The arrival of a new baby puts life into overdrive for even the most organized. But for women who can’t leave their jobs for more than a few weeks without losing some or all of their clients, the challenges are especially demanding. That’s why a growing number are opting to use a team approach to balancing their work and home lives — and many say it works remarkably well.

For Gillian Stovel Rivers, an advisor with Assante Financial Management Ltd. in Mississauga, Ont., careful advance planning was the key to making the team approach work. She returned to the office 11 weeks after her son was born. The planning — which divided client and administrative duties between the office’s two other advisors (one of whom is her father) — was the glue that held her business together while she was away.

“It could never have been done if it weren’t for us being ready as a team,” she says.

As the financial services industry has matured, so, too, have the ways in which a financial advisor can work within it. Team-based practices that allow advisors to address concerns such as succession planning, childcare and eldercare have become more common.

Is it a coincidence, then, that this is occurring as more women enter the industry?

Stovel Rivers, for one, thinks not: “The team-based practice is definitely more prevalent than it’s been in the past.”

It may well be something the industry in general might want to foster, she adds, as it can go a long way toward ensuring women are attracted to and stay in the industry.

But the growing presence of teams is also an inevitable byproduct of the growing female presence in the workplace. Women, usually relatively early in their careers, need to make crucial decisions about whether or not their careers are compatible with having children.

Although some advisors might work as employees of a financial institution, many tend to operate as independents. The two traditional choices for entrepreneurial advisors interested in having kids — juggling like mad to have it all or giving up clients for the sake of a proper maternity leave — aren’t as palatable to some women as an alternative solution — such as having a solid team behind them.

Leanne Kohtala, an advisor with Berkshire Securities Inc. in Timmins, Ont., faced that difficult choice 12 years ago when she was pregnant with her first child. At the time, she was working at an insurance company and, although she could have collected employment insurance for the length of her maternity leave, she would have had to sacrifice her hard-earned clients to do so.

“In order to [go on EI], I would have had to stop my flow of recurring revenue. So, I’d have to turn over my book,” Kohtala says. “That didn’t make sense to me.”

Instead, she muddled through, armed with the logic that even one policy a week would generate more income than EI would provide.

“You have to make the decision whether you want to be in a firm that treats you like an employee,” she says, “or whether you want to be a business owner.”

Many firms are bending over backward to ensure that advisors get the benefits of both. “Firms want to keep female employees,” says Murina Chan, vice president of Women in Capital Markets, established in 1995 to support and advance women’s participation in financial markets. She is assistant portfolio manager, fixed-income, for the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board in Toronto. If an advi-sor feels that her firm isn’t supporting her decision to have children, she may choose to leave for a firm that does, she says. Or, she may leave the industry altogether.

Chan has seen several talented women leave the industry once they had kids. She’d like to see that change. And only by speaking candidly about their choices can others gain some knowledge about what needs to be changed to keep talented women in the field, she says.

ScotiaMcLeod Inc. takes the approach that many institutions have adopted, with programs in place that allow advisors to determine who will manage their book in their absence. Compensation is arranged with the exiting broker’s input.

But there are financial implications to building teams. Although the team approach is the most effective way to handle client files at Coventree Capital Group Inc. , it also means that bonuses aren’t tied to a particular client. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, says Alana McPhee, a member of the firm’s capital markets group in Toronto: “You don’t have people hoarding clients or refusing to co-operate with others.”

@page_break@The downside is that the pie is split according to the level of responsibility each advisor brings to the table, she says, and some do wonder at times if their contributions on specific projects were more deserving than those of their peers. Anyone going on maternity leave has her bonus reduced for as long as she is away, to keep things fair.

“It does seem that there’s been a barrier to the idea of a team because it’s an entrepreneurial business in which anything you kill, you take home,” says Stovel Rivers. “With a team, you do have to accept that you’re going to be spreading the revenue a little bit thinner, but the trade-off of that is incalculable.”

Jennifer Lemieux, a branch manager with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. in Belleville, Ont., says that this emphasis on family is what drew her to the industry in the first place. Her stepfather, an advisor and branch manager, was very passionate about his work but always managed to accommodate an active family life, refusing to miss sporting events in which his kids were participating, for instance. “I’ve always found that the business allows you the flexibility you need to take some time away and still maintain your relationship with your clients,” she says.

Some advisors are also finding that the team approach has a payoff on the other side of the family equation: eldercare.

When Lemieux’s father was battling cancer five years ago, she spent several days each week at his home in Montreal. She would set up her computer and work from there. The support from management at Lemieux’s office, then in Toronto, meant that her choices were not limited.

“Sometimes, women don’t consider a career as an advisor because they don’t think they can maintain that balance, but it’s actually the opposite,” Lemieux says. “You’re running an entrepreneurial business, so you’re actually able to manage your time much more easily than if you’re punching a clock.” IE