By empowering our staff through continual training and development, we provide our clients with: the best possible service, inbuilt continuity and longevity and the sustainable essence of the Reeves Independent ethos.
Over the past few years, Reeves Independent has grown substantially. A lot of this development is down to our success in ensuring that we provide quality training to our team. Playing a central role in this is our training and development team in Human Resources.
Our training programmes are robust and varied, internal and external and very often job specific. As an entirety, Reeves Independent plans in a dedicated week of all staff training every single quarter. This provides a secure platform for consistency, knowledge, longevity and service excellence.
Continual professional development and training is at the core of Reeves Independent.
Training of our team ensures that our passion to provide clients with bespoke and effective advice is maintained at the highest level, allowing you to achieve your retirement goals.
This level of training was acknowledged in June this year when Reeves Independent was awarded the Services Award at the North East Business Awards 2022.
So that you can see for yourself just how far we go to empower our staff with knowledge, multiple skills and professional development, please find following an outline of our training programmes. Working to ensure best possible service.
Formal Induction Programme
Each and every member of staff that comes through the door at Reeves Independent will, regardless of their team and position, follow a formal induction programme. The aim of this is to educate them on the background of Reeves Independent, our ethos of attention to detail, customer care, teamwork and communication.
Charlotte Brady joined the team in February 2022 as a New Client Paraplanner. Charlotte really enjoyed the induction programme and felt it put her in great stead for her career at Reeves Independent. She said, ‘’I found the induction programme really positive.”
‘’The presentation with Hannah from HR on my first morning went through the structure of Reeves which helped me understand what each team did. I found this useful to understand the process of pension planning without it being information overload.”
‘’The Reeves induction booklet details a four-week training plan which broke my training down into chunks. Each day noted the people I would be working with and the desired outcome of the learning, there was also several slots for recaps and reviews where I could get feedback on how I was getting on. This helped make me feel at ease, as I could see that Reeves had made sure I was not thrown in at the deep end and ensured I would always know who to ask if I had any questions.’’
Reeves Independent has a culture of placing people and individuals at the heart of everything we do. We are a social business - with a staff social every month – and we place team morale and camaraderie at the very core of our business.
This is something that Charlotte was really impressed with. She added, ‘’One the most helpful items in the booklet for me, was the directory of all staff members, with their photos and what team they were in. With so many new faces to learn it took me a while to learn who was who!”
‘’Part of the induction programme involves sitting with each team, this helps you get to know everyone a little better and you get to see the different tasks which are carried that otherwise you wouldn’t know about. I found this useful as it helped me see how the work I would be doing falls in to place with the other job roles. The staff socials are also great to get to know everyone and definitely helps you settle in and get to know your workmates really well.”
‘’It was clear to me that the training programme at Reeves is well planned by HR and team leaders. They put a lot of effort in to ensure that the induction process is role specific and that new starters get the most out of it as possible.’’
Weekly Case Study Clinics
All our qualified advisers and trainees meet on a weekly basis to examine individual case studies, with the aim of learning, sharing knowledge and continually improving our advice platform. These are often complex cases providing solutions and pathways. The emphasis on team working at Reeves Independent enables our clients to get the best possible advice and solutions tailored specifically to them and their circumstances. Such meetings also provide fantastic insight and training for our junior advisers.
Exam Pathways and our Graduate Scheme
At Reeves Independent, we take huge pride in the development of our staff. As part of that, we encourage our staff to complete their finance exams and we help them to do so, providing whatever support is necessary.
We currently have 22 employees working their way through their financial planning exams from RO1 to RO6. Many of these staff are from our graduate scheme, providing talented individuals with the chance to pursue a progressive career path in the financial services industry, whilst gaining experience in a paid role. This path allows them to become level 4 qualified advisers, before leading them onto training to become Chartered Financial Advisers.
All employees are able to access the bespoke Reeves Independent learning portal, helping our employees achieve success in their exams. Our Graduate Training Scheme provides a fully funded route. We offer graduates the opportunity to gain industry knowledge through job rotation and mentoring. We believe our scheme is unique in its approach, as we give the opportunity of an education outcome, experience in various roles and a career progression path. Through investing in talent, we believe the impact on the business is unrivalled in terms of positivity.
