Key motivator for choosing career in advice is helping others, study shows

New research published in the Financial Planning Research Journal, a publication produced by the Financial Planning Association (FPA) in collaboration with the Griffith Business School, has revealed that interest, autonomy, and competence are the main motivators for individuals pursuing a career in financial planning.

The study, which involved the administration of a questionnaire to financial advisers, showed that the primary reason for choosing financial planning as a career was an interest in helping others.

Namely, as many as 53.6 per cent of respondents chose “want to help others” as their primary motivation for pursuing financial planning as a study option.

“Contrary to popular media reports, results show that people choose financial planning as a career primarily because they want to help people,” a team of researchers from the School of Business at Western Sydney University, wrote. 

Work experience and employment opportunities were also top motivators, followed by working with people (19.64 per cent) and working with numbers (12.5 per cent).

Furthermore, researchers Michelle Cull, Csilla Skultety, and Ryan Kumar suggested that intrinsic rewards such as autonomy and interest were more significant to prospective financial advisers than extrinsic rewards like salary and working conditions.

However, a higher salary was found to be of more importance to working advisers than non-working advisers, while the correlation between qualifications and salary suggested that advisers may be motivated by a higher salary to pursue further study in financial planning.

Turning to how a career in financial advice is viewed externally, the study revealed that advice is often seen as a career for mature age career changers or something that people “fall into”.

Another notable finding, the researchers said, was the role personal experiences — such as financial hardship, observing how a financial adviser has helped family members, or work opportunities in financial planning — played in influencing the choice to pursue a career in financial planning.

“A common theme running through these experiences is the social learning that revealed how financial planning was able to make a positive difference in the lives of others,” they said.

As such, the authors suggested that in order to boost numbers in the industry, the profession should consider providing more positive social learning experiences involving financial advice to the next generation.

“This may be through offering a larger number of work-integrated learning experiences in financial planning to a broader range of students, or by including compulsory personal finance content in a broader range of courses,” the study said.

Drawing on social learning theory, the researchers also assessed that exposure to financial advisers as positive role models may help attract more people to the profession.

Moreover, given that financial advice is not commonly viewed as a career for high school students, the researchers encouraged industry organisations to promote the profession to students by offering more work-integrated learning experiences and including compulsory personal finance content in a broader range of courses.

Ultimately, the paper’s authors said that rather than focusing on financial advice as a career in “numbers”, the profession should consider how it can be promoted as a career to “help others”.

“This will be especially relevant to attracting millennials who are known to be looking for a sense of purpose in their work,” they said.

“This will require a collaborative effort of all stakeholders and may have the combined effect of increasing consumer trust in financial adviser.”