Apprenticeship and graduate programmes can also directly address age diversity and should be sensitive to socio-economic and thought/experience/personality diversity as part of the recruitment process.
More widely the industry needs to continue to reposition itself as a professional service to attract those who otherwise head for professions such as accountancy – an industry that has had some success in delivering gender equality and diversity.
FTA: Would you say there is still hidden bias in adviser recruiting?
SP: There are unconscious biases that lead to recruitment decisions. Businesses are run by individuals who tend to be biased towards those who are like them or have shared similar experiences.
The predominance of smaller companies in financial advice, ie those traditionally without robust recruitment strategies that embrace and challenge gender and diversity issues, ensures unconscious bias persists.
FTA: What about females, how can we get more females into the industry?
SP: We can help by creating a culture of inclusion and support, where women are encouraged to speak up, share their ideas and feel valued and respected.
Flexible working in our industry was not really an option before Covid. It does feel as though flexible working has now been embraced by our industry and clients, giving us a lot more flexibility in what our working days can look like.
The technological changes now mean we can deliver training and development sessions over Teams or Zoom. We have now removed the barrier that training/support was only available if you were in the right location and in person.
FTA: Which segment of the industry is more successful in diversifying its workforce, smaller or larger firms?
SP: Larger firms. They naturally have more resources and initiatives in place to help improve representation in the workplace.
FTA: What would be the most effective measure to get more people from diverse backgrounds into financial advice?
SP: I think initiatives like the Change Festival by the CISI and NextGen Planners. Events like these do open the doors for everyone to come along, share ideas and explore the opportunities our industry has to offer.
Mentoring programmes can also help to promote the career development of under-represented groups and ensure that diverse employees are given the same opportunities for advancement.
On top of this, a push by the financial advice industry to position itself as a professional service akin to accountancy and law. Those associated industries have had some success in addressing diversity and gender equality – make financial advice aspirational and people will come, women and diverse groups included.
At Continuum we have built a business on the collaboration of ideas and best practices, with a huge central training programme to help people of all backgrounds grow their financial advice business. We also have a very supportive environment with initiatives such as our wellbeing programme for both advisers and clients.
