The purpose of the study was to explore the training needs of financial planners which include organizational analysis, job analysis, and person analysis. By indentifying those needs, the training and development suggestions would be made for better bridging the gap and discrepancies from organization problems, job problems and person problems. To
achieve the study goals, the study constructed the study tools and systematically designed and planed the process of the research. They are discussed as the following sections: research framework, research procedures, research methods, instrumentation of the study, and data analysis.
Research Framework
To achieve the purpose of the study, in-depth interview were utilized. In-depth interview facilitate the needs to explore relevant, current organizational and person issues, gaining complete, open, and detailed data. Therefore through the research method, an understanding of the training need was gained to help the development of training practice.
The purpose of the study was to investigate financial planners’ insight into ways that they could better adapt to the organization, their job, and their personal problems and that the service of wealth management service could be improved. According to the reviewed
literature in Chapter II, there are several critical elements that should be taken into
consideration while analyzing training needs. They can be generally categorized into three groups: organizational analysis, job analysis, and person analysis. In organizational analysis, they are organizational strategies, resources, climate, cost, constraint, structure, external environment, and organizational outputs such as product, service, and operation. When doing
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job analysis, they are job specification, job analysis, competency, performance effective criteria. In person analysis, the focus is on competency, the performance gap, and other performance problems. The conceptual framework of the study is as figure 3.1.
Figure 3.1. Conceptual Framework
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Research Methods
The study aimed to explore the training needs of financial planners and how do they develop their own professional competency to maintain their competitiveness in the organization and in their job. The study sought to both identify the training needs and construct the development path for financial planners; therefore, the researcher utilized literature review and in-depth interview to fully understand the comprehensive context, thus facilitating the further training design.
Qualitative Research
The training needs and perception of the needs of financial planners should be carefully examined because of their sophisticated and dedicated nature. Due to the nature of the
research topic, qualitative is the preferred research method. To solicit the complete, open, and detailed information of training need, qualitative research method is thus utilized in this study.
In-depth Interview Technique
In-depth interview can provide rich result that can better present the whole picture of the training needs from financial planner’s view and identify those details that can not be fully answered by quantitative approach. Ten financial planners were chosen to be interviewed to answer the following questions:
1. What and how are the current training practice, organization, and work setting of financial planners?
2. What are the core competencies to perform the job successfully?
3. What are the competency discrepancies and source of discrepancies of financial
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planners?
4. What are the training needs of financial planners?
5. What prior knowledge, skills, ability, other characteristics, and experience of financial planner are beneficial to do the job successfully?
6. What courses, workshops, or training programs are beneficial for financial planners?
7. What are the learning channels or other ways financial planners develop their competency?
Research Procedure
The research process is as following:
1. Identify the research title, questions, and purposes
After reviewing and studying the relevant literature, the researcher analyzed the research background and purposes, and decided the research title, questions, and purposes. Finally, the research title was named as “A Study on the Training Needs Analysis of Financial Planners.”
2. Collect literature and documents
Literature from foreign and local databases was collected. Analysis of the collected literature was made as the foundation of the study by which the desired investigation items and dimensions were developed.
3. In-depth interview
To collect practical data and training and development strategies, ten financial planners were interviewed. The content of the interview outline were examined by them with their suggestions.
4. Data analysis
According to the research questions and goal, the interview results were analyzed to make
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conclusion and suggestion.
5. Finish the report (See the figure 3.2)
Figure 3.2. Research Procedure
Research Participants
Financial planners in banks of Taiwan and other relevant managerial roles in financial planning are the population in the present inquiry. Judgmental sampling was utilized to help select appropriate interviewees. The interviewees should be financial planners or managers who are in charge of wealth management business.
Research Subject Identification
Literature Review
Finish the Report Data Analysis In-depth Interview
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The goal of the study was to explore the training need, the development channels and other ways of development from the perspective of financial planners. In order to gain a more complete view, the research participants were not limited to several benchmark wealth
management banks or in several cities in Taiwan. Also, the year of experience of the research participants is not limited. A diversity of perspectives from different but relevant financial planning position and different years of experience were encouraged to better target and explore the training needs issues of financial planners.
