The days of a job for life are gone; instead people now have around 12 different jobs throughout their working life.
So in this day and age people are understandably unwilling to be unhappy in their jobs and will not hang around if they do not feel fulfilled.
Creating a happy workforce is crucial to a business, and a financial advice company is no different.
Businesses invest significant time, materials and often money in their advisers, getting them trained up on their processes and systems, along with their ways of working.
Creating a happy workforce is crucial to a business, and a financial advice company is no differentSo to have a productive adviser leave can be costly, as all that investment disappears and you have to start from scratch with a new recruit.
Retention within a business is critical. So it is important to identify what it is that causes advisers to leave.
To find out what drove individuals out of their respective companies we surveyed more than 200 financial advisers who had left one of our network members over the past 15 months, and the results painted a clear picture.
64 per cent of respondents left their job for one of three reasons: lack of support, a bad working environment or the offer of a more attractive opportunity elsewhere.
Starting with a lack of support; most said this related to the job being mis-sold, with promises of lead generation or back-office support (such as paraplanning), which never materialised.
Similarly, many complained this lack of support came in the form of little or no professional guidance or mechanism by which individuals could learn and improve.
Interestingly, some of those who stated that they left because of a bad working environment cited ‘lack of career progression’ as a major contributor to their unhappy feelings.
Lastly, those leavers who cited ‘a more attractive opportunity elsewhere’ spoke of greater flexibility in terms of working hours or better pay.
The clear theme is that when people feel they are stagnating they tend to look for a different opportunity. To hold on to talent, the principal or business owner must recognise the value of career progression, whether in the form of mentoring and guidance or career development through training.
Scott Stevens is head of adviser recruitment and development for Quilter Financial Advisers
