Although the acute labor shortages that emerged as the world was emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic have eased, the labor market for family office staff can still present challenges.
According to the 2024 RSM Family Office Operational Excellence report, for example, 63% of single family offices said they had trouble attracting candidates for IT positions, and 64% reported challenges in providing competitive benefits.
“Family offices aren’t immune to the challenges of hiring and retaining talent,” says Kristin Salisbury, senior vice president, family office for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Management Services. For example, it can be tough to provide compensation that competes with many other corporate jobs. “A family office is on a fixed budget — this is not a commercial, growing entity driving revenue.”
Even when candidates are initially enthusiastic, there can be a mismatch between what they expect and what the family office can offer.
“In many markets now, if I say family office in a job posting and I allude to investing, I’ll just get inundated, particularly on the investment side,” says Janet Arzt, founder and managing partner of Parere Advisory. “But the retention and expectation piece is more challenging. Everyone just sees ‘family office’ and they say, ‘This is my dream job.’ The expectations that that individual has and that the family has are completely misaligned going in. And that’s why people may say it’s a really difficult hiring environment.”
Two family office professionals with hiring experience offer these tips on how to increase the chances of finding a good fit when recruiting:
- Expand your view of qualifications. Vogel Consulting Group has broadened its requirements for its accounting positions — instead of requiring a four-year accounting degree for some of their staff positions, they have looked at candidates with related degrees who have the aptitude to learn what they need to know.
“Right now, we have a math major who is one of our staff members: If you like numbers and you can figure things out, we can teach you the tax stuff,” says Shannon Zur, director at Vogel.
- Highlight the skills they will learn. CYMI Holdings, the family office of the Clay and Mary Mathile family (the former owners of pet food maker the Iams Company), emphasizes cross-functional collaboration, which allows staff members to learn skills outside their specific role.
“For instance, the investment team works closely with our tax group to ensure that we are minimizing the tax impact of our investment strategy on the family. This is knowledge they can take with them if they ever leave and gives them a skill that others most likely won’t have, which makes them more valuable in the marketplace,” says Jill Barber, president of CYMI Holdings. “I always say, ‘You get to be involved in everything,’ — especially when they’re entry-level or lower-level staff people. If you love that and you want to learn and grow and experience lots of different things, a family office is a great place to do that.”
- Take a holistic view of rewarding employees. CYMI Holdings’ total rewards philosophy takes a holistic view of rewarding employees: base compensation, incentives and benefits. They emphasize transparency around pay and incentive decisions. Benefits include the opportunity for hybrid work, tuition and training reimbursement, and help with medical care (in addition to insurance).
“We can tap into some high-end health care for larger issues like cancer — we can get them into doctors and get second opinions for people,” Barber says. “Employees also have access to the family’s medical network, allowing us to be able to assist them in managing significant health concerns.”
- Explain the motivation. You may need to help candidates shift their mindset, especially if they are coming from public accounting or large investment houses.
“Family offices don’t have a profit motive — you market to your current client base and aren’t concerned with gaining new clients. That is a different mindset,” Barber says. “There is complete alignment of stakeholders — your client is your owner. It allows you to focus on service to the client and puts you on the same side of the table, advocating in their best interest.”
- Promote the culture. Family offices often have a caring, family-oriented culture. This is often seen, for example, in caring and flexibility when an employee has an emergency in their own family, and in the benefits packages, such as paying a larger share of health insurance.
“There’s a lot of caring that goes on, both culturally and through the support of the family,” Barber says. “You hear that a lot from family offices: They want to take care of their people partly because they don’t want them to leave.”
CYMI also works to create community among employees.
“We donate money every year to the community foundation for each employee to give away through a matching program,” Barber says.
