Recruitment And Retention
When recruiting, we lead with our culture, which is based on teamwork, fun, authenticity and client service. Each of those aspects are exciting and attractive to young people, opening many doors for us with highly qualified candidates.
But it’s one thing to recruit promising next-gen and female talent and another thing entirely to retain it, so RIAs need to encourage empowerment. That typically isn’t happening at larger firms, where young advisors often face pigeonholing and a hard climb up the ladder. The industry would benefit from a flatter organizational structure and more prevalent mindset that if a young advisor wants something, they should be able to work hard and go get it.
Our managing partners have created like comparisons for next-gen and female talent to come in and strive to emulate that success. It’s very appealing and motivating when there are obvious examples in the firm of successful advisors who are about the same age as the people we’re recruiting.
That’s especially true as RIAs now compete more and more with tech fields, which are perceived by many new college graduates to be cooler and edgier than financial services. You really need to give young professionals more empowerment and flexibility, since that’s the only way to attract top talent these days.
The retention of that talent is also based on listening to what they want and providing a platform for them to grow into it. Our perspective is if you have good ideas for one area of our business, then you should be more involved in that area and help us make those decisions.
Advice To Others
To other firms that seek to bring in more next-gen and female talent but don’t know where to start, I’d recommend focusing on your culture. A couple of steps we took early on were to institute Summer Fridays (our office closes at 2:30 pm in the summer) and relaxing the dress code. Both represent minor changes that can make a major impact by loosening up the office atmosphere and creating a more fun culture.
As far as broader concepts, trust the young people who you bring in. Give them decision-making power but also mentorship. Steer them in the right direction and have faith that they’ll make good choices. Adopting this approach is instrumental in helping next-gen and female advisors build the confidence and skills needed to succeed.
Matt Granski is a partner at Miracle Mile Advisors and serves as the firm’s president.