In October 2008, Sandra Pierce, associate director with Macquarie Private Wealth Inc. in Toronto, discovered that she needed a hip replacement. She had the surgery in January 2009, thinking she would be off work four to five weeks. Instead, she was off for three months.

Mark Begg, branch manager and director of wealth management with Begg Cheng Wealth Management Group, which operates in Toronto under the Richardson GMP Ltd. banner, received more ominous news last year. Serena Cheng, his business partner of 15 years, had cancer.

Says Begg: “She said: ‘I went for a couple of tests and I have to be operated on a week from today.’ So, it was quite sudden and unexpected.”

A senior team member’s sudden absence due to illness or injury can create tough emotional and professional challenges for other team members, who may worry about their colleague’s health while putting in extra hours to handle the added workload and provide service to the ill advisor’s clients. There are steps you can take to minimize the disruption — to other team members and to clients — until your ill colleague returns.

For Cheng’s team — which consists of the two advisors, an associate and two support staff — the first priority was Cheng’s personal and financial well-being. “We just turned to her and treated her like she was a client,” says Begg. “[We made sure] she had her critical illness insurance and other financial issues in place.”

Once the partner’s needs have been looked after, the next step is to inform the clients and assure them that there will be no interruption to their service. Your style and method of contacting clients will depend on a number of factors, including the nature of the illness.

Pierce let her clients know immediately about her situation, and had a little fun in the process. She had her firm’s vice president of marketing design a cartoon to send to clients. “It was like an announcement,” Pierce says, “because I never had children and I never got married.”

Because Cheng’s illness appeared more serious at first — fortunately, she learned after the surgery that her tumour was benign — Begg’s team found discussing the issue with clients a little more difficult. The team decided that to avoid worrying clients, team members would speak with clients individually as necessary rather than sending a mass communication, which might have seemed too impersonal.

Says Begg: “I think doing those one-on-one conversations strengthened our relationships with our clients.”

Both the Begg Cheng and Macquarie teams have integrated structures, in which all advisors have relationships with all the clients. That made it easy for advi-sors to step in and look after each other’s clients.

But when client rosters are more rigidly divided, an advisor may have to meet the client of a colleague for the first time when that colleague is ill. This can lead to uncomfortable situations, says Rosemary Smyth, a business coach and owner of Rosemary Smyth and Associates in Victoria: “Prepare yourself for tough conversations with clients who have a challenge [dealing] with change.”

Regardless of how well the clients know you, the purpose of contacting them is to assure them that service will not be disrupted. And to maintain service levels, you will have to figure out how to divide up the workload among your team.
@page_break@Pierce’s team, the Fox Pierce Segal Group, which consists of three partners and one assistant, was able to handle both her absence and her return with little disruption in service to her clients.

Pierce used remote access to stay in touch while she recovered from her surgery. But there was still a lot of work to be done by her partners. “It was truly amazing how much they got done without me there,” she says. The only area of business that suffered was prospecting, which is primarily Pierce’s responsibility.

PULLING TOGETHER

Begg’s team pulled together to make up for Cheng’s absence, despite the additional absence of the team’s associate, who was on maternity leave. The associate helped initially by working from home using remote access and later by cutting her leave short. Says Begg: “That shows the strength of our team players.”

As various team members take on more of the workload, it’s important to be very clear with everyone about how the business will operate — even simple tasks, Smyth says. Work out operational procedures, such as who will have signing authority if the usual person is on leave. This may involve contacting your dealer for advice.

Also, it may be necessary to add temporary staff, Smyth says, depending on the length of the team member’s absence.

“Because we have a strong team,” Begg says, “we weren’t worried about the workload as much as we were concerned about the client relationships, that the clients would be concerned and wondering how [Cheng] was doing.”

Once your team gets used to their new responsibilities, the next event requiring adjustment is the absent team member’s return. For both the Begg Cheng and Macquarie teams, the first task for the returning advisor was to contact clients.

The Begg Cheng team took a full day to work off-site when Cheng returned — to discuss how everyone on the team was feeling and to figure out the next step. As well, the team members were allowed to take additional time off to make up for the extra work they had done during Cheng’s absence.

Pierce, for her part, worked every Friday during the slower summer months to allow her team’s other advisors to take time off to relax. Says Pierce: “It did balance out.”

COMPENSATION

Another important matter is compensation. How will you reward those who put in the extra work while also providing income for the absent advisor?

Begg and Cheng didn’t begin to discuss financial compensation until she had been off for a month. In the end, they used the same arrangement the firm uses for maternity leave.

“The people who are staying on and doing the extra work are compensated a little bit more,” Begg says, “but those going on leave don’t stop having revenue coming in.”

Like any crisis, a key team member’s absence can help bring a team closer together and provide pleasant surprises. Both Pierce’s team and Cheng’s team were impressed by the support they received from their clients and their firms.

Pierce received gifts, such as flowers and fruit, from clients — as well as support and advice.

“It’s amazing how many people come out and tell you they have a similar illness,” Pierce says, “or [that] they have a friend with that illness and offer advice.”

Begg Cheng’s clients were also sympathetic and supportive. But Begg found the level of support from Richardson GMP unexpected: “At the executive level, people were calling and asking, ‘How can we help? Can we talk to clients? We can get you extra support.’ At the branch level, people and partners were coming in and offering the same type of assistance.” IE