Invesco has launched a CPD-accredited platform which has been designed to help advisers improve their ‘soft skills’ with clients.
The Invesco Intelligence Plus platform will provide access to lessons from a range of experts to address what it calls a “significant unmet need” in the financial adviser space.
Currently, advisers are required to complete 35 hours of CPD per year, with no set requirement for soft skills training. However, Invesco research shows advisers rank listening, communication and empathy skills as all being more important than financial knowledge.
Despite this, in a survey of some 200 advisers the research showed some three quarters (73%) of 200 advisers it surveyed do less than 10% of their training on soft skills and, of these, a quarter (23%) do no training on it all.
To address this, the Invesco Intelligence Plus platform has been designed to unite what it identifies are the three core skills that it says are “critical” to support ‘modern day’ advisers; namely emotional intelligence, practice intelligence and investment intelligence.
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Addressing emotional intelligence, the platform will include lessons from experts outside the world of investment. It launches with Sir Clive Woodward (pictured speaking on the platform), manager of the England Rugby World Cup winning team, who discusses the ‘Art of Communication’ and Julian Treasure, sound expert and author, who provides a lesson on the ‘Art of Listening’.
“Communicating effectively can sometimes feel straightforward particularly when things are going well, but when markets are down, portfolios are underperforming, and clients are asking challenging questions it’s much harder to maintain a strong client relationship,” said Woodward in his lesson. “That’s when great communication and a winning mindset really matters.”
The Practice Intelligence modules will provide lessons from Invesco Global Consulting, while Investment Intelligence will give more access to the group’s training programme which has been going for 25 years to more than 4,000 advisers across the UK each year.
“Advisers choose outsourced solutions because they can draw upon external investment expertise while saving time that can be better spent serving clients,” said Owen Thomas, head of UK wholesale at Invesco. “But to capitalise on that time, we found advisers want support with the skills they need to best engage and communicate with new and existing clients, build trust, and manage expectations and emotions.
“In the same way we provide a comprehensive service and support alongside our investment solutions for advisers, we are taking the next step to provide advisers with the soft skills lessons they want to help them do their jobs to the best of their abilities – finding new and improved ways to strengthen relationships with clients.”
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“For managers to be a true ‘partner of choice’, they need to provide the service and support that sits around first-class investment solutions,” added Kate Dwyer, head of UK distribution at Invesco.
“The Invesco Intelligence Plus platform is the natural next step for us as we build upon our high-quality offering to continue to work with advisers, helping them to deliver the best possible services and outcomes for their clients – whatever their needs.”
According to Invesco, it will continue to develop the platform over time, adding new modules from external and internal experts across the three core skills areas at regular intervals through the rest of this year and beyond.
