Creating a solid corporate culture within a funds management organisation rather than higher remuneration levels is the key to preventing large staff turnover, according to a forum of experts within the financial services sector.
“The culture of the business has got to be unique to the team. They’re all different and it’s got to be totally different for everyone else,” Treasury Group managing director David Cooper said.
Including staff in the equity structure of the business was raised as an added factor in improving employee satisfaction levels.
“No one’s going to stay if they’re not happy so morale and culture is probably number one and number two is equity ownership because that just raises the stakes in terms of what people like in them,” Integrity managing director Paul Fiani said.
In addition, revenue sharing schemes were also seen as an effective tool to avoid employee turnover.
“Profit sharing is something we had to do. It’s been quite important and the fact that we’ve introduced a lot more alignment in the investment team in terms of performance bonus structure so the investment professional suffers if the investors suffer,” Colonial First State chief investment officer David Dixon said.
In comparison to these factors it was agreed money was not a huge influencing factor in regard to staff retention.
“I’d go as far as to say it has absolutely nothing to do with the money,” Fiani said.
“The war on talent, the monetary explosion we’ve seen is actually really about the big institutions responding and trying to compete [with boutique managers].the difference is they don’t have the equity [on offer] and could only respond with cash an that’s what’s fuelled the wages in the industry.”
