Senior VP of advisory services unpacks 'flywheel' dynamic of organizational diversity, development, and client retention
Even as Canadian women are projected to hold $4.2 trillion in assets by 2028, women advisors are still a minority in the industry, representing just 18% of advisors in the full-service brokerage space.
For firms, that means added pressure to attract and retain female talent into their ranks – and it all starts with culture.
“A diverse culture builds a better organization, because you have more perspectives, more ideas, more likelihood of innovation,” says Vanessa Flockton, senior vice president, Advisory Services at Nicola Wealth.
Flockton will be one of the featured speakers at the 6th Annual Women in Wealth Management Summit. She’ll be part of a panel discussion titled “Client retention and the Great Wealth Transfer – can your culture pass the acid test?”.
“The wealth space is a client-facing space, and in Canada, we have a very diverse population,” she says. “So if you don't have a diverse workforce, it's harder to work generally with the population and not silo yourself.”
At Nicola, Flockton says, caring and respect are baked into the cultural foundation, which includes valuing differences and diversity across different groups. That makes perfect sense not just to deliver the best results for clients, but also to create a supportive ecosystem of partnership between people with complementary skills and knowledge.
Under the broader umbrella of workplace diversity, Flockton says supporting the development of women is a must. As women maneuver through different phases of their lives, she says it’s critical to create an environment that acknowledges the realities of building a family while elevating their careers.
“Some women manage it well, and they may have joint relationships with their spouses where it's very equal, or their spouses are the primary caregiver and they can focus on career,” Flockton says. “But women's paths are not necessarily fully linear and that need to have flexibility around building their careers over time. An organization that can support that need can actually retain, develop and create a huge amount of loyalty and trust with women employees.”
Apart from that focus on flexibility across its advisory team, she says Nicola encourages people to bring their best selves to work. Beyond that, the firm has an apprenticeship model towards becoming an advisor, which includes an emphasis on hiring women at younger ages to evolve into advisor roles.
“What that's allowed us to do is actually retain more women over time, and have women developing into advisors within the organization with the help of female role models,” Flockton says. “They may pause they need may need to work a little bit less for a period of time in their careers, but after that they're in a position to come back in our environment because of our flexibility and significant depth of women advisors within the organization.”
Nicola’s client retention rate stands at an astonishing 99%, with four of every five clients coming in via referrals. That loyalty, Flockton argues, is rooted in the firm’s fundamental value of getting to know its clients, which is sustained in no small part by its continuously free-flowing talent pipeline.
“You can have people growing, and potentially transitioning off client files. But you always have that next advisor who grows into the lead role, and then they apprentice somebody else,” she says. “We get a flywheel going where you're in this constant ability to grow as an organization, because we're growing our people at the same time.”
Flockton will share more of her insights at the 6th Annual Women in Wealth Management Summit titled “Strategies to empower women in wealth – no woman left behind” which will be held on December 5 at the Carlu in Toronto.
Those interested to learn more about the event and register may click here.