The researcher called and visited financial planners and managers in banks and asked whether they were willing to participate. The research subjects were further selected
according to their willingness of participation and interview time available. The background of interviewees is presented as table 3.1.
Table 3.1.
The Background of Interviewees
Bank No. Years of Seniority Position Managerial Position
A A01 05 Junior manager Yes
A A02 14 Manager Yes
B B01 15 Audit junior manager Yes
B B02 26 Junior manager Yes
B B03 17 Junior manager Yes
C C01 15 Junior manager Yes
C C02 03 Financial planner No
C C03 01 Financial planner No
D D01 25 Assistant manager Yes
D D02 15 Financial planner No
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Instrumentation of the Study
The interview guideline was developed according to the finding in the literature review;
three main issues: organizational analysis, person analysis, and job analysis are the base of the interview guide. The guidelines of interview guide developed according the tree dimensions of the training needs analysis and the research questions:
Organizational Dimension
1. Organization strategy: the short term, mid-term, and long term goal of the organization.
2. Organization resource: the resource available for training.
3. Organization climate: the perception toward training. For example, the support from higher management and the learning environment.
4. Training constraint 5. External environment
6. Service output: the quantity and quality of the provided service and product
Person Dimension
1. Competency and performance gap analysis: the competency and performance discrepancy 2. Competency and performance problem analysis: the chief source of ineffective and
insufficient performance
3. Career development ability: the required knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics for future development.
Job Dimension 1. Core competency
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2. Job description
Research Questions
1. What and how are the current training practice, organization, and work setting of financial planners?
2. What are the core competencies to perform the job successfully?
3. What are the competency discrepancies and source of discrepancies of financial planners?
4. What are the training needs of financial planners?
5. What prior knowledge, skills, ability, other characteristics, and experience of financial planner are beneficial to do the job successfully?
6. What courses, workshops, or training programs are beneficial for financial planners?
7. What are the learning channels or other ways financial planners develop their competency?
Data Collection and Analysis
The present inquiry utilized in-depth interview as the major research method. With specific agenda to follow and fundamental questions to answer, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Then, qualitative data from interviewees were collected, and later on
described and analyzed. Before the interview, the interviewees were introduced the content of the research, including the purpose and relevant terms. In the process of the interview, the data were recorded by a voice recorded with the permission of the interviewees. After interview, the basic procedures for data analysis were followed:
1. Transcribing data into transcripts.
2. Reading and rereading transcript
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3. Segmenting and coding the data 4. Comparing, categorizing, and inducing
5. Identifying relationships and answer the research questions An example is shown as figure 3.3 and figure 3.4.
A B Y 0 1 0 1
Figure 3.1. An Example of the Coding Steps
Number Content Important notion Code ABY0101* 由於台灣前幾年的財富管理不是以客戶資產合理配置為導向，
ABY0101 stands for A bank, interviewee B, answer, dialogue 1, and important notions 1. Each dialogue of transcript is numbered for reference use.
From the transcript, relevant and meaningful sentences are underlined and extracted.
The important notions are coded and categorized.
The important notions are written according to the content.
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Figure 3.2. An Example of the Coding and Categorizing Steps 3.
Person Analysis
3-1
Performance problem and difficulties
3-1-1 refuse to sell “bad products”
3-1-2 ill-designed system 3-1-3 goal set is too high
3-1-4 too many financial products 3-1-5 too many different clients 3-2
Person problem
3-2-1 hard to completely avoid illegitimate use of clients’ money 3-2-2 not earning the certification 3-2-3 unable to take care of family 3-2-4 laziness
3-2-5 impatience
3-2-6 unable to live with pressure 3-2-7 unable to obtain clients’ trust 3-2-8 the will to reach the goal might
be low
The important notions are coded and categorized into first coding; the first, the second; and the second, the third.
