Strategies Hybrid

How are firms and their advisors navigating the “messy middle” phase of hybrid work?

Kira Vermond investigates

Before the COVID 19 pandemic hit and shut down the world in March 2020, Annie Izmirliyan was ahead of her time. Part of her job focused on onboarding new advisors to her team — and she did it all virtually. Forget sitting around a company boardroom with other nervous new hires staring at PowerPoint presentations about corporate culture and professional expectations. Instead, people logged on from their home offices and let Izmirliyan lead the way.

The arrangement worked. Then came the lockdown and it was required by law.

A certified financial planner and business development consultant for Sun Life and mentorship chair on the Advocis Toronto board of directors, Izmirliyan is a dynamo. Energetic and passionate about helping others succeed, it’s easy to see how her personality reached across a screen and kept her team engaged through months of lockdown. It was an environment in which all prospect and client meetings were virtual, too, with Izmirliyan and the advisors engaging in preparation and debrief meetings before and afterward.

So, what was it like when the team of recruits finally met face to face?

“By showing up consistently, building trust over time, and finding ways to collaborate, I established such a bond and relationship with this team of advisors that by the time we did meet in person over a year later, we had already become the closest of friends,” she says, mentioning the only surprise was realizing many were taller or shorter than she’d expected.

Hybrid Work Here To Stay

While Izmirliyan was already a pro at hybrid work pre-pandemic, today almost everyone needs to cultivate the skills necessary to combine online and in-person work in a cohesive and effective way.

Nearly two-thirds of Canadian employers (62%) said they were using a hybrid model in a January 2023 report by Colliers Real Estate Management Services. Employees appear to be driving the trend, with four in five Canadian workers (81%) in a February 2023 Cisco Canada study saying flexible work policies had an impact on whether they stayed at or left a job.

So, working from home, at least part of the time, is no longer seen as a perk, but mandatory — and that’s true across age groups. The Cisco Canada study also found that 86% of people aged 18 to 54 evaluated hybrid or remote work positively, while a still strong majority of 65% of those 55 and older said the same.

If hybrid is here to stay, firms and advisors need to catch up and figure out how to creatively navigate its complexities. There are lots of questions to answer. How can advisors and their firms provide consistent training and mentoring opportunities to a hybrid team? How do they ensure their teams gel, when only, say, a third ever step across the workplace threshold and grab coffee together in the office kitchen? Or if half of the advisors come to work on Tuesday and Thursday while the other half are in Monday and Wednesday? And does it make sense for support staff to be on site all week (without causing an all-out war)?

How exactly can we make hybrid work, well, work?

“I’m not sure that anybody really has the hybrid thing worked out yet,” says Janet Candido, founder and principal of Candido Consulting Group Inc., and a human resources strategist in Toronto. “Employers are still iffy about whether they want people in the office full time. Employees are generally iffy about whether they want to go in at all. So what you have in the workplace is a combination of all of the above.”

This new messy middle phase is playing out differently across the country for financial advisors and their firms, says April-Lynn Levitt, partner and coach for The Personal Coach in Waterloo, Ont. Those working in Western Canada are mostly back in the office and aren’t doing as much hybrid work anymore, although she knows at least one firm is allowing advisors to work from home one day a week. Meanwhile, Eastern Canada is embracing the hybrid model, likely because of longer commute times and the financial and emotional costs of sitting in traffic every day.

“But it’s a decision you make as an individual. What works best for your clients and for you?” Levitt says.

How To Make Hybrid Work

If you’re going the hybrid route, here are four strategies to help teams thrive.

1. MAKE THEM WANT TO COME IN

Whenever employers start talking to Candido about why they want their employees to come in to the office, she stops them. The real question should be, why would the employee want to come in?

Just because it’s good for the firm doesn’t mean they feel it’s good for them. Forget saying “having people back is good for company culture.” Instead, be specific and talk about all the benefits of being in the office, learning casually from one another, and making connections. Besides, being around other humans can be more fun than staring at a screen all day, particularly if more client meetings are being handled over Zoom.

