Researchers working in the field of psychotherapy have, for more than 50 years, attempted to document what are known as significant moments of change during which a client’s attitudes and behaviours transform.
It has only been within the last decade, however, that financial advisers have taken an interest in the way the planning environment may affect client outcomes. Some of the earliest work dealing with this topic was published by Sonya Britt and John Grable. They showed that the physiological response of clients undergoing financial counselling and planning was significantly influenced by the physical environment where the client and adviser met. More specifically, Britt and Grable noted that financial advisers who use a therapeutic office setup (i.e., one with flexible seating), as compared with a more traditional financial planning arrangement (i.e., the use of desk), are able to solicit more information from clients, while at the same time reducing client stress.
The acknowledgement by financial advisers that the planning environment probably does have a potentially large impact in shaping a client’s willingness to change attitudes and behaviours creates an important practice management question: How should an office environment be structured for a positive effect on clients psychologically, emotionally and physically?
The office environment reflects the adviser
A financial adviser’s office environment consists of three dimensions: (a) physical, (b) mental, and (c) emotional. The physical dimension includes things such as how warm a room is and how light or dark the lights are during a session. The mental dimension includes the messages sent by an adviser to a client. Messages can be conveyed through pictures and personal objects in a room. The emotional dimension includes the elements in the environment that shape the way clients feel, including the use of colours and textures.
A financial adviser’s office communicates cues of safety, comfort, diligence, and competence. Eight elements constitute the planning environment: office accessories, colour, design and furniture, lighting, smell, sound, texture, and temperature. Research by Heidi Levitt, Mike Butler, and Travis Hill finds that an adviser’s office environment is a projection of the person providing the service. As such, taking care when choosing the objects in meeting rooms, the comfort of meeting areas, and even the sights and sounds heard during sessions become important elements that should be controlled during the financial planning process. A description of the most important environmental elements is presented below.
Environmental accessories
Environmental accessories include things such as live plants, artwork, and personal objects (such as family photographs and mementos). If used appropriately, accessories relay meaning and the personality of the adviser to clients. There is a downside to the use of accessories, though. These elements generally require upkeep in terms of dusting, maintenance, and with plants, watering. The following are important takeaways when thinking about accessories in the planning environment:
First, the financial adviser should choose accessories that appeal to the adviser. It is important for the adviser to take ownership of the environment because those who are unhappy in their environments may inadvertently exhibit less positive attitudes and behaviours toward clients, and their judgments may be tainted by their dissatisfaction.
Second, when maintenance can be ensured, the office environment should include live green plants. Plants represent renewed life and growth. Many clients also find plants soothing.
Third, adviser offices should include artwork. The consensus is that pictures should be texturally complex, representing natural scenes. Financial advisory clients typically find abstract art, urban scenes, and pictures of people to be stressful.
Fourth, cues of status and credibility should be used whenever possible. Clients often need reassurance that the person they are working with is competent. One way to signal competency is to display credentials, such as diplomas and certifications, in direct sight of clients.
Environmental colour
The choice and use of colours in the advisory environment can often lead to unexpected outcomes. In general, people respond positively to light colours and negatively to dark colours. However, responses can be skewed by the age and gender of a client. For example, young men report liking greens and browns, whereas young women prefer yellows and purples. Older women also like purples and grey to black hues. Older men have a dampened response to these colours. Physiologically, red and orange colours tend to increase blood pressure, pulse and respiration. It is not surprising that fast-food chains use these colours to speed up the time customers spend in restaurants. These colours should be avoided in most advisory environments. Instead, if colour is to be used, blues and violets should be considered, because they have been shown to reduce blood pressure and physiological reactions; however, others have reported that blue-violet combinations prompt sadness and fatigue among clients.
Environmental design and furniture
The design of a room and the furniture in the room define a client’s ability to move around spatially. Furniture also creates visible and implied barriers and boundaries. For example, a chair without armrests can make a client feel vulnerable because they may feel that they have no personal space. Also, a desk in a room may signal a power relationship with the adviser being in charge and the client being in a weaker position.
