Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
To buy a copy of Bev’s book, The Pocket Guide to Sales for Financial Advisors, click here.
Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
Dear Bev,
This might be a new question for you as I’ve not seen you write about it before. I’m struggling very much with the return-to-office mandate, but not for the reasons generally given. I have a short commute, I like my co-workers and I get as much done at home as I get done at work and vice versa. I’m indifferent to where I work from a productivity perspective.
However, I am feeling overwhelming anxiety that I have never experienced before being in the office. With everything happening in the world, I feel trapped when I travel the elevator to the 26th floor and when I go into my claustrophobic office with no windows. I feel nervous when we walk outside for lunch and find myself scanning the area for threats.
My home is in a very safe area and I know all of my neighbors. I am never nervous or anxious at home, but now as soon as I start to get ready in the morning, knowing I have to go in to work, my heart is palpating and I’m sweating with nerves.
You are in our business, so I don’t have to tell you that I can’t share this experience with anyone. People in financial services don’t suffer panic attacks, and there are people here everyday looking for jobs like mine. I can’t let my team know what’s happening.
I thought about going to HR, but the person who leads my advisory group within the firm is close with one of the people in HR, and I don’t feel confident the conversation wouldn’t be leaked. I know I should be taking advantage of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or something similar, but the thought of having to share my personal situation anywhere here internally scares me. Don’t tell me I should seek therapy. I live in one of the most expensive cities around, and when I looked into it, it was minimum $250 an hour to see someone about phobias and anxiety. I simply cannot afford this.
Are others dealing with similar things going back to work? I never had a problem, but the world felt different many years ago. Now, it is so scary to me. Please do not put my initials lest my co-workers read this column and figure out it is me.
Anonymous
Dear Team Member,
No ability to go to HR, no desire to seek out EAP, and no financial ability to seek private healthcare for this situation does leave you with limited options. I actually have not heard anyone link the “back-to-the-office” movement to the kind of phobia and fears you are talking, about but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others dealing with similar things.
And believe it or not, although we are in financial services as a profession, everyone in our industry is human, so acknowledging and understanding the human element is something many firms do embrace! In fact, one of the nice things about a column like this is that sometimes a person will read it and be relieved they aren’t the only one experiencing something they are not comfortable talking about. Kudos to you for writing in and asking the question!
It's important to note that I’m not a psychologist or registered therapist. However, I have had hypnotherapy and reiki training, and as such I can recommend you try one of these modalities to see if they might be helpful for you. There are a couple of directories for hypnotherapy providers, including ones offered by the Hypnosis Motivation Institute and the National Guild of Hypnotists.
Hypnosis is excellent for fears, phobias and anxiety. Make sure you talk to at least two people, and check references. I’m not making a recommendation for any person, mind you, just suggesting an avenue. I honestly don’t know about costs or whether they might take insurance, but it’s one option.
As another resource, I suggest you look into apps and/or do an internet search for ways to help with anxiety and fears. There are many free resources, with people writing blogs and posting videos that provide free advice and ideas. There are also low-cost programs such as Aura Health. You can find ideas for managing anxiety such as meditative music or behavioral strategies on many sites – again, often for free or nominal prices.
I don’t blame you for wanting to keep this to yourself, but I also encourage you to see if you can find someone in your HR department who could be a resource and ally. I see the firm you are associated with in your note, and I am hard pressed to think there is no one who could be a sounding board for you at such a large firm. I completely understand wanting to keep your personal issues to yourself, but it is a shame if you cannot access free resources that might be available to you. Along those lines, I’m not sure if you have checked your health benefits, but this could be another resource for you to investigate that does not require you to contact HR.
I don’t think you can make excuses for why you are unable to go to the office daily unless you are willing to seek a doctor’s guidance and can have some sort of medical exception made for you. Again, I don’t recommend this if you are trying to stay under the radar a bit about your situation, but it is an option.
Please allow me to add my condolences about your HR situation. However – very sadly and unfortunately – I hear stories about people unwilling to seek HR help for many reasons like this. It is a tragedy when it happens, because when you have good HR support, they can be the key to helping with so many things.
Dear Bev,
We have hired five new people at our RIA in the last twelve months. Our team is growing – supposedly because the advisors are bringing in new business like crazy. No one thinks about where these people fit, how to integrate them with what we are doing already or how to make sure this is done in a way that further boosts our efficiency.
I’m on the operations side, and it seems that, typically, people in my seat are screaming for resources while advisors don’t want to spend money. Honestly, we have the opposite situation. The advisors keep bringing people in, and no one figures out what’s needed or where they should go.
Every time I bring this up, our lead advisor (the one in the “President” role) says we will figure it out as we go along. But it never gets figured out. I’m ready to quit and I am the longest tenured person here, at three and a half years. They churn through people. Who wants to work in a place where they aren’t sure how to succeed?
K.C.
Dear K.C.,
To answer your direct question, I guess I would say that no one wants to work in a place where they aren’t sure how to succeed.
You have two possibilities here:
- Your leader(s) are not interested in hearing how the chaos is affecting the team. There is so much research that shows how expensive it is to churn team members. Everything costs – from finding the right person, to the hiring process, to onboarding and training, etc. When you lose someone, it hurts the bottom line significantly. However, it’s possible your leaders don’t care, don’t think this is accurate, or aren’t willing to listen. If that’s the case, there honestly isn’t much you can do, except roll with what’s happening and do your best to control the controllable.
- Your leader(s) haven’t had a chance to understand the obstacles created by their approach and could benefit from you (or someone else) sharing the upset caused by bringing in new people with no plan as to where they belong or how they will integrate. This requires putting together a clear, step-by-step learning for them on why this matters, how it is impacting the team and the firm, and ideas about how to proceed differently. If they are open to listening and if you are willing to help craft the plan and work on implementing it, this could position you well for future opportunities. I understand it is not in your job description, but acquiring new skills (or honing existing ones) is never a bad thing!
I hope this helps. It is stating the obvious to say that having no plan before a hire, and then having no way to create a plan once a hire is on board, causes disruption for everyone. It certainly leaves the new hires wondering what to do and where they fit. It’s unpleasant for everyone involved. Figuring out if this can be solved somehow would be beneficial all around.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022, 2023 and 2024. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
A message from Advisor Perspectives and VettaFi: To learn more about this and other topics, check out some of our webcasts.
More Behavioral Finance Topics >
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.