National Planning Holdings, Inc. Publishes White Paper Addressing the Crucial Challenge of Employee Retention for Independent Financial Advisory Practices

National Planning Holdings®, Inc. (NPH), the nation’s fourth-largest independent broker-dealer network1, today announced the publication of a new white paper to aid independent advisors in addressing the crucial challenge of employee retention. Titled “Three Ways to Improve Employee Retention,” the white paper identifies best practices in three areas that are crucial to employee satisfaction and longevity with an employer: compensation, benefits and culture.

“Employee retention is an absolutely vital factor in determining whether an advisor’s practice will reach its long-term growth goals,” said Diana Keary, vice president and head of practice management at NPH. “Yet industry surveys show that as many as 26 percent of advisory firm employees plan to leave their company within the next two years. With this white paper, National Planning Holdings is leveraging our scale, insight and experience to further broaden the range of practice management tools we provide advisors to help them face this challenge – and other potential obstacles to their growth – head on.”

The development and release of this white paper was implemented by NPH's newly formed, centralized practice management platform, the Advisor Growth Team. The new Advisor Growth Team aims to offer a greater level of practice management support to advisors, particularly during a time of intensified regulatory complexity for the financial professional community. The group helps the NPH network's affiliated advisors target their goals through customized strategies uniquely tailored to their businesses, and through one-on-one, in-depth programs to assist advisors in providing exceptional client service and optimizing the growth of their business.

“Losing a key employee can be highly disruptive to an independent advisor’s day-to-day operations and long-term goals,” said Keary. “Without a strategic view of how to tie compensation, benefits and firm culture together to find and keep the types of employees that can help a firm succeed, many advisors find themselves backed into ad hoc solutions like offering higher compensation than they can afford, or repeatedly training junior employees on the job only to see them leave once they develop marketable skills.”

The white paper focuses on helping advisors understand the question of employee satisfaction on a holistic level, pointing out that compensation alone is only part of the answer. In order to retain key employees while maintaining a cost structure that will facilitate long-term growth, the paper explains how advisors can adjust benefits packages and firm culture to serve the needs of various types of employees. It also elaborates on best practices for structuring creative compensation programs to strengthen employee incentives to remain with advisors’ firms.

“National Planning Holdings understands these challenges,” said Keary. “The white paper we have announced today offers yet another example of how we put our extensive resources and deep practice management expertise to work for advisors to help them overcome obstacles to their strategic objectives.”

NPH’s network of four leading independent broker-dealers — INVEST Financial Corporation (INVEST), Investment Centers of America, Inc. (ICA), National Planning Corporation (NPC) and SII Investments, Inc. (SII) – serve nearly 3,500 advisors across the country with a comprehensive spectrum of services and support.

For more information about the four independent broker-dealers in the NPH network, please visit: www.INVESTFinancial.com/public/joininvest/direct.html, www.joinica.com, www.joinnpc.com and www.joinsii.com.

About National Planning Holdings, Inc.

National Planning Holdings, Inc. (NPH) is a broker-dealer holding company and an affiliate of Lansing, Mich.-based Jackson National Life Insurance Company® (Jackson®). NPH serves as the holding company for the independent broker-dealers INVEST Financial Corporation, Investment Centers of America, National Planning Corporation and SII Investments, Inc. Collectively, the NPH broker-dealer network currently has 3,428 registered representatives (as of December 31, 2015). NPH and Jackson are wholly owned by Prudential plc (NYSE: PUK), a company incorporated in England and Wales. Prudential plc is not affiliated in any manner with Prudential Financial, Inc., a company whose principal place of business is in the United States of America.

This press release may contain certain statements that constitute “forward-looking statements.” Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements which are other than statements of historical facts. However, as with any projection or forecast, forward-looking statements are inherently susceptible to a number of risks and uncertainties and actual results and events could differ materially from those currently being anticipated as reflected in such forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that management’s expectations, beliefs or projections will result or be achieved or accomplished. Any forward-looking statements reflect NPH’s views and assumptions as of the date of this press release and NPH disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking information.

1Southwood, D. and Zhu, E. (2015). How the Biggest Independent Broker-Dealer Networks Stack Up: Ranking Five Big IBD Networks by Reps and Revenue. InvestmentNews. May 2015.

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