Advisers' mental health improves but still concerning

AIA has repeated its Wellbeing survey of advisers it first did in 2021. Overall, the mental health risk of advisers was 6.6% lower than in 2021.

While that is good news, worryingly advisers are twice as stressed as the average New Zealand worker.

A publication from the Mental Health Foundation in 2022, cited data from Statistics NZ showing one in five workers in New Zealand reported being stressed by work ‘always or often’.

“This suggests that the number of financial advisers experiencing stress most of the time at work, is two times higher than the average worker in New Zealand.”

Although the overall wellbeing of financial advisers showed signs of improvement since 2021, stress remains a concerning factor.

Interestingly the main cause of stress has moved from government regulation in 2021 (as advisers prepared for the new licencing regime) to compliance.

Regulation was the highest cause of stress for advisers in 2021 at 61%. However, this year the main pressure point for advisers was compliance, with 50% rating it as ‘highly’ or ‘very highly’ stressful.

“Compared to previous research, we’re noticing a real sense of anxiety which has shifted away from the unknown and towards the fear of making a mistake. This comes as regulation, compliance, and auditing remains front of mind for advisers,” AIA chief partnership distribution officer Sharron Botica says.

While there has been improvement since 2021, the impact of stress on advisers’ health and wellbeing remains a concern. The biggest impact was experiencing sleep issues (41%), followed by the risk of taking stress leave (19%), seeking medical support (17%), and using alcohol to manage stress (15%).

Human Performance Researcher, Adam Fraser, who led the study says using alcohol to manage stress does not work.

“Alcohol does not help anything. It has no positive effect at all.”

Advisers coping well are managing their stress by turning to others for support, including product manufacturers (58.0%), industry peers (57.9%), as well as groups and FAPs (53.1%).

Others are tackling stress by adopting good wellbeing habits, such as improving their ability to draw boundaries around work-from-home (increased by 7%), and showing more consideration to self-development in their role (increased by 4%).

Fraser was surprised that product providers rated so highly in providing support to advisers as in Australia the result was much lower at 28%.

AIA head of IFA and group distribution, Anna Schubert, described the result as “co-parenting.” Everyone had to come together and get behind advisers as they went through regulatory changes, she says.

Fraser noted that advisers have an incredibly varied load of work tasks. Emails, administration and phone calls account for nearly 40% of the workload.
“One of the sad things is that advice is only 12% of your time.”

Yet giving advice is what energises advisers.