Wealth management firms can easily invest millions of dollars a year in new technology, like AI, but they still face another challenge: adequately investing in their employees to stay proficient with the new tech.
A recent survey of professionals in the wealth management industry found that 67% of respondents said they weren’t adequately trained for the skill sets they needed to use new tech tools like AI, according to a survey conducted by Financial Planning’s parent, Arizent.
There are two hurdles involved with tech upskilling: First, giving employees the time to practice with new technologies, which frequently means overcoming fears of AI; and second, providing training that is engaging, more human than the technology itself and hands-on.
“I haven’t seen any training that’s completely adequate. It’s just enough training to get the employees familiar with it, and the companies know that the employees will figure it out as they use it,” said Rick Rummage, CEO of career consulting firm The Rummage Group. “The only thing that really works is to have a trainer go in — and it’s very costly to do that, so that’s why they rarely do it — but you have a trainer go in, pull everybody into a big conference room and show them.”
That type of personalized training seems to be key for financial services firms of all sizes, from Morgan Stanley to Raymond James Financial, as well as for tech providers like wealthtech platform Orion Advisor Solutions.
Raymond James started to give employees that it calls “change ambassadors” more specialized tech training, where it brings in a person from different branch locations to get several days of training on new technologies at the main office. The firm then sends those ambassadors back to their office to train staff as the resident expert.
“We’re releasing new technology monthly, quarterly. It’s almost impossible to keep them up to speed, but having those change ambassadors deliver a message locally, it is much more powerful,” said Vin Campagnoli, chief information officer at Raymond James. “We try to use branch managers, we try to use the leadership to push it down. But it’s difficult to consume all the things you’re doing. And we’re not the only thing that’s making changes to their environment.”
Advisors largely understand the importance of evolving with technology. When Arizent asked how likely new tech like AI will change the skills needed for employees to be successful, 70% of survey respondents agreed that it was somewhat to very likely needed.
“Many of our financial advisors have compared adopting new technology to the iPhone — while there is often a learning curve, once it’s integrated into their day-to-day, they’re off to the races,” said Koren Picariello, head of generative AI strategy and execution for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
The mega firm was an early adopter of AI, rolling out its AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant in September, which is now used by 98% of its financial advisor teams, Picariello said.
Getting strong adoption took a multifaceted approach with both digital and hands-on training, including a 3DR page, that offers on-demand and updated resources for advisors and other employees, she said.
“Our job is to ensure the transition of new technology is effective, responsible and as seamless as possible,” she said. “In the early stages, our firm-wide AI team is available to provide real-time guidance while simultaneously reviewing user feedback to ensure the technology is accomplishing what it was set out to do.”
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Bella Allaire, Raymond James’ executive vice president of technology and operations, said the branches with an ambassador have “much better adoption” rates of new technologies.
“Because when do you learn? You learn when you need something. So if you need to generate a report, well, if there’s somebody right there to show you, you’re going to pick it up much faster,” she said. “The goal is to create those experts in every single branch, which takes time.”
And giving employees that time to learn new technologies has been key for wealthtech providers like Orion, which has so-called universities where staff and clients, in some cases, can attend several days of technical training a handful of times a year, in addition to virtual and in-office visits.
This year, Orion started what it calls Align University, in which it combines software training from its acquisition of Redtail and training on Orion tech such as billing, trading and performance in a two-day event. Attendees can opt into sessions with either or both types of training, and they can schedule one-on-one consultations. One of the sessions kicks off this week in Chicago, where 100 attendees are expected.
“We’re really excited about that,” said Adrienne Fasse, vice president of training at Orion. “The in-person training has proven to be one of the best mediums for buying into the product itself and to give that ability to work out your examples right there.”
Another key to having staff feel they are well-equipped to use the technology is by breaking down silos so employees understand how a platform or tool works across various departments.
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“We’ve acquired a lot of different technologies in the past years. And so one of the biggest goals of our training team over this next year is training employees in how those technologies fit together across our ecosphere of Orion,” Fasse said. “Our proposal tool, for instance, utilizes risk, it utilizes our financial planning tool, it utilizes our portfolio accounting and rebalance…so you have to know the flow.”
