As we all know, technology is changing our world. To start, it’s everywhere. Over 6 billion smartphones are predicted to be in use around the world by the end of 2020. This presents us with a tsunami of data that can be processed cheaper, faster and better than ever before. More data has been created in the last two years than in the entire history of the human race. This also has led to a big increase in annual tech spending, particularly around cognitive and artificial intelligence, forecasted to reach $77 billion by 2021.

Needless to say, the impact of technology right now is enormous. We have the ability to do things now that we never before thought would be possible. In addition, the workforce is also experiencing a massive shift. Over the last five years, baby boomers are retiring at a rapid pace and have dropped in the workforce by 15%. While Gen X has remained about the same, we see a huge leap in the Gen Y workforce at a total of 58% now, having grown by 16%.

We also look at the evolving nature of careers. The average career length today is calculated to be around 60-70 years – much, much longer than previously, due to people living longer. In contrast, the average tenure in one job is going down to around 4.5 years. This indicates one may have many different job changes over the course of a career, and illustrates easy movement between jobs. Lastly, the half-life of a learned skill is down to about five years. This is driven by technology. The things that you learned five years ago are less relevant, so you must take on a new skill set.

As new talent develops, different gaps emerge, and we see a constant need to continue to develop talent. Finding talent is important, and then once you have them in the door, if the skill set you hired for is truly going away after about five years, what’s happening within your firm, within the family office, to help develop the next skillset? There is a constant cycle, as the need for efficiency is growing, and more staff rotates in, taking time to hit their full stride, and then staff turns over, leaving us to fill talent gaps once again. As such, there’s a greater need to bring folks into the culture of the firm, and to hire for strategic roles, which often can be harder to find in the market place.

David Toth is a managing director at FOX. In his role, he constructs actionable insights and strategic analyses for family offices and wealth management advisor members. He developed a pathway of initiatives that assist family offices and wealth advisors in building pricing strategies, elevating client experience, talent management strategies and optimizing team structure, and achieving profitable growth. David has authored a number of reports including our recently published study on the “Transformation of the Ultra-Wealth Business.” David serves as co-moderator of FOX’s Multi-Family Office (MFO), Integrated Wealth Advisor (IWAC) Councils, and the Strategic CIO Council (SCIOC). Areas of Expertise: Industry Trends, Advisor Strategies Read More →