Page 18 - Newcom

May 2020 BYB INVESTMENT EXECUTIVE 18
Clients will remember how their advisor handled this crisis
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17
members have been struggling with anx- iety or are feeling overwhelmed by work or events. “[The Covid-19 pandemic] is affecting people differently,” Levitt says.
Setting up virtual coffee meetings with staff members also allows for the type of unstructured conversation that you might have when you bump into colleagues at the water cooler.
“A lot of people are missing that [ele- ment of office life],” Di Pietro says. Setting aside 10 to 15 minutes to connect with a colleague by phone or video for coffee pro- vides “some of that human interaction, because that certainly can get lost if you’re working from home.”
Gilbert says you should outline a goal or two for your team for the week, as well as keep focused on longer-term initia- tives for growth in your business. Setting achievable goals gives your team a sense of purpose and certainty. “[The intent] is not just about reacting to things,” she says.
You also must set a regular schedule for yourself. Take breaks from the business and work, spend time with your family
and friends (virtually, if necessary) and take care of yourself, Gilbert says.
“The way you manage your emotions; the way you manage your mindset — that's what’s going to make the difference,” Gilbert says, “Because as you’re talking with cli- ents, you’re sharing that mindset [and] that energy that you’re carrying around.”
Now that most advisory teams have ironed out their initial technology and operational issues and have taken steps to reassure clients, there’s a new focus throughout the financial services industry on ways of navigating the time ahead, says Sylvain Brisebois, national sales manager with Toronto-based BMO Private Wealth in Ottawa.
“Now we’re talking about [building] resilience,” says Brisebois, who explains that he and his leadership team are encour- aging advisors and their teams across the country to try to establish a work/life bal- ance, which is especially tricky when you live where you work. “It’s about the well- being of our advisors,” Brisebois says.
“Turning work on and off was really a hard adjustment for me at first,” Di Pietro says. “I found myself jumping back and
forth, working really late and not being able to find that switch.” Giving yourself time away to recharge is critical, he adds: “I’ve gotten better at it.”
Brisebois says his firm has made a special effort to help its younger advisors who may not have experienced a signifi- cant market crash. Brisebois has moder- ated conference calls in which a few of the firm’s more experienced advisors share their thoughts on how “you navigate in these times; how you continue to serve your clients, build your business and stay sane. The calls have been highly popular.”
Younger advisors, who often are still establishing themselves and who can’t necessarily fall back on a large book of business, are "learning everything in a crash course,” says Terri Botosan, CEO of Hub Financial Inc. in Woodbridge, Ont.
“My advice to them would be to lean on us. We have lots of expertise on our sales team; lots of ways to help them.”
Reaching out — not just to your clients and your team members, but your broader network as well — just to check in, listen and see how you may be able to lend a hand is important.
“We’ve been telling our advisors: ‘People are really going to remember how you made them feel right now’,” Botosan says. “People are going to remember that you reached out.”
Says Brisebois: “[Advisors] are calling in and checking in on each other, taking a little bit of time during the day to call a colleague from across the country to say, ‘You know, we’re in this together’.” IE
Piquard. He adds that ESG investing still is more of a philosophy than an asset class, which can make it difficult to fully adopt and understand, thus presenting another possible reason for the slow uptake in RI.
“There are a lot of products doing a lot of different things, and I think [RI] still is a bit confusing,” says Piquard.
Pat Dunwoody, executive director of the Canadian ETF Association, agrees. “The larger institutional investors can have detailed conversations with product providers to get the information that they want for their portfolio,” she says. “But for the average retail investor, [that is] quite difficult right now.”
RI products have proliferated in recent years as fund manufacturers expand their ESG offerings to keep pace with investors’ concerns about the economic impact of extreme weather events, plastics piling up in the oceans and gender equality in workplaces. According to IFIC’s latest Investment Funds Report, at the end of 2019 there were 16 firms in Canada offering a total of 69 RI mutual funds and 10 firms offering a total of 23 RI ETFs.
“I do think ESG will become more popular, but what that means in terms of numbers, I still don’t know,” Dunwoody says. “But clients are asking [about RI] now, and, from an advisor’s standpoint, it may pay to be somewhat knowledgeable in preparation for those qDuECeEstMioBnERs.”2009IE
Ignore ESG at your peril
Advisors who are familiar with responsible investing will be well positioned to attract and retain millennial clients
l
BY MADDIE JOHNSON
environmental, social and gov-
ernance (ESG) investing has been gain- ing traction in recent years, particularly among younger investors. Financial advisors who ignore this trend do so at their peril.
Since 2013, responsible investment (RI) mutual funds and ETFs have more than doubled their assets under management (AUM) to $12.7 billion in 2019, accord- ing to data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC).
Daniel Straus, vice president, ETFs and financial products research, with Montreal-based National Bank Financial Inc., says the rise in ESG investing has
been led largely by institutional invest- ors. But, judging by increasing AUM of ETFs such as iShares Jantzi Social Index ETF — which, after languishing follow- ing its launch in 2007, quintupled its AUM to $178 million over the past two years — retail investors are showing more inter- est in RI.
“We are at the beginning of what may be a very large sea change of investor behaviour across the board, both retail and institutional,” says Straus, who notes that a growing cohort of younger investors is helping to lead the charge into RI.
Nicolas Piquard, vice president, port- folio manager and options strategist with
Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc.
in Toronto, says millennial investors are likely to play a large role in driving ESG growth. “A big part of why we haven’t seen the inflows from retail investors could be because the ones who are the most inter- ested in ESG don’t have as [many invest- ible] assets yet,” Piquard says.
A 2019 study by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that 95% of millennials are interested in sustainable investing, and 67% take part in at least one sustainable investment activity — compared with 52% of the gen- eral population.
Consequently, as millennials grow their investible assets and/or inherit their parents’ wealth, being well versed in RI will become increasingly important for advisors.
“The millennials are only going to
acquire more wealth, and when they
do, that alone will lead to more interest
A study found that 95% of millennials are interested
in sustainable investing, and 67% take part in at
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