Send to a friend
Print this page

Being creative about compensation

Advertisement Part 2 of a four-part series on hiring staff. Joe Riche is one of the lucky ones. The financial advisor in St. John’s hired his first assistant soon after leaving a brokerage firm to become an independent advisor. That was eight years ago, and the assistant is still with him. Riche believes he has succeeded in attracting and retaining top talent by using appropriate pay packages and other incentives. While finding a suitable assistant helped to ease a potentially stressful transition for Riche, hiring staff is always a challenge. “One of the best things that happened is the lady who walked in and applied for the job,” recalls Riche, a certified financial planner and head of Riche Investments. Riche likens his primary assistant to “Radar O’Reilly,” the seemingly psychic, sentence-completing character from the movie and television series M.A.S.H. Riche now has three assistants to help him manage his business — each in a different role. But, he admits, his firm is still very much dependent on his first “lucky” hire. “My primary assistant treats the business as if it’s her own,” Riche says. “I never underestimate the value of being able to take a day off or a vacation and feel comfortable that things are being dealt with while I’m not here.” So, what does Riche pay this office MVP? Riche won’t reveal a specific number. But, he says, the range often cited by advisors —$30,000 to $60,000 a year, including incentives and bonuses — is standard in his region. The reason for such a wide salary range is that not all assistants are created equal. “The role of the assistant can be simply one of administration, or someone far more involved in the practice, such as a practice manager or a marketing assistant,” says Sharon Harrald, vice president of the Investors Group Institute, an internal education and support group at Investors Group Inc. in Winnipeg. Investors Group’s practice-management support program includes tips on how to decide what role an assistant should play and how to source candidates. It even recommends some interview questions to help advisors in the selection process. For instance, some financial consultants assume they need an associate to help them handle their books, when all they really need is a business manager, an administrative assistant or an occasional assistant to cover administrative duties during busy times, according to Harrald. It’s a matter of deciding what you should spend your time doing — and what duties you wish to pass along. The issue of compensation is dependent on many factors in addition to the employee’s duties, including the region in which you operate and the candidate’s qualifications. When assessing the usual factors such as a candidate’s education and experience, you need to understand what motivates a potential employee, says Shannon Waller, director of new program development and a team program coach at Strategic Coachin Toronto. Waller recommends profiling candidates to ensure that a match makes sense. Profiling can also reveal much about how to compensate a particular assistant, she adds. A tool such as Arizona-based Kolbe Corp. ’s RightFit assessment program, for instance, can help advisors understand whether bonuses or incentives will have any pull with a particular assistant. Harrald often suggests that advisors who are building a team check in with someone who has already gone through that process. “One of the best sources of assistance is other people,” agrees Alexandra McLean, human resources manager with Strategic Coach. “Talk to other people like you, and see what they expected to pay, what they pay and how they reward their staff.” There are a number of online resources that may help, depending on the kind of assistant you need. A good place to start is www.payscale.com, which provides salary surveys by profession and years of experience, which can be narrowed down by province, city and company size. Role clarity is important when interviewing prospects, but the first interview isn’t the time to lay all the compensation cards out on the table. “Compensation is something you should skim over in the first interview,” says McLean. But that doesn’t give advisors permission to be unduly vague, either. “You need to be very clear on what your expectations are, and what the candidate is expecting in the role.” By the second or third interview, an advisor should know what makes a candidate tick, in terms of compensation. Some candidates, for instance, will celebrate bonuses and incentives tied to performance, both individually and as a group. But others won’t count the “bonus money” until they receive it, making it less of a motivator. 1 | 2 | NEXT PAGE >> Read other news from our Building your Business Section