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Validity and Reliability
Validity
The following procedures are followed to obtain the validity. The emphasis of validity in qualitative study refers to the being plausible, trustworthy and defensible. To achieve these characteristics, it is important to develop some strategies that strengthen the validity of the study. The researcher lists the strategies to be used here:
1. Reflexivity: To avoid subjective bias from researcher, it is important to reflect carefully on the interview process, procedure, and analysis.
2. Expert consultation: The results of the study, its interpretation, and conclusions are
discussed with other researchers, the advisory professor, outside subject matter expert, and interviewees to make better judgment on the research result and arguments.
3. Perspectives from different positions: The interview participants are from different positions in wealth management field including financial planners, junior managers, audit managers, assistant managers, and a manager. By seeing from different position toward the same job, the researcher had clear angles to better target the goal.
The interview guide was developed based on the purpose and goal of the research and on the theoretical framework extracted from the literature review. This guideline was discussed with professors with yearly experience and one of the interviewees at the initial interview process to modify the questions to be asked. The interviewees were interviewed by the researcher face to face and recorded. After transcribing, the interviewees further
confirmed the interview result content.
Reliability
To achieve the reliability, the researcher utilized the same procedure to collect,
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categorize, and analyze data in an effort to reduce the possible biases that may happen during the progress of the research. With the same research standard and procedure, the correctness and consistence of the data analysis could be achieved, thus avoiding potential biases. In addition, the researchers tried to search for interview data from different position as
mentioned in the third part of the validity, the researcher believed that the data could be better supported through different angles and interpretation.
Delimitation of the Study
First, financial planners and other relevant managerial roles in financial planning field in bank are the population in the present inquiry, excluding financial planners from insurance companies and other businesses. Second, the interviewees were selected according the nature of their work which should be relevant to financial planning business. Third, the research period extended from December, 2008 to May, 2009. The researcher used judgment sampling to conduct this qualitative research, using the same screening criteria to select the potential interviewees. Fourth, the study focused on the training of the financial planner, possible discrepancies, and beneficial experiences or learning of financial planners. Other training issues e.g. design or evaluation is not the target of the study.
Limitation of the Study
Based on the delimitation of this inquiry, several limitations might emerge:
1. The financial planners to be interviewed might have limits to understand all the external factors and external environment to answer questions from organizational analysis due to their job position and business they were in charge of. Namely, their perception toward organization issues could probably be limited.
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2. There was a huge difference in interviewed financial planners’ years of seniority. Even though this difference represented a broad perspective of financial planners toward the training needs analysis issue, the difference in the year of seniority might be a limitation that this study didn’t present the opinion of the expert of mature, yearly experience only.
The study also joined opinions from less experienced financial planners.
3. Even though the participants were selected by judgment sampling method, the
distribution of interview participants in this study was majorly in Northern Taiwan. Thus, this sample population limits the sample representativeness.
4. The research consequence couldn’t generalize to other countries except Taiwan.
5. The chosen research method (qualitative research) may be a limitation to the study since qualitative research method is often limited to small sample size. The data analysis could be partially biased by the subjectivity of the researcher even though the researcher have tried to keep his objectivity.
6. Due to limited time and resource, the researcher could not explore financial planners in all types of the banks. The researcher only conducted interviews to those planners in both selected and available banks.
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CHAPTER IV. REASEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
The chapter has five sections which comprise introduction of the case companies, organizational analysis, job analysis, person analysis, and learning. Findings and discussions are presented in the four latter sections. The major finding categories of this study are
organizational analysis, job analysis, person analysis, and learning which answer the research questions respectively. Tables showing the answered question and its relevant categorization are given in each section. The coding tables of organizational analysis, job analysis, person analysis, and learning are given at the end of each section for reference. The findings that are relevant to each research question are shown as followings.
