There is so much value in having reliable, professional, positive, and motivated staff to support you and your clients! Independent financial advisors often face challenges in the pursuit of this goal — some struggle with recruiting and hiring, while others struggle with employee turnover. Either way, if your dream is to build a strong team of future leaders, we have some practice management wisdom to share!

Growing Your Team

Do you struggle with finding the right candidate? These stats could have a lot to do with what you’re facing:

• • The best candidates are only available for about ten days before they are hired.
  • 73% of recruiters say that their biggest challenge is that there is a talent shortage.
  • 70% of the workforce is passive talent, meaning they aren’t actively searching for a job.
  • Recruiting through your existing employees’ networks can increase your talent pool by 10x.

This data tells us that finding and hiring the best candidates requires a great deal of concentrated time and effort. You need to respond quickly to qualified candidates since they are likely interviewing elsewhere. Those who may be the very best fit, may not even be “actively” searching, which means referrals from existing employees can be invaluable.

No one knows what it’s like to work for you better than your current employees. If you are satisfied with their job performance, include them in the interview process. Employees can serve as the first line of defense by disqualifying those who would be an unlikely fit. Not to mention, it’s easier to integrate a new employee into the fold when everyone approves of the selection or at least understands the reasons behind your choice.

However, what if you are a team of one or two or don’t have the time to dedicate to finding the right candidate? If you are in this situation, may be a good idea to outsource the work to a virtual recruiter. Financial Advocates offers a virtual recruiting service that can help take care of the process for you.

Our virtual recruiters start by collaborating with you to create (or review) a detailed job description, which outlines the responsibilities and requirements for the position. The listing is placed on various job boards and promoted via social media. Since our team has experience placing similar hires, we have connections within other companies which can be used to recruit passive talent. All inquiries and resumes are sent directly to the virtual recruiter to evaluate and respond. The virtual recruiter then pre-screens all the applications, based on your criteria or passes them to you for final review. If you desire, we can also conduct the first two rounds of interviews.

Once you hire the right candidate, things should go well, right? Unless your challenge is not finding them but keeping them.

Developing Future Leaders

It can be disheartening to lose a great employee or one you envisioned on the path towards greatness. If you feel you are experiencing high employee turnover, it’s important to first put average employee tenure into perspective. The latest report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in January 2018 reported that the median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.2 years.  When it comes to Millennials, those in their 20s and 30s, the median years of tenure was found to be 2.8 in 2018, so 1.4 years less.

If you find that you are losing great employees faster than average, it’s time for some reflection. What do you value in an employee? What do the employees who stay value? How about the ones who have left?

If you value timeliness, hard work, dependability, and self-reliance, then an employee who values flexibility, creativity, and teamwork may not last too long. Identifying your core internal business values up-front and providing them to your recruiter will help to hire employees whose values align. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t welcome some diversity to your employee base regarding values, but it will help in making sure those you bring on board align better with your corporate culture.

Some common reasons employees leave is because they feel underappreciated, lack opportunity for growth, are not offered enough resources to do their jobs, are met with unrealistic expectations, or are not paid competitively. Here is a list of questions to ask yourself that might help you identify the source or sources for your high turnover.

1.   How do you show appreciation for your employees?
2.   Are there incentives and rewards when goals are met or when an employee goes above and beyond?
3.   How do you invest in your employees’ ongoing professional development?
4.   Are employees invited to attend professional skills training? Conferences? Seminars?
5.   Do your employees have the resources they need to do their job efficiently?
6.   Have you invested in leading technology to improve job performance efficiency and accuracy?
7.   Do you check in regularly to identify obstacles and help employees to find solutions?
8.   Are your expectations for job performance clearly defined? Do they change often?
9.   Are your employees being paid a competitive salary and benefits package for their skillset and job responsibilities?

Practice management is an ongoing process and often requires the help of an experienced business consultant to help you see what you may be missing.

If you are having difficulty keeping qualified candidates on board, we can help you evaluate your staffing needs and identify opportunities to increase employee satisfaction.