Financial planning firms that participate in ground-breaking research to quantify for the first time the nature and the quantum of remuneration structures across the financial planning industry will get first look at new remuneration benchmarking data at no cost.
Griffith University and Zanetti Recruitment & Consulting (ZRC) are studying remuneration, benefits, incentive and bonus structures, role types and titles, core competencies and roles for all staff in financial planning businesses.
A series of benchmarking tools will emerge from the results, designed to help planning businesses discover if they are offering attractive enough packages to compete effectively for the best staff, or whether they are rewarding existing staff in the right manner.
Practices that complete a confidential online questionnaire will receive at no cost a white paper from Griffith University and ZRC setting out the key findings. The questionnaire can take up to an hour to complete for larger businesses, and it requires respondents to provide details ranging from salary levels to incentive structures.
Griffith and ZRC say the benchmarks will help financial planning businesses to create proactive and structured recruitment plans, review current remuneration levels against national standards, ensure they are meeting minimum remuneration obligations, and stay competitive in the race to recruit and retain the best talent.
The right people
“One of the greatest concerns we hear from small- to medium-enterprise financial planning [SMEFP] business owners is not only do they want to understand the quantum of remuneration, they want to understand what they need to do to attract and retain the right people,” says Ric Zanetti, principal of ZRC.
“By example, if a business is paying a client service officer $45,000 and the market is paying $55,000 for that role, it doesn’t matter if your business is turning over $5 million or $500,000, you’re competing for the same talent. Clearly there are other benefits and reasons why people work for a business that need to also be taken into consideration.”
Mark Brimble, an Associate Professor in Griffith’s department of accounting, finance and economics, says quantifying the remuneration structures in the financial planning profession is a natural extension of the work Griffith and other universities have done to develop specialist financial planning degrees.
Professional pathways
Griffith University Associate Professor Mark Brimble says the structure of the financial planning profession’s remuneration is a natural extension of the work done to develop specialist financial planning degrees, and will give entrants to the profession “more clarity around what is on offer in terms of a pathway from an employment point of view”.
“In this emerging profession, there’s not a lot of knowledge about that,” Brimble says.
“Our intention with this research is to go quite deeply into the detail, but also to look at incentives, pathways, differences between new entrants and existing planners, and look across roles; and then map against that the expectations of employers in terms of the skill set; and then, on top of that, track a whole lot of demographic information.”
Brimble says the research will also ensure the university can set graduates’ expectations appropriately and ensure they have the skills that will make them valuable to employers.
“In the context of an emerging profession, this demonstrates another avenue that universities can participate with industry, with what we expect are mutual outcomes,” Brimble says.
Unique issues
The survey website says SMEFP businesses face “unique issues, and the only remuneration information available to them is broad or anecdotal both pre and post FoFA reforms”.
“Many small businesses rely on colleagues, trade press and broad salary survey data to determine the most appropriate method and quantum of remuneration to reward and incentivise staff,” it says.
“This research is aimed at improving the knowledge base (and therefore benefiting SMEFP business) on recruitment and other human resource management practices, procedures and structures.
“We will explore what is being used and developed by professional financial services firms to respond to the financial planning industry imperatives, and of these practices, which are effective in delivering the desired outcomes.”
