The way advice firms structure their team is essential to the sustainability and efficiency of the business, according to the 2025 Global Advisor Study by Dimensional Fund Advisors.
The study classifies “high performing firms” under five criteria – revenue growth, client retention, employee retention, profitability and revenue per adviser.
The study examines all the firms against the five criteria and the top quartile of firms that meet the criteria are the high performing firms.
Dimensional head of practice management Catherine Williams tells Professional Planner the study shows the team structure of high performing firms have a higher degree of support staff of 3.3 staff members per senior adviser versus 2.9 for other firms.
“What that means is they’re making investments in that younger talent [and] the development of that talent, in order to create not only immediate leverage and capacity for the senior adviser that is ultimately responsible for that relationship, but [also] grooming them for future potential advisory talent within the business.” Williams says.
“Pairing that with increased use of technology in the area of AI, and workflows as well, that’s where we see the high performing firms getting scale in the business over time.”
Williams emphasises the importance of “role clarity” in the structure of a team as well as leveraging the time of the senior adviser or advisers.
“You have a lead adviser, and you have at least an associate, or a client service associate or a planner that is helping to really leverage that lead adviser’s time,” she says.
Williams adds the benefit of having at least one additional support person that you’re training is that while they are learning, they can deliver administrative support to leverage the time of the lead adviser.
Training up
Training young talent from within rather than hiring externally is a route that some advice businesses choose to go down, due to the shrinking talent pool of advisers.
BFG Financial Group has a system in place where its junior staff can progress to a fully qualified adviser with the support of the firm.
BFG’s pipeline from support staff to adviser is the foundation of the firm’s hires with the five management team members having all come through their system.
Williams says there is a trade-off with training young support staff to eventually become advisers from within the business.
“When you think about building someone’s skills and acumen, that just takes time, and so that’s the trade off if you’re really only sort of grooming up from super green talent, or right out of university, or whatever the criteria might be,” she says.
“The trade-off is you have people that you can really help cultivate and create roles and drive roles in your business that are going to give the greatest benefit to you.”
Client and employee retention
Williams says a good team structure is also beneficial for the client, as they have a team of people they are working with rather than just the one adviser.
“It really helps reinforce the idea that [the] client is a client of a firm, as opposed to a client of an individual, and we see that absolutely enhances the relationship over time.”
Team structure links directly to employee retention, which is one of the key areas Williams says is used in the study to judge if a firm is high performing.
The findings from the study show there is lower voluntary attrition at high performing firms – 0.6 employees leave these firms in comparison to 1.3 at other firms annually.
Williams says it can be healthy to cut ties with a client or adviser if they are the wrong fit for the business, as “it can be really difficult to step away”.
“If you have the wrong person in an organisation, that can be really detrimental to the business over time, so from a criteria standpoint, we don’t hold that against them.”
