Get a job at a family office? Don’t expect to leave

If you want to stay in a job for a while then family offices are as good as place as anywhere at staff retainment. So good, in fact, that 89% of them retain 90% or more of their employees.

This is according to research on compensation and benefits at US family offices by the Chicago-based Family Office Exchange. “Despite heightened competition for talent, employee retention at family offices has attained record levels,” says the report. “In fact, over two-thirds of family offices reported no employee turnover and 89% experienced less than 10% turnover.”

The study also found family offices were becoming more concerned about recruiting talent

Part of the reason for their good retention record was due to family offices offering appealing benefit packages and allowing flexible working arrangements. “According to our survey, family offices provide a full array of medical, dental, and disability coverage,” says the study. “They are not only likely to provide medical coverage but on average they pay a very competitive 81% of the medical premiums for their employees.”

It added: “Beyond medical coverage, family offices are increasingly offering flexible work arrangements and several offices customize educational benefits for individual employees.”

That said, the study also found family offices were becoming more concerned about recruiting talent. “At a recent webinar we (FOX) asked the participants what their greatest human capital issue was and found that 31% of the participants are concerned about employee retention, 31% are concerned about training and development while 38% are focusing on recruiting new talent,” says the report.

The study also looked at compensation at family offices and found they granted a median salary increase of 4% across 88% of their employee base in 2018. That increase, says FOX, compares favourably with a 3% increase in the overall labour market according to the human resources consulting firm Mercer.

But family offices don’t appear to be in the mood to reward their staff as much in 2019. The study found that family offices are projecting a median salary increase of 3% next year slightly behind the overall projection of 3.2% provided by WorldatWork.

FOX spoke to 156 family offices in the US for the research.