If you think about your favorite TV show and what makes it your favorite, your favorite character will probably be the first thing that comes to mind.
But whether your favorite character is the star of the show or a someone who only appears briefly to deliver that perfect line at just the right moment, there’s no denying that no one character can make a successful TV show. It’s called an ensemble for a reason.
This means the writers have to create characters that complement each other, but it also means the casting director needs to find people who are, not only the right fit for the role, but the right fit for the ensemble.
They have to be able to work well with the other members of the cast.
This is why people auditioning for a role will often audition with someone who has already been cast so they can see how they work together. We’ve all seen Hollywood try to sell us romantic couples that have no chemistry, and it is painful.
But it’s not just the starring roles the casting director needs to worry about. They also need to find:
- The buffoon
- The straight-laced hard worker who takes everything too seriously
- The level-headed one who’s always talking the others down off the ledge
We know you’re not a casting director, but there are certain aspects of casting the next hit TV show that are similar to the process of assembling a team for your financial services firm, including:
- the need to bring together people who have different strengths and skills so you can have all your bases covered
- the need for them to work together as a team to complete projects efficiently and on time
- the need to make sure each and every one of them is as committed to the outcome of the project as you are, so they’ll give it their all.
But assembling your cast of characters is easier said than done, not to mention making sure they stick around.
For starters, when it comes to recruiting and maintaining top talent for your financial services firm, the competition is ruthless.
Convincing the best people to work for you used to be all about offering a higher salary, but that’s no longer enough. Now people want
- better benefits
- more time off
- the ability to work from home.
What do you do when you can’t afford to offer all those things to your staff? Do you just make do with the leftovers once the large firms have taken the cream of the crop?
Some of the ways you can compete, even as a small financial services firm, include:
Offering Mentorship
While it wouldn’t be fair to say today’s employees no longer care about money, we can say they don’t only care about the money.
Yes, they care about things you might not be able to afford to give them, such as better benefits or more paid time off, but you might be able to give them things the larger firms aren’t able to provide, such as mentorship.
Many of the best employees are very forward-looking and willing to take a lower salary now if that lower salary comes with training and mentorship. They know this will improve their earning capabilities later in life.
Workplace Culture
There’s a saying that employees don’t leave a paycheck, they leave a manager.
The larger financial services firms might be able to pay a higher salary, but they’re not always as successful when it comes to creating a place where people want to come to work every day. Whether that’s because someone was made manager who shouldn’t have been, or because the culture as a whole has been left to fester and become toxic, the result is that the paycheck isn’t enough of a reason to stick around and put up with it.
By promising a healthier workplace culture, where people work together as a team, rather than competing against each other, you can offer top talent something they can’t get at many of the larger financial services firms.
The Best of Both Worlds
What if paying a higher salary or offering a better workplace culture weren’t mutually exclusive? What if you could give your employees the best of both worlds?
That’s what you get when you partner with Vertex.
Because we partner with independent financial services firms, rather than absorbing them into Vertex, they get to choose how they work with their clients and their team members, including how they build their team.
At the same time, we have the resources of larger financial services firms to attract top talent with higher salaries and better benefits.
We also share our staff with our partners. Not only does this help by sharing the cost of hiring those employees, but it also enables our advisors to take advantage of top talent who need a full-time job, even if the advisor only needs to fill a part-time position.
Last, but certainly not least, an added benefit our partners enjoy is the ability to fall back on our staff if a member of their team leaves suddenly. Rather than leaving them to handle all that employee’s work on their own while trying to find and onboard a replacement, we can leverage our resources to help them fill in that gap.
Let us be your casting director.
If you want to know more about the benefits of partnering with Vertex, please contact us at in**@************rs.com.
