some supervision, and be generating revenue for the firm, because that’s what every other profession does,” he said.
Rowe also said that while one-man band operations had a very unique value propositions, those that did not have a succession plan would struggle.
“I think they’re going to have trouble attracting and retaining talent because the kids leaving university don’t want to join a firm where there’s only one person where there’s no training because they’re so busy being busy seeing clients,” he said.
“I think smaller firms with sole practitioner operators with no clear succession plan in place, no real value proposition for people to join them, and they don’t have a growth mindset are going to struggle into the future.
“If you’re a single operator you need to have a very unique value proposition in terms of what you’re offering your clients, but also what you’re offering potential talent to join the firm.”
