AMP is expanding its paraplanning workforce to take the load off its overworked licensees.
AMP Financial Planning (AMPFP) has set up paraplanning centres in Brisbane and Melbourne to centralise the function for the large number of licensees who create all their own financial plans.
The two centres add to its existing paraplanning hub in Sydney.
Increasing planner productivity would drive sustainable growth in AMPFP's distribution, AMPFP managing director Michael Guggenheimer said.
"Financial planners [are] significantly more efficient with paraplanning support," Guggenheimer said.
"Paraplanning also reduces risk through a centralised advice model and supports [the] development of financial planners."
Guggenheimer would not disclose how many people he was employing or how many more planners he needed.
"I'm not fixated on numbers," he said.
However, he acknowledged the measures were designed to tackle the industry's acute job shortage.
"Financial planning is now a supply-constrained industry," he said. "[A] lack of financial planners cannot meet high demand for people seeking advice."
To meet the challenge, AMPFP is ramping up its recruitment and retention in a two-pronged strategy.
The first is a pilot planning induction program aimed at paraplanners and support staff who are put on a career path to become fully-fledged financial advisers.
In a second, more intensive program, AMPFP is trialling a planner academy - similar to a model St George is hoping to launch next year - that involves new recruitment, assessment, screening, retention and candidate profiling.
"You've got to be prepared to try some things," Guggenheimer said. "It's about fuelling the future growth."
The group is also expanding its low touch service that targets clients with basic client needs.
Piloted in 2005, the centralised service is aimed at planners who want to outsource retention, marketing and communications services.
It is being used by 40 practices with 75,000 clients on their books.
"We answer the phone on behalf of the practice," Guggenheimer said.
"As a service it's highly valued and rated by our planners."
The abolition of the need for statements of advice under $15,000 would help the service expand, he said.
Dealer groups are struggling across the board to find staff. MLC chief executive Steve Tucker last month said he would like another 200 planners to meet demand for advice.
