Canada Life has partnered with behavioural psychology specialist We are IB to create HumanSense – an e-learning programme designed to help financial advisers understand the behavioural bias in financial advice.
The programme consists of six modules, covering a range of topics such as understanding client behaviour, creating emotional resonance and visualising your future self.
The objective of the training is to enable advisers to engage in deeper conversations, helping them to build trust and emotional empathy with their clients with a view to achieving better client outcomes.
The training programme, available now via the Ican Academy on the Canada Life website, is free and will provide advisers with six hours of CPD qualified training, with each assessment being completed at a time of the advisers choosing.
Keily Vanstone, head of marketing, brand and communications at Canada Life, said: “With the introduction of Consumer Duty, there has been a greater focus and need for advisers to actively consider and take account of their behavioural biases in order to ultimately achieve better customer outcomes.
“We wanted to offer support in this understanding and provide actionable insights for advisers to use in the financial advice sales process.
“Together with ‘We are IB’, we have created a free e-learning programme, based in deep understanding of client behaviours. Our hope is that, alongside our existing technical support, HumanSense will offer insights for advisers to further develop their relationships with clients, whilst helping them to keep in step with Consumer Duty as well.”
Dr Simon Moore and CEO at We are IB, said: “We know that there are cognitive barriers in the advice industry which are prohibiting advisers from having more human conversations with their clients. Traditionally, facts, figures, and jargon may be used in initial conversations as a means to try win a client’s trust.
“We also know from cognitive neuroscience that humans all make decisions primarily around how they ‘perceive they feel about facts and figures’ not on the actual logical interpretation of those facts and numbers.
“This, together with the learnings we’ve gained by looking at the behaviour of clients, shows that there is an opportunity for advisers to upskill in a non-technical space.
“Through our partnership with Canada Life, and speaking to advisers directly, we considered the most valuable tools that would be needed for them to understand the needs of their clients better.
“The HumanSense training will never replace the technical knowledge required for financial advisers – but it is our hope that it may complement what exists and engage both the rational and emotional decision-making system of clients.”
Lee Robertson, founder and CEO of Octo Members Group, added: “This is a departure from the norm, certainly from a traditional financial services company, and the feedback from our members to date who have accessed the eLearning has been overwhelmingly positive.”