The coronavirus lockdown brought out the flexibility of financial advice companies, as they equipped themselves in a short space of time to cope with working from home. Advisers have proved that it can be effective and doesn’t disrupt business with clients.
But the novelty and efficiency of working from home can wear off after a while.
I know this pesonally as, in 2018, I left my role at a private banking publication because I wanted to move back into an office, which saw me join International Adviser, a sister publication to Portfolio Adviser.
There are a lot of elements to working from that can actually stunt people’s professional growth, such as lack of professional development, but also take a toll on their mental and physical health.
‘I believe it will be more challenging to recruit into senior roles’
The love of working from home has risen dramatically over the last few months, with around 80% of people who can do so, wanting to work from home indefinitely.
But how does working from home make a firm stand out from the crowd to potential employees?
Tim Sargisson, chief executive of Sandringham Financial Partners, said there is “no real difficulty” with recruitment at the minute despite the lack of face-to-face contact and lack of an office.
But he added: “I believe it will be more challenging to recruit into senior roles, especially bearing in mind the rigours of the Financial Conduct Authority around SMCR and regulated positions.”
Virginie Faucon, marketing and propositions director at IWP, added: “We’ve found surprisingly few problems in onboarding new staff and new member firms during the pandemic. Everyone is now used to the rhythm of holding one-on-one and larger meetings over Zoom.
“To move materials, we use file sharing, along with couriers so new employees have equipment. The lockdown hasn’t been an impairment to growth.
“We have added new colleagues in marketing, finance and project management during this period of lockdown and working from home, all of whom feel like part of the team even though the vast majority of their onboarding and working has been remote.”
People are reluctant to move jobs amid coronavirus uncertainty
While I was working from home, I suffered a sense of feeling forgotten and left to your own devices.
Also, I felt that I didn’t really know anyone in the business and they became just names on an email without personalities.
The ability to make people feel like a person with opinions and feelings is one of the problems of working from home.
If firms can’t make people feel wanted or valued, there is likely to be an array of job-hopping and lack of loyalty.
Sarah Warburton, Equilibrium Financial Planning’s head of culture, said: “We have seen job hopping but from other firms to ours. Having already had a culture in place, we are now finding that the pool of candidates is stronger than ever before for those who thrived during Covid.”
Anna-Viktoria Warren, head of talent acquisition at Quilter, said: “I believe that if a company works hard to ensure that new joiners settle in well during these challenging times then people will stay loyal. Similarly, how a company tackles this situation will play a part in people’s decision making.”
Michael Fiddaman, talent acquisition manager at Royal London, said: “I don’t think social distancing will figure in decision making as it is an essential part of our lives at present.
“We will more likely see increased retention for the short-medium term. This could affect companies that need to recruit because new employees will be harder to attract and therefore selling the culture, values and ethics of any business will become more important.”
How is training and professional development affected?
If you have started to work from home, and felt like there are fewer hours in the day than there usually were in the office, you are doing it right.
As more people start to become more efficient and get more jobs done, everyone becomes busier.
But it means time for professional development and improvement goes out of the window. The appraisal system has vanished, as you cannot see employees in action as you once did, which makes it hard to see if they are sticking to a firm’s values.
Sandringham’s Sargisson said: “Distance training works okay using our dedicated training platform, however it’s harder for new recruits working remotely to understand a firm’s culture.”
Quilter’s Warren added: “We have all adjusted and everyone recognises that this is a unique situation that we are in but everyone is working hard to ensure that new joiners are getting all the support they need and so far we have been very pleased with the feedback from those who have started during this period.”
Client communication
Taking on a new starter seems easy to do and training them can be done remotely.
But the real question is: will advisers be as confident in a face-to-face scenario with clients as they are online?
When things get back to ‘normal’, we expect a lot of people will want face-to-face meetings.
The Zoom quizzes that everyone did during the lockdown months started off like a breath of fresh air but turned into an intrusive, daily chore filled with forced conversation.
Making new starters feel confident online is not the same as in person.
Dominant personalities tend to take centre stage in group calls, leaving others to feel like they are watching a conversation in which they cannot take part.
Equilibrium’s Warburton said: “We hire for talent and part of that is people skills and effective communication. Our team have just added a string to their bow.”
Warren said: “While it is clearly different socialising with colleagues via technology than it is in a face-to-face context, the basics of how to behave are still the same and, therefore, there is unlikely to be a large step change once we can do more face-to-face meetings.”
Working from home doesn’t work for everyone
When I finished working from home, my health had depleted. Monotonous routines and loneliness made me feel sluggish and lazy. I was only working from home a year, but it became the longest year of my life.
Being part of an office and its environment brought me back from my professional and personal slog.
Many people may not feel like this – but if more companies move permanently to working from home and end the office as we knew it – it may become a rather difficult time for those who cannot adapt.
So, can the financial services industry carry on social distanced recruiting and onboarding?
Claire Dent, Fairstone head of HR, said: “Moving forward, we will incorporate the lessons and best practice we have learned from our period of collectively working from home across the business, which will enable us to continue to champion a new innovative world of working, seamlessly combining first-class remote and real-life practices.”
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