Last year, Americans quit their jobs in unprecedented numbers. For each of the eight months from April 2021 through November 2021, between 3.6 million to 4.5 million U.S. residents voluntarily left their jobs, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Those figures exceeded the quit level in any single month going back to December 2000.

So what are leaders in the investment advisory industry doing to help keep their existing staff content and attract new talent? Exploring innovative methods, in some cases.

The need for flexibility

“You have to be flexible,” says Jim Dickson, CEO of Sanctuary Wealth. “Those that don’t, I think, are seeing high rates of turnover.”

Sanctuary adopted a hybrid workweek; employees work in the office Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and are free to work from home on Wednesdays and Fridays. This flexible approach helps balance the company’s need to build team camaraderie with the requirements of employees who want flexible home working arrangements.

Even before the mass quitting of 2021, the RIA industry suffered a steady loss of registered reps over the half-decade from 2015 to 2020.¹ That experience may have educated business leaders on creating a more attractive work environment.

Dickson took the radical approach of changing the firm’s time-off policy. In the past, the company methodically tracked days off. However, during the pandemic, many people were working far longer hours each day. In response, Sanctuary relaxed its policy to allow a few more days off here and there. The company had one condition: Employees had to coordinate with other staff members so that there were no gaps in client coverage. “Candidly, it’s been a positive,” Dickson says.

The power of vision and education

One Houston-based company attracts and retains advisors by having a powerful marketing presence. “Advisors do not tend to make good marketers,” says Richard Rosso, director of financial planning at RIA Advisors. But the company has developed a compelling mission statement. “It acts like glue for advisors that want to join you,” he says. This helps attract talent who believe in RIA Advisors’ goals and want to be part of making them happen.

Advisor education is also an attraction and retention tool. “You have a lot of young advisors that want to learn,” Rosso says. But some RIA companies fail to provide cutting-edge studies of the investing field. That’s a situation that can exasperate advisors with a thirst for knowledge. “They get frustrated,” he says.

Ultimately, the fact that a company offers continuous training in the latest investing breakthroughs can act as a magnet for talented people, Rosso says. “If they feel you have something to teach them, they’re very receptive to coming along.”

A preference for higher take-home pay

While many people say money isn’t everything, how a company delivers it can make a huge difference to employees. RIA Advisors asks potential employees what they want to earn. “Some of what incentivizes them is just finding ways to help them make more money today,” Rosso says.

Often young advisors are less attracted by deferred compensation, he says. Many have families they need to provide for, education costs and new housing expenses. “People want money now,” he adds. Many of these younger employees don’t like the idea of having part of their pay held back until some point in the future.

Asking advisors how much they want to make can help solve part of the money issue, Rosso says. “If they want to make $200,000, $300,000 — OK how do we get you there?” Then for managers the task becomes finding a pathway to making that happen. “We work to get to that point for that advisor because we want to keep them.”

¹FINRA Media Center, Member Firm Statistical Review 2006–2020.