FEATURES • ADVISER WELLBEING
Study finds pre ures on advisers BY ERIC FRYKBERG
W
hat’s the biggest task facing advisers? Reading and answering emails according to a new survey. The percentage of time spent on emails was 15.54%. Answering phone calls and texts took up a further 8.82%. Adding admin and government compliance to the mix came to almost half of most advisers' working day. By contrast, their core business, dispensing financial advice, took up 10.72% of working time, and drumming up new business a mere 4.63%. This imbalance contributed to a high level of stress among many advisers. In some cases, they had sleepless nights. These are among many findings of a new study of the financial advice industry. The study comprised a survey of 500 advisers in New Zealand. It was funded by the insurance company AIA and carried out by the Australian research firm E-Lab and an academic from Deakin University in Victoria. Their research produced some dramatic results, including 41% of advisers having either moderate or high risks to their mental health. Broken down further, the three most significant categories of risk were people who said they were ‘tired out for no reason’, they were ‘nervous’ and they found that ‘everything is an effort’. The next two most significant categories were people who said they were “depressed ' or felt 'hopeless'. Despite these trends, New Zealand advisers can take some comfort from the fact that the situation is even worse in Australia.
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In this country, the moderate and high risks to mental health affected 30% and 10% of financial advisers respectively. In Australia, the figures were 38% and 19%. This was attributed to the bureaucratic complexity of running a brokerage being even worse across the Tasman than it is here. Sticking with the New Zealand figures, the study goes on to look at just how stress affects financial advisers. The biggest single impact was the ability to sleep. Just on 17% of advisers strongly agreed that work stress kept them awake at night, while 28% 'somewhat agreed ' with the same statement. The stress level led 10% to strongly feel that they might quit their job while 16% somewhat agreed they might. Stress was also affecting their weight, with 10% believing that strongly, and 22% thinking it was somewhat true. The survey did go further into this, so it is unclear whether advisers were putting on weight by eating comfort food during trying moments, or losing weight from stress and worry. Despite these negatives, financial advisers revealed some positives in the survey. They were usually absorbed by their work, or fully engaged by it, for much of the time. They were 'in the zone', and time in the office did not drag. Even so, financial advisers' mental involvement in their work fell short of two occupations that were compared, school principals and partners of companies such as law and accountancy firms. Work-life balance also fared quite well. Just on 67% of advisers could achieve home and work expectations, often or
Insights from the New Zealand adviser wellbeing research 2021.
