‘The PY is just the beginning’: Ensuring successful adviser retention

With candidate retention a concern after a professional year (PY), two licensees have shared how they structure their programs to successfully ensure candidates are keen to remain beyond the year.

Last month, licensees voiced their concern to Money Management that advisers will leave once they finish their PY, opting to go to another firm that can afford to pay them more and essentially leaving the first licensee with no return on their investment.

This concern isn’t necessarily unfounded with Adviser Ratings’ 2025 Australian Financial Advice Landscape report showing that individuals that hit the Financial Advisers Register (FAR) from 1 January 2019 only spend an average of 18 months with a practice or licensee, and 30 per cent have switched at least once in the past six years.

But two licensees believe they have structured their firms’ PY programs to mitigate against this risk and shared their findings with Money Management.

Count, which is Australia’s second-largest licensee, offers a 12-month Professional Year Program to facilitate the PY, and an Emerging Adviser Program designed to continue adviser training in the first few years of their career.

Andrew Kennedy, Count group executive for wealth, said: “This program was created to address a clear gap in the profession: the lack of structured training pathways for young advisers.”

Meanwhile, Wilsons Advisory’s two-year Associate Adviser Program is made up of 24 learning modules that carries aspiring advisers through the whole PY, facilitates their completion of the adviser exam, builds technical competence, provides real-world experience, and embeds them in a team at the firm. 

One of the reasons that new advisers have given for their departure is a lack of internal growth opportunities and a poor transition between the two roles, meaning this is a key foundation of the programs.

To ensure advisers are well-integrated into the firm, Matthew Nicholls, head of advice at Wilsons Advisory, told Money Management that the final six months of the program is used as a transition period to integrate the new adviser into the wider firm.

“I think this is what, historically, firms I’ve been involved with have done poorly. They’ve given them all the skills, all the mentoring, got them in a position at the end of the two years, or however long it takes and said, ‘OK, good luck’. 

“There’s been no thought on that transition out of associate to a new financial adviser. We start doing that about six months out from the end of the two years and document a plan around that,” Nicholls said.

Count has likewise implemented measures to encourage adviser integration, Kennedy said, by embedding them within the firm through the support of a mentor and facilitating connections to a broader network.

“The Count Emerging Adviser Program, in particular, creates a sense of belonging and purpose. Advisers feel supported and see a future within Count, not just a stepping stone. The PY is just the beginning,” Kennedy said.

“With the Emerging Adviser Program and other development opportunities, advisers can continue growing, take on more responsibility, and build long-term careers. Count is committed to helping young talent thrive – not just get authorised and move on.”

Nicholls said Wilsons has also implemented a structure that allows new advisers to financially benefit from the performance of their team once they complete the PY program, acknowledging finances may be a factor in their exit decision.

“Once you’ve graduated, you’ve completed [the program], you’re on the register, you want to feel like a financial adviser. To be frank, if you’re not receiving any revenue attribution, for example, towards your bonus or towards your compensation, it doesn’t feel very real. You feel like what you were before: a support member of the team,” he said.

“If another business comes along and says, ‘We’ll pay you more, we’ll give you opportunities to grow, there’s potentially a client book’, it seems it would be pretty enticing. I imagine if they’re not getting that solid career development pathway from the current firm, of course they’re going to be considering other opportunities.”

Although both Wilsons and Count said most program participants stay on with their respective firms following the completion of these programs, they also conceded that some do opt to leave at the end of their training.

“While adviser turnover is a common industry concern, we’ve found that participants in both the PY and Emerging Adviser programs are more likely to stay. These programs build engagement, confidence and a clear sense of career progression,” Kennedy said.

Non-compete clauses

One way of retaining staff on their PY that has been raised by the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA) is through the use of non-compete clauses.

In a submission to Treasury this week regarding its consultation on Reform to non-compete clauses and other restraints on workers, the FAAA said there is a place for non-compete clauses to give smaller firms greater surety to bring on a PY.

This is due to the time and cost-intensive nature of the PY that firms incur when embarking on the program and the risk of competitors poaching staff, as raised above by Kennedy.

"The FAAA believes that the general position of the existing common law (that non-compete clauses are unenforceable where they are contrary to the public interest) should be supported by legislative measures that restrict the use of non-compete clauses to circumstances where they are reasonable and go no further than is necessary to protect legitimate business interests. 

“The professional year stage has become a bottleneck, as small businesses in particular are hesitant to invest in the appointment of these people, given the increased uncertainty that they will be poached after they conclude the training. Other businesses could easily offer them a pay increase to encourage them to move as a means of avoiding the cost of employing them during the professional year.

“We believe that in this case, there is a justified case for enabling these employers to apply a non-compete clause for a certain period after the new financial adviser completes the professional year. This could be a clause to prevent them working for a competitor in the same broad area for a period of up to two years.”