Charles Schwab introduces online hub to tackle practice management

Charles Schwab Corp.’s Advisor Services announced Wednesday the launch of its new online hub, Talent Resource Center, designed for the more than 7,500 independent RIA firms that custody with Schwab to access data and digital tools to navigate the life cycle of human capital management. 

The hurdles of human capital management — specifically succession planning — among RIAs has been a challenge for years, but has since been heightened by COVID-19. To that end, Charles Schwab's Talent Resource Center serves as a single website advisers can visit to access the firm’s information and actionable advice for organizational strategy, compensation and incentives, sourcing and hiring, development and retention and succession planning.

“It’s also timely with the current pandemic to help advisers think through challenges they didn’t even have to think about until a few months ago, like having 100% of their workforce remote and how that might change their client experience,” said Nikolee Turner, managing director of business consulting at Schwab Advisor Services. “If an adviser has questions about talent they can go to the Talent Resource Center and read a white paper or check out a short video that can assist them in how they’re approaching their human capital.”

Ultimately, the center is designed to solve two problems for advisers looking to revamp or enhance certain aspects of their human capital management, Turner said. “First problem is advisers have a hard time finding where they go for information,” she said. “The second problem is being able to make the information actionable.”

The center is expected to help fill the gap as a destination that advisers keep revisiting, Turner said. The Talent Resource Center will be consistently updated with new information and also allows advisers to access Charles Schwab’s programs, like the firm’s internship program, to check out resumes of recent graduates and find potential new hires.

For Turner, she said she frequently sees advisers ask questions around retaining talent, succession planning and equity ownership. “Equity ownership is a very hot topic.”

For example, one firm asked for more information about potentially modifying their equity programs to include key employees, Turner said. “An adviser can go to the Talent Resource Center and access white papers or videos around equity ownership programs and determine whether they need to create one — in this firm’s case they needed to evaluate where their program was and modify it for their needs to get more folks involved in equity ownership.” 

Another example of the center’s resources include videos on creating a mentorship or coaching program, Turner said. “Advisers want to know how they go about developing a program. It’s great to tell [advisers] to coach their employees but what does that actually look like in real terms and in a real way?” 

The Talent Resource Center is live and available for all of Schwab's RIA clients.