And, for goodness’ sake, stay away from the word “productivity,” or “you’ll be more productive in the office.” Employees often believe they’re more productive at home, Candido explains. “It’s an incendiary word.”

2. DIVIDE THE WORK, NOT THE HOURS

One of the biggest mistakes companies make? Telling advisors and staff they’re expected to come in, say, three days a week, work at home the other two, and then leaving it at that. This kind of arrangement focuses on the wrong metric: hours worked.

Instead, it’s better to think about what employees are actually expected do in the office to make it most worthwhile for everyone. Maybe that means collaborating on a project, having a team meeting, attending a lunch-and-learn, or some other activity where it’s evident there’s value in being there in person.

“Don’t have employees come in to the office, go to their cubicles, hunker down, and do solo work for the day,” says Candido. “There’s no point in them having come in for that.”

Levitt adds it’s perfectly OK to teach the technical aspects of the job online. Slot that into the “work from home” part of an employee’s job. However, she says, in person is often the way to go when discussing a company’s culture, values, and vision. Better yet, show culture, values, and vision in action while employees are together. For example, gather everyone for a team-building exercise or schedule a mentoring lunch at a local restaurant.

3. IN PERSON TO START

Starting off with, say, three months in person is especially important for younger advisors and those new to the industry, according to Levitt. The “proximity principle,” which describes our inclination to form bonds and relationships with those who are nearby, is a real thing. It’s why we develop friendships with people we may never have connected with outside the office. They’re what makes work fun.

Being in person also gives new hires access to those unplanned interactions with mentors and more experienced professionals that can lead to professional opportunities later. The founder loved your joke about the company coffee while you were both grabbing a cup? That makes you memorable. Or maybe a new hire is quickly brought into a last-minute meeting with a highnet-worth client family because the young adult children want someone their own age in the room.

“Those opportunities aren’t going to happen as much for virtual workers, or it’s going to take a lot more work,” says Levitt. “So if I was giving career advice to a younger advisor I’d say, ‘be in person.’”

One caveat, though: being in person is only an advantage to a new advisor if other advisors are working on site, too.

4. COMMUNICATE AND CHECK IN

For Maria José Flores, president at Carte Wealth Management Inc., in Mississauga, Ont., remote and hybrid work was nothing new before the pandemic. She still works Mondays and Fridays from her home office, and the company uses a combination of in-person meetings, video conferences, and online collaboration tools.

She says biweekly check-ins and open communication are the best ways to help her team feel connected. To keep the meeting on track, an agenda is sent out ahead of time, they begin the meeting with any challenges, and then move on to ways to thrive.

“It’s very important that we have an environment for them to ask questions and be able to share updates, whether formal or informal,” Flores says.

That’s what Izmirliyan discovered, too, when she developed a six-month hybrid mentorship program for Advocis Toronto in 2023. While the first and last meetings were in person, complete with guest speakers and catering at a Toronto office boardroom, the monthly meet-ups were virtual. The Kolbe A Index assessment proved to be a very useful tool, helping advisors understand their instinctive need for in-person or virtual interactions.

“Knowing their modus operandi can help leaders coach advisors more effectively, as well as build synergy on a team,” she points out.

Izmirliyan attributes much of the mentorship program’s success — it was recognized with two Advocis chapter awards of excellence, for professionalism and community — to the fact that it was developed with feedback from the advisor participants. In the end, even though most of the meetings were remote, multiple check-ins meant people got to know one another faster. Also, any sense of competition dissolved.

Izmirliyan emphasizes that when it comes to making hybrid work successful, firms need to listen to advisors and staff to get a better sense of how important autonomy is to them. Some people need more in-person time than others — but it’s also critical to level the field between in-person and remote advisors as much as possible to avoid an “us versus them” mentality.

“All you really need is to open up the conversation,” Izmirliyan says. “Collaboration is what people are looking for. Ultimately, they’re looking for a sense of belonging and connection. And they will find different ways to do that.”

KIRA VERMOND is a writer and editor based in Guelph, Ont.