She explained that people are finding the ability to hear from other experienced advisers.
“We've been so fortunate that we've had 20 people from the existing partnership step up to be mentors,” she said.
“They're working with people that they've never worked with before, but they're sharing their expertise, and that's getting really good feedback. So if anything, we know, there's a growing demand to grow that further.”
Another area is management skills, Longland explained, as if someone is a self-starting business owner, they wouldn't necessarily know what a one to one is, or how to run an effective performance review or team meeting.
“Lots of people just find their way, but actually to have some training and development can be so valuable, not just to them but to their team,” she said.
“One of our ambitions over the next year is to start to build this out partner to partner - I wouldn't call it training but more advice.
“For example, how they handle certain clients' situations or how they explain certain things or how they've dealt with a particular challenge in their business.
“It's actually from people on the ground so it's a lot more facilitation of conversations and learning from peers.”
Planning ahead
Since coming into the role, Longland said she has been in a “look, see and listen” mode for the first few months.
“My first priority is to lift the lid on what I think has been the best kept secret at Openwork about what we actually do have in terms of learning,” she said.
“Some firms are using it an awful lot and others didn't realise that we provide it with a certain level of skills training. There is more to do with communication and helping everybody understand what it is that we have in the business school, what we have on offer, and how we can help people grow a lifetime career.”
Additionally, she said there is also more to be done on future skills for financial services.
“There's lots of research out there in the market about what everyone needs to know about artificial intelligence and everybody upping the ante on their human skills so we're going to do a piece of work next year looking at what that actually means for Openwork and what does it mean for our advisers?”
sonia.rach@ft.com
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