In recent years we have seen plenty of evolution across many areas of the wealth management industry. For example, the use of technology in the service of clients has grown and developed enormously, whether it be in the onboarding of clients, cash flow modelling, investment research or report writing, technology is increasingly present and evolving. Similarly, in talent recruitment and development, we have seen many developments as firms seek to ensure they have the best possible talent representing them in a very competitive market. As in sport, so it is in business that it is the marginal gains that set the best ahead of the rest. And in wealth management, a firm can have the best technology in the market for example, but if it does not have the talent to attract and manage the clients then it will be left behind in the competitive race for growth.

So what are the skills that are most in demand in today’s wealth management industry? A successful firm combines talent across many different facets of the organisation. Client relationship management, financial planning skills, investment management, operations and technology and risk management are some of the specialist areas of firms in the industry. It is often felt that client advisers are the most important of these, but that perspective fails to recognise the significant roles played by all of the above technical disciplines, and unless all of these combine in an effective manner, the overall service to a client will not be at an optimal level, which will probably be reflected in the client satisfaction feedback scores. Without a skilled operations team to service the client accurately and on time for example, the relationship team will be struggling to manage the client relationship effectively. Many a client has moved firms because of poor service.

However, it is at the client adviser level that a client is first attracted to a firm, and it is in this important area that much growth and progress in the development of talent has taken place in recent years. Following the introduction of the Retail Distribution Review in 2012 (“RDR”), the requirement for client advisers to be professionally qualified has set the bar for the demonstration of the practical and technical knowledge required to advise a client on their personal finances. Prior to RDR, professional qualifications were a nice to have rather than a must have, and hence the term “financial adviser” could easily stretch in interpretation from the unqualified so-called expert in the local pub up to the most highly qualified adviser in a top financial firm. Thankfully, the requirement for a high standard of professional qualifications means the industry has, in turn, improved its professional standards to a very high quality. Financial advisers of today are far more technically and theoretically knowledgeable and qualified than those of a generation or two ago.

But a set of professional qualifications does not necessarily make for a first-class adviser. The most successful client advisers have strong relationship skills with the ability to build trust and empathy and win an ongoing loyalty from their clients. Selling skills are also important, both in attracting new clients and in promoting effective strategies for the client to implement. The role of the “Trusted Adviser” has always been important and a combination of these softer skills with a strong theoretical base, allied to a good level of practical experience make the client adviser a very valuable commodity for a wealth management firm.

A good client adviser takes years of professional development, combining technical qualifications with increasing exposure to clients of higher value and greater complexity.  The soft skills cannot be underestimated and many of them are borne from personal instinct. A natural curiosity about people – their lives and what makes them interesting. An ability to be patient, to listen and build understanding and, of course, the almost magical ingredient - to be able to impart advice in a measured and considered way, which takes account of the client’s requirements and meets their objectives.

Wealth Management firms address the development of their talent in different ways. For example, smaller firms will most likely aim to recruit experienced advisers in the market that have been developed elsewhere. They do not have the resources or time to create or develop their own talent and will rely on others to do it for them. Pursuing this approach means that they will recruit personnel with different backgrounds and potentially different business cultures. Their challenge is to define their own business culture and ensure that any new recruits are quickly acclimatised to that culture, otherwise the transition of the new recruit to their firm will be slow and potentially difficult.

The larger firms have size on their side, and many have well established training programmes for the development of their advisers. Internal “talent academies” are not unusual in these more sizeable firms and staff are exposed to regular and rigorous in-house training programmes for their theoretical training whilst gradually introduced to clients of more demanding stature. As these staff become more qualified and experienced, they will become natural targets for other firms to try and recruit and so talent retention is of equal importance in the human resource strategy planning.

Whatever the origin of a client adviser in a firm, the continuing professional development of that adviser along with their colleagues in all the specialist departments of the firm should be an important element of the overall business strategy. It is often said that the assets of a professional services firm arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. They and their skills need as much nurturing and development as the highly specialised industrial equipment in a manufacturing industry. It is the firm that recognises this and invests in the development and progression of the core skills of wealth management that will set itself at the front of the pack against the competition across the industry.