While small businesses were shuttering throughout the pandemic, financial advisory firms for the most part remained in close contact with clients.

In fact, survey have indicated that many advisory firms did not skip a beat, even as the nation was in lockdown.

One such research conducted by industry consultant Philip Palaveev’s firm, Ensemble Practice, revealed that layoffs were near non-existent in the financial advisory industry. At the time of the study in August 2020, it found that 58% of advisors had hired for a new position during the crisis so far, and 42% of firms ended the first six months with more employees than they started with.

Another survey last year by Redtail Technology, a provider of client relationship management solutions for financial services firms, found that 86% of the 1,720 advisors polled were prepared with the appropriate technology for a seamless transition to work from home. The survey also found that 74% of advisory employees did not experience an interruption of their revenue stream due to working from home.

Many advisors said what set them apart and kept them afloat was the fact that they had robust technology in place that allowed for a quick pivot to working remotely. “We were able to flip the switch and not miss a beat, literally. The only thing we had to do was add peoples’ personal scanners at home to our network,” says Brett Bernstein, CEO and co-founder of XML Financial Group, which along with its affiliated broker-dealer XML Securities, LLC, has nearly $3 billion in client assets and offices in Maryland, Virginia and Colorado.

Like XML, many other firms have adopted flexible working schedules since the pandemic, and they say they are not about to part with it any time soon. Advisors think the flexible working schedule, far from the norm for many firms, has allowed their companies to escape being part of what has become known as the Great Resignation—people quiting their jobs as the pandemic fades. It also has attracted new hires.

According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report on “quits rates,” in September financial services saw a decrease in the number of people quiting, while other sectors, such as leisure and hospitality, transportation and utilities, were at all-time highs.

Bernstein says he and his leadership team had come to a decision to bring people back into the office by Memorial Day, but as the weeks went by and the Delta variant surfaced, the return to the office date was changed to Labor Day. “But what we found was our team was really operating well, we were collaborating well, and we were able to communicate with our offices,” he said, adding that it also was important that clients were not demanding that they be in the office.

By Labor Day, XML staff were given the option of working from home indefinitely. “And the team has been really, really happy,” Bernstein reports. “At the end of the day, I could do my conference call and do my laundry.”

XML has recently brought on four new employees and the company’s flexible policy and other family-friendly benefits played a big role in their decisions to join the firm. One was a single mother, hired as a client services associate, who needed flexibility to care for her child, and another was a financial planner and the firm’s marketing director, who worked in corporate America and had spent the year traveling and wanted a better quality of life. Adding to its growth, the company added $1 billion in assets in July when it acquired Collins Investment Group in Bethesda, Md.

“We are fortunate. We have a great team, the right technology, good communication and a good vision,” Bernstein says. “I am not saying we don’t have hiccups, everyone does, but I think when you put those pieces of the puzzle together it creates a clearer picture.”

Gratus Capital also has been laser-focused on retaining employees and a flexible remote work schedule has been a popular incentive for people to stay. Neil Campbell, president of the Atlanta-based RIA with about $3.5 billion in assets under management, said that as of November 1, the firm moved into new space in Atlanta’s Buckhead district. Employees are going in twice a week. Prior to that, they had been working remotely.

Campbell said the policy is loose. But “as long as folks are achieving their goals and we are hiring within our culture and treating each other with respect, it’s fine if I am the only one in the office,” he said. “If we are setting goals and we are achieving them, we don’t want to create an environment where someone is watching the door.”

Campbell reports one of the company’s goals is to have “exceptionally high satisfaction” and in the next few weeks it will conduct an employee survey to establish a baseline. In addition to variables around Covid workplace flexibility, such as the quality of collaboration of colleagues and relationship with managers, they are looking at other variables, such as salary, bonus, long-term compensation, and career path.

Gratus also has experienced growth. The firm, Campbell said, began the pandemic with 30 employees and has hired 12 within the past 12 months. A couple of the employees work in Florida, one whose husband was reassigned to Boca Raton and one in McLean, Va., whose wife’s job also was reassigned.

“Typically, we would have these three positions in the headquarters, but we said yes to the move because two were tenured high performers. They know the process and they know the culture,” Campbell noted.

Bernstein said accommodating employees and demonstrating that you care matters. In one instance he said, rather than hiring another member for the operations team, he approached the team and asked if each of the six members would be willing to take a piece of the task for extra compensation. They agreed. “II would rather take care of my own [staff] than bring in some new people if I didn’t have to,” he said.

Promoting from within is a common practice at Michigan-based Telemus, said Matt Ran, president and chief operating officer. “Typically, a lot of our openings happen because we have promoted somebody."

Ran said employees at Telemus, which has offices in Southfield and Ann Arbor, Mich., and Chicago, remained intact throughout the Covid crisis and the company stayed committed to not laying off anyone. “We have a really good culture here and that’s why we have been able to retain a lot of the employees,” he said. Telemus has 44 employees and about $3.5 billion in AUM.

Ran said the firm has been around for 17 years and many of the employees have been there for more than 10 years. “The office is a family-like environment and I think a lot of the employees feel like they have been part of the extended family,” he said.

Ran said they instituted a permanent flex work policy where people come into the office about three days a week. Employees work with their managers to choose their own schedules, “and as long as your productivity is staying consistent to what it is in the office, we are really OK with it,” he said, adding that they are cognizant of people’s work hours. Meetings are limited to during work hours and overtime, if any, is kept at a minimum, he said.

The firm has two new hires within the past two months, but Ran noted that it took close to three months to fill those positions. In pre-pandemic times, it would have taken two to three weeks, he said. “It’s definitely getting a lot harder to fill those spots and I think it’s just the nature of the job market,” he said.