Purpose and progress key to creating a ‘destination workplace’

Appearing on The ifa Show, Corey Wastle spoke of how Verse Wealth is aiming to become a “destination workplace” where “the best people in your industry want to work”.

In particular, Wastle highlighted how younger potential employees often want to engage in “purposeful work” in an environment they are excited to be in every day. The way Verse implements this is through creating a working environment that encourages and fosters both autonomy and growth.

“Autonomy is feeling like you’re trusted by management and leaders and you’ve got the autonomy to make choices over how you spend your time and how you manage your calendar,” Wastle said.

“[It’s about] not feeling anxious about walking to an office at 10 past 9 on a Monday morning, feeling like you’re doing something wrong or letting someone down.”

However, he warned that affording autonomy across workplaces will look different between practices: “If you have a business where it’s full of high character people that are really smart, that do their job at a really high level, they’ve got their own internal high standards, they’re selfless, they’re committed to the team.

“Those people are a lot easier to manage than C players who don’t really care and aren’t that committed. They have lower standards for the work that they do. If your team looks more like that, you need more protocols to make sure the whole thing doesn’t just fall apart.”

Wastle also identified clear and obvious routes for growth as another core aspect of creating a “destination workplace”.

“People have got to feel like they’re developing and growing in the business. I see this a lot, particularly with younger people in financial advice, in associate roles or maybe even like client services type roles,” He said.

Like autonomy though, Wastle emphasised that it cannot “just be left to the device of the employer”, requiring effort on the part of the employee, too.

“My experience is the people that grow the most are the ones that are self-directed. They’re reflective on their experiences, they’re proactive about getting mentorship and asking for support and for guidance and they’re following through on things and they come out of their comfort zone,” he added.

Noting that creating the “destination workplace” means cultivating an environment that not everyone is suited to, Verse has installed robust, novel interviewing techniques including psychometric testing and “cultural interviews”. [I will insert the link to the other article here once published]