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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
Dear Bev,
It seems impossible to get younger team members motivated anymore. We have hired four people in business development roles to help close warm leads, and we have fired every single one of them for lack of accountability and follow-through.
I was out to dinner this weekend with a friend who runs a large health organization. He said they are having the same problem: No one wants to actually work. They just want to get paid for showing up.
I’m in a large organization, so we have to be careful about selective hiring. However, I’m leaning toward starting to find older individuals who have had careers and want to do something to continue to contribute. The older generations knew what it meant to put in their time and work hard. The younger generations don’t have the same work ethic or concern about doing well and contributing.
Have you seen other firms in our industry hire older individuals in place of bringing in younger talent to make it work?
K.C.
Dear K.C.,
I’m always concerned about all-or-nothing comments, no matter what the subject area is. Your note seems to indicate that only the older generations understood work ethic, and the younger generations just don’t care. This is a pretty gross generalization for both categories of individuals.
The reason I point this out is that sweeping comments about anyone, or anything, can limit one’s ability to be objective and open-minded about solving a problem or overcoming an obstacle. If your view is that all younger people are essentially “lazy” (that’s my word, from your inference) then you will likely be looking for behavior that validates this.
I’m not suggesting the people you had to let go were doing their jobs. Clearly, you were unhappy with their performance and it was time to part ways. I am saying there are a variety of reasons people don’t have the expected enthusiasm in certain roles. Please consider if you have done all of the following before you cast aside anyone under 45!
- Make sure the job expectations are clear. You might have an idea of what you want them to accomplish, but do they know exactly what they are being measured on? With sales, it can be easy — it’s a quantitative equation. However, in some cases, this isn’t the entire job. Are there other aspects the person in the role might focus on that take them away from a focus on sales? Are there quantitative elements that the person could have succeeded at? I have been in sales, run sales teams, and turned around sales teams. One thing I’ve found is that if people take the right steps and follow through consistently, it eventually translates into sales. I am not sure how much of a timeline you gave these folks, but it’s possible the expectations were not clear and/or the measurements and timelines were not aligned.
- Keep in touch over time, and give clear and specific feedback. I find many of my leaders know a person is underperforming in certain areas, but they don’t address the behaviors until they are completely fed up. At that point, there is rarely a workable solution — the leader feels done, and the employee feels they were not given a chance. I’m not sure if you, or someone else, was overseeing these business development team members. However, whomever it was should be sure to stay active and involved on a regular basis in the future. The person in the role might think they are doing fine, while the leader might have a completely different viewpoint. Alignment is critical early on before too much has built up.
- Consider whether it is skill or will preventing people from stepping up as you’d like them to do. I don’t know the complexity of your financial products, and I don’t know your market. Therefore, it’s hard to offer a strong opinion. What I do know, from training salespeople for decades is that often people haven’t been given the skill training, or the tools necessary for success. What we interpret as lack of motivation (aka “will” to succeed) is really a lack of knowledge and training. Before you give up on someone, offer them classes, a coach, or a mentor within the firm to work alongside them for a period of time. Turnover is expensive, so you are better off investing in existing team members.
All of this said, if your heart and mind tell you to go looking for someone older because that’s going to fit your culture more effectively, by all means search in that direction. Just don’t give up on younger, next generation team members without making sure you have given them every opportunity to succeed.
Dear Bev,
We are having a battle here at our firm about working from home in the summertime. Historically, long before COVID, we always gave team members (12 of us) the chance to work from home mid-June through end of August. Team members always really looked forward to this, and it made the summer feel more like summer!
Now we have a three-day in the office policy. Most people come in Tues-Thurs, but it’s flexible, so some will be here on Monday or Fridays. My partner believes we should be making Friday a mandatory stay-at-home day to align with our prior approach. It’s become an issue this year because before January 1 of 2026 we had a full WFH policy in place. If someone wanted to come in they could, but if they wanted to work five days from home that was fine too.
I personally think it’s silly to tell people they have to stay home on Friday and come in three other days. For instance, some of them might have spouses or partners who are home on Fridays to cover childcare, so they want that to be one of their in-office days. I’m open to being told I’m wrong, however, if you believe my partner is right.
C.S.
Dear C.S.,
Always a tricky situation for me to say one party is right and the other wrong. This is especially true when I don’t have all of the facts about the culture, past history, employee-perception of the issue and so on. With that as a backdrop, I’m going to weigh in here and say you are the one who is correct in this instance. You have given people choice with the three-day approach. If this started January 1, they have had a little under six months to get their personal systems aligned and figure out what works best for them. To now tell them they must have Friday as one of their choices seems like taking choice away from them.
The only situation I could see this makes sense is if you are closing your office entirely on Fridays and you don’t want anyone to be there alone. I still lean away from a mandated stay-at-home Friday, but that would at least provide an excuse for why you are doing it!
Read more by Beverly Flaxington:
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, 2024, 2025 and 2026. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching Executive MBA students Leadership and Managing 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.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.