Employee Turnover: Is the Person Who Knew How to Do Everything Gone?

Outsourcing critical, routine tasks can help you to avoid the headaches turnover can cause in your daily operations.

Unexpected employee turnover—every RIA has been there.

And it's costly. The cost of turnover can range from 50% to 200% of a financial advisor's annual compensation.

Employees frequently leaving can wreak havoc on your firm, impacting far more than just the recruiting and hiring tasks. The untimely departure of key team members charged with critical tasks like reconciliation can push you to levels of frustration you rarely reach under normal conditions.

Your employees are the foundation of everything you do in your firm. Ensuring you have the right processes in place is essential to success.

Talent retention and development may be the area of greatest risk.

It’s not hard to imagine what instability in your team can do to your firm’s operations.

What happens when the person who was in charge of everything leaves your firm?

Every investment firm has that one back-office employee who provides the grease that makes the machine hum. When they leave, you get a crystal-clear picture of how much you depend on them. You see how accurate their reconciliations were, and how you counted on their timely reporting.

The bad news is that there’s no way to guarantee your best employees will be around forever simply because circumstances change.

The good news, however, is that it is possible to build redundancies into your firm and its processes to prepare for the worst case scenario. That might include having backup reconciliation services on call to make up for lost staff, or taking a proactive approach.

You should put measures in place to avoid the worst case scenario in the first place. One way to do that is through outsourcing.

Consider the following story about a firm that needed help to get back on track after losing key staff members.

The Scenario: Operations Turnover Leaves Investment Firm Vulnerable

A San Francisco-based investment firm had only five people in their operation, and they lost two key staff members— the same day! How’s that for knocking the wind out of your proverbial sails?

Clearly, this firm was in a real bind. They had no way to find proper replacements in the time necessary to keep their firm running.

It usually takes at least a month to go through the process of recruiting applicants, with or without a headhunter. Then, you must interview applicants to find the right fit for the job. This firm didn’t have the kind of time required to recruit properly. They had a firm to run.

That was the point at which they contacted us.

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How Empaxis Helped

The first phase involved going in to analyze the firm’s setup and existing in-house talent and resources.

We were already very familiar with the custodians and data sources with which they were working. That allowed us to enter the project prepared and ready to get them back on track quickly and painlessly.

A little business analysis, a few conversations with the firm’s employees, and literally within a week their situation was solved. Their business could continue as usual.

Because the firm managed institutional accounts and large pension funds from demanding corporations, the swiftness of our reconciliation outsourcing services was important to this particular firm.

They needed accurate reports delivered almost immediately. With our team assisting their existing staff, the firm was able to meet important deadlines, keeping their services on-point and their reputation untarnished.

Is your firm protected from an employee turnover nightmare?

Let’s face it--although we may all like to believe our employees are in it for the long haul, experience and data suggests that every firm will experience turnover at some point.

While you cannot prevent employees from leaving your firm, you can have a solid back-up plan to fill in the gaps when needed.

So, learn how you can protect your firm from employee turnover that might leave you in a pinch.

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Whether you want to pad your resources without adding full-time employees to the ranks, or you just need to have a smart back-up plan in place, we’re happy to discuss the options available.

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