Consider the situation as a mortgage adviser.
It’s a Friday afternoon, it’s relatively busy and while you might have plans to do a little work over the weekend, what you’re really looking forward to is the evening meal you have arranged with your family and the weekend activities that give you time away from the inevitable stresses and strains of the job.
A minute or so later, with a product withdrawal email from a major lender now in your inbox, all those plans and much-needed rest and relaxation for the next 48 hours are out of the window, as you ‘look forward’ to a full weekend of work trying to get the best outcomes for those clients who will be impacted.
It’s hard not to be deflated by this; indeed, it’s hard not to be impacted mentally by this, because we’re all acutely aware of how important work/life balance is, and how important taking time out from the job to do something else is.
I’ve surmised the above from a recent LinkedIn post I saw from Coreco’s Andrew Montlake, who outlined how he had recently had to choose between family time and working in the evening – guess which won? But it will no doubt be a familiar picture for many, many advisers working in today’s marketplace.
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Something has to give
However, just because it’s a regular occurrence doesn’t in any way make it right.
There will be highly competent, highly professional, dedicated advisers all over the country who are effectively being asked by lenders to make these crazy choices, because they appear to be incapable of planning ahead sufficiently and giving advisers the notice needed to not make the job more stressful.
The other important point to remember is that, while we have been here before, a huge number of lenders have repeatedly told advisers that withdrawing products with just hours’ notice or doing so over the weekend was something they would seek to avoid at all costs.
That’s clearly not the case for some. Indeed, what perhaps makes this more galling is the ability of many lenders to be able to offer, for example, 48 hours’ notice during a working week, and the abject inability of others to be able to get anywhere near this.
If you are reading this, and in the latter group, then perhaps we can appeal to your better judgement in terms of the mental health impact such decisions are having on individuals.
What mind frame is this putting advisers in? What conflict is this creating within families because of the decisions being made? Perhaps it’s time to think of those who have to react to these withdrawals and who have to make things right for their clients.
The sector is directly responsible for advisers’ mental health
We, like many in the market – including large numbers of lenders – are signatories to the Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC). While this is ostensibly about development, reviewing and ensuring good mental health awareness and access in signatory firms, we should also be looking at how our actions, process, and approach might impact those in other stakeholder businesses.
After all, not one part of the mortgage market is an island here. Quite the opposite.
Therefore, the actions of lenders, in particular when it comes to product withdrawals or indeed any decision or action that is going to impact the way advisers are currently working on cases, with existing client applications, etc, is going to have a subsequent action and reaction.
In the cases outlined above, the dilemma is real. How do you choose between family and work/clients? Why are you being put in such a position through no fault of your own? Why is it anticipated and expected that you as an adviser should drop everything in order to be able to comply with the decision of a lender to withdraw products?
It puts advisers in, at best, an uncomfortable position – and, at worst, heaps stress and anxiety on the individual and family – in what is already an often volatile profession, especially when it comes to ensuring they get the best possible outcome for their clients, which, at the end of the day, is what they want to do.
No one denies the market moves fast sometimes, and decisions are expedited because of this, but even so, it is surely time those lenders who are repeatedly inclined to pull products at the drop of a hat, sit back and truly understand what impact these decisions are having.
Let me assure them there is no positive aspect to this. The phrase ‘doing more harm than good’ is not even sufficient here, as there is no ‘good’, just ‘harm’.
Understanding this would be a first step to getting us all to a much better position – advisers and their clients deserve to be treated better.
