New research has revealed that financial planning graduates will form a nucleus of an emerging financial planning profession, with almost two-thirds of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financial planning practices saying they will seek graduates to fill growth positions in the coming five years.
The Business of Advice research, conducted by Griffith University in collaboration with Zanetti Recruitment & Consulting, found that 85 per cent of all respondents say they will increase staff numbers in the coming five years, and 64.5 per cent of them will seek to recruit graduates.
The research highlights a need for stronger links and more formalised collaboration between the profession, professional associations and educators.
The principal of Zanetti Recruitment & Consulting, Ric Zanetti, says the employment intentions of practices represents a departure from a more traditional “moving the deckchairs” approach, where smaller planning firms tend to recruit established financial planners who can hit the ground running and quickly be productive and profitable.
But Zanetti says it also presents challenges to SME practices in terms of how they are structured and how they compete with larger institutions. It’s not necessarily the case that SMEs can use the lure of, for example, equity participation to attract new recruits.
“There is more rhetoric than substance with equity opportunities from our experience,” he says.
“Both employers and employees need to start with the end in mind. It’s more than just money, as it also impacts on influence and control of something built over many years.
“Like a marriage, both parties are potentially committing to spending a long time together in a business relationship.”
Infrastructure and systems
Zanetti says SME practices must have the correct infrastructure and systems in place “to be able to support those graduates to learn and develop and grow”, and to enable them to compete effectively for talent.
“If we accept most SME practices and the big licensees want to grow then the competition for talent will continue to escalate and escalate quickly,” Zanetti says.
“So the progressive SME practices need to think about how their whole employment package will attract and retain the type of staff they need to take their business forward.
“They are competing with institutions and other firms for quality graduates. This is not just about remuneration and monetary incentives. What does their business have to offer graduates with ambition and a genuine desire to learn a compelling proposition now and into the future?”
Zanetti says institutions such as banks are “ahead of the curve on development and delivery of graduate programs”.
“The AMP Horizons program offers a structured process for career transitioning to be developed and presented to SME financial planning groups in their network,” he says.
“There are other licensee programs but more needs to be done within the industry as we move to a profession in supporting SME’s to identify and develop graduates (either during or after they’ve graduated) with soft skills and additional real world understanding of financial planning advice and process.”