Alexander, one of our current employees on the Graduate Scheme had this to say:
“I would say that the best part of the Reeves Graduate Training is that it is very hands-on. You are thrown straight into the work. However, there is always someone knowledgeable on hand to ask for guidance and monitor your progress. I feel you really learn the ins and outs of whichever role you are in and appreciate it so much more for having done so. As I wish to be an Adviser in the future, I think it is very important to understand all the processes behind the advice and how they facilitate it. I think having an appreciation of this as opposed to just book/exam knowledge will help me to craft the best possible advice for clients.”
Personal Development
We invest in the expertise of external providers for some training from which our department managers receive regular ongoing professional development sessions. These training sessions allow our managers to gain the skills to run successful, knowledgeable and consistently improving teams.
Such management training is bespoke to Reeves Independent and enables them to conduct effective quarterly one-to-one reviews with team members. This ensures that personal professional development is maintained.
Joanne, Manager of our Triage Team values her personal development training:
“As manager of the Triage Team, Personal Development Plans are massively important to my role. Often, new recruits come into the team with the hope of becoming qualified and progressing into the New Client Advice Team. PDPs are crucial in tracking each person’s competency and areas for improvement. It helps to identify when the right time is to transition into the Advice role and where the key strengths and weaknesses are in each person so their next training can be tailored to them. As we focus on training and development on a day-to-day basis, it’s helpful to be able to review someone’s file and PDP each quarter to see how far they’ve come in Reeves.”
Quarterly All Staff Training
As previously touched upon, this is an involved and in-depth week of quarterly all staff training sessions, run by advisers, senior members of the Reeves team and also knowledge specific external trainers. The week is blocked out in all diaries to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to attend.
These happen at the beginning of every quarter and are based around the upcoming quarterly campaign.
Sessions can be requested in the months leading up and arranged to be reflective of the needs of staff.
Includes basic knowledge refresher sessions for all staff – particularly beneficial for new starters so it aligns with our growth model.
Includes specialised training around campaign product knowledge so everyone is prepared for the following months.
These are recorded and uploaded to our internal system so can be reviewed throughout the year.
Have external platform providers hosting sessions around their platforms and how it should be used correctly.
We believe these sessions are vital to the successful running of the business.
Weekly Communication Training - Voluntary Sessions
Often run by our Founder and CEO Nigel Reeves, these sessions cover a multitude of topics from management styles, tailored advice training, meeting uses and effective communication styles.
These usually take place after work but are well attended showing the dedication and commitment of our staff to providing an improved service for our clients.
A review from a member of staff, James explains the value of these sessions:
“What I find helpful and valuable about the Voluntary Training Sessions at Reeves is the opportunity to learn from established professionals about their chosen area. For example, learning from Bill Brown, Jack Ford, Nigel Reeves or Adam Bateman on how to effectively work with clients to uphold standards of professionalism is extremely useful as it is training delivered by people whom I know to be extremely successful and effective at what they do.
Furthermore, as people I’ve worked for and with, they’re naturally the mentors we look at Reeves in general, and therefore the Training is more impactful as it is being delivered by people I seek to learn from anyway.
The opportunity for extra training essentially whenever you wish for it I think is unique at Reeves, and it ensures we are being continuously developed. This ensures better outcomes and results for both staff, Reeves Independent and clients as it means the continued professional development of all staffs creates universal competencies within the company – and this will trickle down to all members of staff, even those who haven’t attended the training sessions.”
Incentive Knowledge Quizzes
Every quarter, the business emails each staff member with a knowledge quiz. Graded to your role within the team, these provide a great way of keeping staff involved, up to date with any changes in the business and industry, as well as being armed with the knowledge they need to complete their role to the best of their ability. Winners receive a cash incentive.
Finally, Reeves Independent takes pride in the standards of our training and puts a great deal of work into the planning of training. The aim is to invest in our people for continued gold-standard client service.
Reeves Independent, by your side throughout your retirement journey.
