Despite the perception by advice practice leaders that hiring a professional year (PY) adviser offers more cons than pros, one adviser has argued there is a significant return on investment from bringing on an emerging adviser –even if they don’t stay with the business.
Thirdview owner and financial adviser Peter Foley says the economics for the PY still make sense despite the existential threat of employees wanting to move to greener pastures.
“The associate adviser is writing SOAs for me that I charge for,” Foley tells Professional Planner.
“There’s no time lost. That person learning is a billable exercise when I think about the commercial nature of it.”
Foley says his associate adviser is competent at paraplanning, which helps the business and means she can develop her skills through the advice process.
“That’s not just a case of punching something out of Xplan, that’s a case of tailoring that template and drafting it in a way that’s client-centric, so that the client can read it and understand what was said,” Foley says.
“There’s the technical nature of it, the strategies, the products and the pricing and in that sense all of those requirements that PY has means that actually the commerciality is there.”
Foley says by doing the PY, the associate adviser is learning how the business runs.
“I’m surprised that people are saying it’s not commercial,” Foley says.
“If I was paying a paraplanner who’s an external contractor to do that work, okay sure, I’m getting the work done but I’m paying the contractor to do it. I’m not paying that person internally instead of externally and I’m deepening their knowledge.”
The pipeline of new advisers has been slim – 2025 had 569 new entrants, according to Padua Wealth Data, which is the most in a year since 2018.
Business owners have long been concerned about investing in PY advisers with fears they will ultimately be poached once their training is complete.
The Financial Advice Association Australia suggested preventing PY advisers from working for a competitor “in the same broad area” for up to two years after completing their training, in a submission to the government’s consultation on employee non-compete rules.
TruWealth director and principal financial adviser Natallia Smith says she plans to bring in an experienced adviser rather than a PY as she feels it’s too difficult for a smaller business to manage.
“It’s better in a bigger business, but we run a boutique and just can’t get it wrong,” Smith says.
Evalesco Financial Services chief executive Jeff Thurecht says the firm has retained most of its PY advisers, with one exception.
“She was with us for six years and moved on for totally unrelated reasons, she had moved away from Sydney,” Thurecht says.
“We’ve had five people go through and have a sixth one on the way through at the moment.”
The firm relies on a system whereby future advisers come up through the client services, paraplanner and associate adviser stream into a junior adviser role.
“We’ve had that model and we’ve had some move on over time after completing [their PY] but usually they stay,” Thurecht says.
“The PY hasn’t changed a lot of what we do. Because we had always had that mentality of training people, having junior people come into the business and work their way up. It’s probably given a little more clarity around some of the expectations.
“We don’t have the view that just because you complete your PY that you’re ready to be an adviser.”
ASO Wealth director and financial adviser Julien Renard says the business is still too new to take on PY advisers but that it is still a long-term goal as he was once the lead adviser for a PY at a previous firm.
“It’s hard to comment in this state of the business because things move really, really fast,” Renard says.
“It could be the case in six months’ time we have enough existing clients plus enough in the pipeline to warrant doing that. I know that we won’t need to until we have an established client base.”
LifePath Financial Planning co-founder and senior financial adviser Brad Monk says the PY is important for the culture of the business and they will usually start at the high end of the CSO level before moving into paraplanning before starting their PY.
“Even if they’re not ready after their 12 months, they don’t just suddenly get out there by themselves.
“They’ll be an adviser, but they’ll still be guided as a PY. It’s hard to be an adviser. New advisers get thrown around a bit, so you want to make sure their confidence is high, but we run them through our system so they actually understand our processes and don’t put pressure on our back office with unrealistic time expectations.”