Introduction of the Cases Companies
A Bank
A Bank has been established for 17 years since 1992. By the end of 2005, it had 3,061 employees. They created an audit division that reports directly to the board of directors.
Under the bank's Head Office, there are a variety of business divisions and
thirty-six-branches. The bank expected to establish ten more branches in 2006 to provide its customers with full-fledged wealth management services. It aims to be customer centric and innovative, develop new products, and standardize and rationalize its workflow. In addition, it develops a multiplicity of functions and expands domestic network as it establishes more operations overseas in Asia. Also, it aims to reinforce effort on R&D to provide customers with better products and services.
B Bank
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B Bank was founded in 1957, formerly known as the B Credit Cooperative, and has kept its operating principle of “Customer First” in expanding its business scale at a steady pace.
To comply with the financial law, B bank had acquired a credit cooperative in 1997 and officially transformed into a commercial bank. The business premise has thus broken out of Greater Taipei Area and its footprint extended to the southern part of the country. B bank had also acquired the other credit cooperative in 2005, the total branches have increased up to 48.
Hence, B bank is determined in pursuit of becoming a highly competitive comprehensive mid-sized commercial bank.
C Bank
C bank was established in 1989 and later, C Financial Holding Co., Ltd. came into birth in 2002. Since then, C Commercial Bank, C Securities Co., Ltd, C Insurance Brokers Co., Ltd, and C venture Capital Co., Ltd have teamed up closely with one another for consistent commitment of brand name and TQM and service." The C bank’s team structure embraces the value of "reality, capability and responsibility," "teamwork, harmony and happiness,"
"leadership, excellence and honor" and "contentment, appreciation and gratitude.” As a result, it put strong emphasis on team spirit and management.
D Bank
Established in 1992, D bank was a subsidiary of a famous consortium. Its core businesses include Individual Banking, Consumer Banking and Credit Card, Corporate Banking, Financial Markets, and Administration and support group. Concerning risk
management, since 2006 D bank has integrated the Risk Management Department's functions and risk management capabilities and data safety throughout the firm after receiving passing ISO 27001 certification in recognition of our information safety management.
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Organizational Analysis
Organizational analysis includes findings concerning organizational issues and is used to answer research question 1, what and how are the current training practice, organization, and work setting of financial planners as shown in Table 4.1. Based on the findings, the understanding of the organization could be categorized into 1-1 market environment of wealth management, 1-2 people strategies, 1-3 financial planners’ system and system problem, 1-4 training method and content, and 1-5 suggestions to the companies.
Market Environment of Wealth Management
To begin with, the recent economy crisis has been an important factor that influences the wealth management environment since the financial tsunami has caused a great loss on the clients, thus reducing their confidence both to the market and the banks. Next, the early environment of wealth management in Taiwan was full of problems, focusing only on marketing and commission fee and not putting clients’ interest first. As a result, clients often lack confidence to the financial planners. In addition, the wealth management business, as deemed by the respondents, is still booming while there is no good practice to better
differentiate product and service, thus making wealth management market a red ocean. Last but not least, even though the market is wandering at the bottom, some financial planners responded that it is also a good time for investment.
In this scenario, a sales manager criticized the early incomplete company system and service that caused the lack of trust between financial planners and clients. “To most banks, there is no time for needs planning; they don’t even have enough time for selling products, will they have time for planning?” (AAY0301) and “It’s difficult to serve the customers with the ideal financial planning process. Every product has its sale period.” (AAY0801) A sales manager from bank B also criticized this.
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For the banks didn’t aim to help the client allocate their asset right, but rather, they aim to think in commission fee’s term, or even, they didn’t care the right of clients. After the financial tsunami, most of clients have experience financial damages and even left the investment market with low trust to the financial planners or consultants. They want to keep their money safe (BBY0101).
Concerning the market environment, financial planners feel the pressure of the bear market which means the market is going down, even if their clients don’t complain; however,
Concerning the market environment, financial planners feel the pressure of the bear market which means the market is going down, even if their clients don’t complain; however,