Motivating Your Staff
How a retirement plan adviser firm approaches ongoing education begins with company culture. At least that’s true for Francis Investment Counsel and Channel Financial, two independent firms whose training philosophy reflects their companies’ vision.
The word “education” pervades Francis Investment Counsel’s website—much because the firm was started to teach middle-class Americans how to save for retirement, says Michael Francis, firm president and chief investment officer (CIO), in Brookfield, Wisconsin. So it stresses education for its 16 team members, providing a three-tiered system to develop them professionally and personally.
“External professional development” refers to acquiring and maintaining credentials—especially Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Certified Financial Planner (CFP)—which Francis believes are crucial in the field. “We have a fairly significant budget every year for training,” he says. The firm keeps team members current by sending them to the range of educational opportunities their specialization provides. Even still-uncertified educators must meet the same continuing education requirements, so they can grow in their role, he says.
In “internal professional development,” the employees learn from each other. At day-long quarterly companywide meetings, they discuss industry trends, plus explore some point from the firm’s operational manual, to strengthen their compliance skills. Additionally, the education team meets for a half day every month, with each member presenting a personal case study from the field and receiving input—and maybe counseling tips—from the rest.
The “personal development” piece is a wellness program. “We’re trying to get people more focused on healthy living, and being better stewards of their own situations as well,” Francis says. So, the firm arranges for annual wellness exams and contributes to employees’ health savings accounts (HSAs) for points that they earn exercising, seeing a financial planner, etc. “I think the people who work here stay because we keep it interesting. They can continue to learn and grow,” he says.
Less methodical—or maybe more organic—is ongoing training at Channel Financial, in Golden Valley, Minnesota. “The culture comes before anything else,” Partner Jim McDonald explains its hiring, and training, philosophy. “There are no egos, we don’t take each other seriously. We’re free to point out each other’s mistakes. I hate to say, but it works very well.”
In what he calls this “fun, hardworking” environment, staff feel able to self-present the floating “D.A.”—or “Dumb A__”—Award for some personal gaff. Education takes many forms, McDonald suggests, and calling themselves out cultivates humility. “That’s what we remind everybody—to keep humble with the folks we work with.”
As to formalized training, “We’re not big enough to have ‘this is how we train everybody,’” he says. Not that size would change their perspective. “All [11] of us at Channel come from large corporate cultures where everything is structured. In the relationship business, relationships are not always a repeatable process. It’s having the person understand what it takes to meet this particular client need.”
Hence, Channel’s training is more dynamic. Staff teach to their specialties, as needed, tuning their approach to the learner’s personality. Employees are urged to learn by doing and to not fear making decisions. Everyone learns at the regular GSD (Get Stuff Done) meetings where the last two weeks’ business gets discussed, McDonald says.
To keep learning themselves, both he and Francis attend think-tank-type meetings with peers.