Wilsons Advisory mining for diverse talent with Associate Adviser Program

Wilsons Advisory’s new program will see participants undergo 100 hours of training, including monthly structured training sessions covering a range of topics, intertwined with real, client-facing experience to help them develop their skills under the supervision of a senior sponsoring adviser.

Over the two-year program, participants will have the opportunity to foster not only the technical skills necessary for advisers but also the crucial soft skills, of which previous research by Kaplan has suggested are sorely lacking in new graduates, negatively impacting client experiences.

Speaking with ifa, Wilsons’ head of advice, Matthew Nicholls, explained that when developing the program, it was important for them to be sure that the associates were developing their practical skills.

“I think sometimes things get a bit too theoretical with a lot of the training … it’s the same with university, any sort of education program. So, we wanted them to have the technical or theoretical plus the real life, at the coalface experience of advisers who have been through that exact journey maybe 10 or 15 years earlier,” Nicholls said.

When it came to selecting the candidates, Nicholls said they explored career changers, as well as those taking a more traditional path to the profession, ensuring a diversity of talent.

“We’ve cast the net a little bit wider. We’re looking for people that have the right personality traits, skill set – client-facing people, essentially, that can manage relationships in terms of where they’ve come from,” he said.

“What we found is that people that come from real estate or other sectors, have a relevant finance degree, have the relevant soft skills, relationship management or the things that make a successful adviser beyond the technical capability.

“What we’ve really done is looked across our existing group of young, talented employees and identified a group that have the skills, have the educational background, and invited them onto the program. And we’ve also hired externally.”

Wilsons’ head of private wealth, Casimir Skillecorn, added that the new program is a chance to usher in the next generation of diverse advisers to the profession.

“We see a real opportunity at the moment to, if you like, modernise our approach to this, and that includes really looking at chasing a diverse pool with candidates for entry into our associate program,” Skillecorn told ifa.

“Like all businesses, we strive to generate greater diversity in our workforce, and providing training opportunities to young candidates allows us to effectively build our adviser force of tomorrow.”

He added: “I think one of the additional benefits that we’ve got as a private partnership, we’re prepared to invest in the future of the business. We’re prepared to invest in relationships and people and the partners of the business feel very strongly about building the profession, the career and the brand through the next generation.”

During the final six months of the program, once they have completed their professional year and registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), participants will then go through a winding-up period in which they explore their options for the future of their career, whether that will be staying on with Wilsons or leaving to pursue other opportunities.

“The important thing is that we start talking about this transition to fully qualified, registered financial advisers in the final six months of the program, and there’s a bunch of different options,” Nicholls said.

As the profession continues to struggle to grow, Skillecorn said it’s important for the firm to create a pipeline of young talent and be “part of the solution”.

With Adviser Ratings’ Landscape report showing the average age of an adviser to be 52, it is crucial that businesses are able to attract younger talent to ensure their longevity.

“It’s to provide an organic growth pathway for the business and, to be frank, it’s a better place to be if you’ve got a vibrant young culture in a business that’s innovative and prepared to look at new ways of solving old problems,” Skillecorn said.

Nicholls also noted that the program could be useful in remedying the “shallow pool of female advisers”, creating a pipeline of female talent to the business, providing crucial diversification for the future.