{"id":29826,"date":"2015-06-02T17:16:54","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T07:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=29826"},"modified":"2015-06-03T07:23:51","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T21:23:51","slug":"soft-skills-much-more-work-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2015\/06\/02\/soft-skills-much-more-work-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Soft Skills &#8211; Much More Work Needed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"polls-143\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<div class=\"pollHeader\"><strong>Are emerging advisers being taught the right skills in order to deliver the optimal level of service to their clients?<\/strong><\/div><div id=\"polls-143-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>No <small>(73%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 73%\" title=\"No (73% | 62 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Not sure <small>(22%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 22%\" title=\"Not sure (22% | 19 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Yes <small>(5%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 5%\" title=\"Yes (5% | 4 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><div style=\"text-align: center\"><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_143_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"ebe8038b9c\" \/>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>Advisers have delivered a lop-sided verdict in our latest poll on soft skills.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Asked whether emerging advisers are being taught the right skills in order to deliver the optimal level of service to their clients, only two per cent of our poll respondents have so far answered &#8216;yes&#8217; to this question.<\/p>\n<p>A huge 78 per cent of advisers have voted &#8216;no&#8217;, while an unusually large group of voters (20 per cent) remain in the fence.<\/p>\n<p>Drawing the inference that soft skills are more critical within a life insurance advice conversation than an investment advice scenario, one of our adviser comments suggested the skills of risk-focused advisers are different:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;One of the problems of presenting your persona as an investment adviser is to then switch roles and discuss someone\u2019s medical issues&#8230; I learned long ago that you can\u2019t be a top investment adviser as well as a top risk\/insurance adviser; one has to have priority over the other.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, another adviser suggests there are other more important areas in today&#8217;s advice world:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;While soft skills are necessary, product training is even more critical.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0 The same adviser added, <em>&#8220;My greatest fear is that in the industry\u2019s \u201cregulator driven \u201d rush for ALL advisers to have totally inappropriate degrees before entering the industry, that risk product training and soft skills training will not be part of the requirement.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<h6>&#8230;it\u2019s the same set of skills, but expressed differently<\/h6>\n<p>There was another interesting &#8216;take&#8217; on this question at our recent <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/anzafagenxt2015\/anz-wealth-afa-genxt-round-table\/#.VW1KPEbgVHs\" target=\"_blank\">ANZ AFA Genxt Round Table<\/a> event, namely that the definition of what constitutes &#8216;soft skills&#8217; may be changing. A case in point was that relating to how Gen Y adviser, <strong>Sacha Loutkovsky<\/strong>, who regularly utilises online videos within her advice process. Citing this example, Millennium3 CEO, <strong>Richard Klipin<\/strong>, remarked, &#8220;&#8230; this generation is very different. It\u2019s the same kind of skill set, but new generation advisers like Sacha are instead using a video to tell that kind of story to help build personal trust around her brand, and to differentiate her in what she does. So I think it\u2019s the same set of skills, but expressed differently.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This point was also reinforced by ANZ Wealth MD Global Insurance, <strong>Alexis George<\/strong>, when she commented that new generation of adults work differently, &#8220;&#8230; and it\u2019s important to understand that the soft skills of our older generation are quite different to the type of soft skills employed by the newer generation as they communicate and interact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do you support the argument that the soft skills of the older generation are quite different to the type of soft skills employed by the newer generation of advisers? Our poll remains open for another week&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advisers have delivered a lop-sided verdict in our latest poll on soft skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,3,49,248],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-conferences-and-events","category-general","category-polls","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}