Dealer firms deliver on diversity

In fact, many advisors were quick to mention that an inclusive work environment is something they expect their firms to focus on. “It’s better here than at most places,” says an advisor in Ontario with Oakville, Ont.-based Manulife Securities. “The whole industry doesn’t do enough to reach out and provide support.”

Case in point: several advisors noted that they would like to see greater ethnic and gender diversity not only within their firms, but in the financial services sector as a whole. “Most [dealer firms] are still very much white-dominated, as opposed to [reflecting] the cultural [diversity] of the Canadian mosaic,” says an advisor in Ontario with Toronto-based Assante Wealth Management (Canada) Ltd.

“This industry is still dominated by white men,” adds an advisor in the same province with Winnipeg-based Investors Group Inc., “but there are more and more women entering the business.”

More women entering and succeeding in the industry is an issue that hits home for Tuula Jalasjaa, managing director and head of Toronto-based HollisWealth Inc.‘s retail advisory network.

“I may be the only female leading any of the firms in the independent space,” Jalasjaa says. “I’m a big advocate around getting more female advisors.”

HollisWealth saw a significant increase in its rating for diversity in this year’s Report Card, and the firm’s advisors didn’t hesitate to mention the importance of their firm’s approach to inclusivity as the reason why.

“I have seen more women here in senior positions than I have at any other firm,” says a HollisWealth advisor in Atlantic Canada.

Adds a colleague in Ontario: “It’s changed in the past two years. It used to be a man’s world, and they made some changes.”

Executives with HollisWealth say the reason for the strong results in the diversity category this year stem from the inclusiveness training the firm provides to all employees, as well as its special conferences based around the challenges of being a woman in the industry. The focus on this topic, they say, makes good business sense.

“By having a much more inclusive leadership-management group,” says John Bai, HollisWealth’s senior vice president of wealth-management strategy, “your ability to approach problems and find solutions and strategies benefits not just your female clients, not just your minority clients. It benefits the entire organization because you have a much wider view and many more lenses looking at possible solutions.”

Executives at other firms also were quick to point out the financial benefits that a diverse, inclusive workspace can lead to.

“When we look at the communities that we are going into, we absolutely have to have and cultivate a diverse and inclusive workplace,” says Todd Asman, senior vice president of products and financial planning with Investors Group, “because we have to go out into a client world that is extremely diverse and becoming more and more diverse as time goes on.”

Adds Shawn Smith, vice president, sales and distribution, individual network, with Lévis, Que.-based Desjardins Financial Security Independent Network in Toronto: “Having a diverse office allows that office to tap into different markets.”

There are different ways to establish that diverse workforce, though. Although HollisWealth promotes inclusivity with conferences and training, Mississauga, Ont.-based Investment Planning Counsel Inc. (IPC) tries to create a familial environment in its branches that fosters a culture that makes everyone feel respected and included, says John Novachis, IPC’s executive vice president of corporate development.

“Advisor intimacy is our core strategy at the end of the day, and that’s being close [to], supporting, listening and responding [to our advisors],” he says, noting that IPC’s efforts to ensure a healthy, respectful work environment have had the side benefit of promoting a more inclusive workspace. “I have to believe that the structure, the more personal approach, the intimacy model, has had a profound impact on our [diversity rating].”

Although firms across the board received strong performance ratings in this category, the lower importance rating for diversity reveals that for many, this is not an area of critical importance. In fact, many advisors were not hesitant to say that diversity in the workplace should never take precedence over competency.

“Quality people is all that matters,” says an advisor in Ontario with Investors Group.

Adds an advisor on the Prairies with Montreal-based Peak Financial Group: “I’m of the opinion that you get the best people, regardless of where they come from.”

This sentiment was shared by several executives, who would rather place priority on a potential employee’s experience than on his or her ethnicity or gender.

“It’s not like we’re reaching out, saying, ‘I’d like to find a female of this age group, of this demographic profile, in Mississauga’,” says Rick Annaert, president and CEO of Manulife Securities. “That’s not how our business model works.”

Nevertheless, Annaert recognizes that his firm is likely to offer a more diverse environment in order to fit into Canada’s increasingly multicultural tapestry.

“Today, if you look at the demographic makeup of our advisory base,” he says, “it’s predominantly male and it’s predominantly white. But as this evolves, we’ll evolve with it.”

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