Much of the research involving environmental design and furniture use has revolved around the concept of individual body buffer zones or what are known as interaction distances. Everyone has an interaction preference, which is the minimum distance between two or more people that should exist before discomfort sets in. Among US financial advisory clients, this distance is between 48 and 60 inches. Gender and cultural differences have an impact on these benchmarks. For instance, women are more comfortable with smaller buffer zones, whereas men prefer a larger interaction distance. When a client and financial adviser are of the opposite sex, clients tend to prefer a wider buffer zone. It is important to note that clients from what are known as ‘contact cultures’ (such as those in South America and France) often prefer a small buffer zone.
Having a rudimentary understanding of buffer zones is important when choosing how an office, where client meetings are held, is arranged. Office space can be described as either traditional or therapeutic. Figure 1 illustrates a traditional office environment. In Figure 1, the financial adviser sits behind a desk with the client sitting on the other side of the desk. This office environment facilitates the sharing of paper and provides a zone of familiarity for the client.
A therapeutic office environment is shown in Figure 2. In this office, the desk has been replaced with a small table that can be used to lay out paper work and sign documents. The emphasis in the space, however, is the couch for the client and the chair for the adviser. This environment facilitates discussion and sharing of ideas.
Although nearly all financial advisers prefer an environment like that shown in Figure 1, clients generally find the space shown in Figure 2 to be preferable. Essentially, the desk in Figure 1 represents, figuratively and practically, a barrier between the client and adviser. Clients find advisers to be more accessible and friendly when the ‘barrier’ is eliminated. Interestingly, research suggests that clients do not find the use or lack of a desk to impact adviser credibility, although women advisers are sometimes perceived as more competent when using a desk. Perceptions of competency for male advisers, on the other hand, have been reported to be higher in therapeutic office environments.
Lighting
Environmental lighting helps create client impressions about a financial adviser’s practice. Lighting is known to shape perceptions of spaciousness, privacy, and competence. In general, the literature suggests that financial advisers should employ full-spectrum lighting in combination with natural lighting when possible. The strict use of florescent lighting, for example, should be avoided because this source of light tends to create a washed-out environment that clients sometimes associate with uncomfortable clinical settings. The more natural light the better. Natural light reduces depressive symptoms and facilitates open dialogue. It is important to remember, however, that client seating should always be situated so that the client does not face a window. Allowing a client to see outside during an advisory session can result in disengagement and distraction on the part of the client.
Smell
Levitt, Butler and Hill’s work in the psychotherapy literature clearly indicates, unsurprisingly, that “exposure to specific odours affects various psychological processes such as mood, cognition, person perception, health, sexual behaviour, and ingestive functions”. Financial advisers, like mental health professionals, should avoid the use of colognes and perfume. They should also ensure that their breath smells fresh during client meetings and that they do not have body odour. A simple strategy regarding office smells involves purchasing a plug-in room deodoriser. Preferred smells include scents of baked foods and fruit fragrances.
Sound
External sounds during planning sessions are known to reduce adviser task performance and sharing of information on the part of clients. Clients often assume that if they can hear sounds occurring outside of the room in which they are meeting with an adviser, others can hear their discussion. This can trigger an unexpected fracture in client-adviser dialogue.
Texture
Texture is a concept that touches nearly every aspect of a financial adviser’s office environment. Clients perceive texture through sight and touch. Nearly everything that a client interacts with in a financial adviser’s office – flooring, furniture, brochures, etc. – has some degree of texture. The general recommendation is that the office environment should be built around soft materials and textured surfaces that absorb sound. Using this approach reduces the clinical feel of an office space and creates a more inviting environment.
Temperature
The final element associated with the physical office environment involves temperature. Issues to consider include placement of seating in relation to air vents and sources of heat, cold, and drafts (e.g., doors and windows). Generally, people prefer rooms that have an average ambient temperature between 20 and 26 degrees, with 30 to 60 per cent humidity. Rather than allow a client to set the temperature, the financial adviser should set a comfortable temperature and make periodic changes throughout the day or as requested by a client.
This article was originally printed on fpperformancelab.org and has been published with permission from the author, John Grable (grable@uga.edu). It has been edited. For the original version, with references, visit here.
