Brief History of Edward Jones
The Edward D. Jones, sir. The firm was founded in the year 1922 by a person known as Edward Jones. It is an investment service type of industry with its headquarters located in St Louis, Missouri, in the United States. The company has positioned itself towards increasing the competitive marketplace as they establish themselves as specialists in providing advice on investment companies and also individual investors. The company has grown to have more than 14, 200.0 branches in fifty states. It is the company that has the highest number of brokerage services in the United States. Since it has many branches, every branch is designed to cater to the investors in a particular region. The total firm has at least 18,700.0 financial investors. These financial advisors usually take care of about 7.0 million customers or clients who are worth approximately $1.30 trillion. The company’s philosophy is that personal service to the client is its utmost importance. The way business is set in a way that allows the financial advisors to debate investment needs on one – by one method with clients. It is an aspect that helps to keep the client on track and also maintaining an excellent relationship between the client and service providers (Bathelt and (Maximilian 444-453). That aspect of maintaining a good relationship between client and service providers has enabled this firm to obtain more than 70.0% of the total market share. The firm investment philosophy has focused on the long- term quality investments which are aligned with achieving goals and also has risk tolerance.
Team Build Practices of Edward Jones
As the financial and investors advisors, there are those activities that are done by Edward Jones to make sure that there is effective team building. It has developed a collaborative culture, and the branch network supports developing a robust team. The following are network support practices that ensure Edward Jones has a secure team building.
The client service integrated with administrative assistance – Edward Jones helps clients in hiring a full – time branch office administrator (BOA) and bears the costs of his/ her benefits. The hired BOA assists investors in administration, the marketing, and servicing tasks, an aspect that help the client improve the experience. It is a scenario that allows employees to concentrate on offering advice to clients while optimizing their practice.
Collaboration – Once an employee is given an office, it automatically becomes part of a particular region whereby one gets an opportunity to interact with other financial advisors. These financial advisors in a specific region collaborate periodically through and exchange the business idea. They also help each other to work towards achieving the goals.
Professional Practice – Edward Jones empowers its employee and trainees to build on the practice they deserve. It plans for the growth strategy of its employees through refining business and offering a manageable number of clients.
The compensation – In Edward Jones, it is indicated that those who share work also share the reward. It is a directive that is reflected in the compensation package. Indeed, in the year 2014, Edward Jones was ranked high on the scheme known as Compensation study across production levels. It is an aspect which shows that the company encourages its employees to work as a team to achieve more.
Human Resource Theories in Edward Jones
The human resource of Edward Jones has the mission which focusses on nurturing talents, capabilities the culture of making a difference in the lives of clients. The core strategies of human relationships are to ensure that the firm has the capacity of
- Attracting, developing and also retaining the talents needs for today and the future
- Having leaders who are highly effective and ready for future responsibilities
- Anticipate as well as navigating the change appropriately.
- Being diverse and also being inclusive at all levels.
- Utilizing processes and resources at a very higher level of efficiency.
The human resource department of Edward Jones has the critical indicatives of including models such as staff and succession planning, conducting linked surveys, and also provide an array of management and develop experiences. All these activities are needed when it comes to tapping the talents of working as financial advisors. Working as a financial advisor indeed needs a person with a high level of professional specialties (Foltyn-Zarychta 103 -106). High professionalism provides a rich array of building customer loyalty and also developing an excellent reputation for the firm. The human resource department indeed acts as an ambassador of the company, and it must have the best qualifications, Wood and Chris 267-269). For the case of Edward Jones, the human resource department must meet some qualifications for them to be hired which includes
- An employee should hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree in the range of related disciplines. These disciplines are human resource management, psychology, communications, business management, and organizational development.
- An employee should hold either of PHR or SPHR certificate to show the level of competency.
- An employee should exhibit characteristics of capability in conducting challenging communications.
- An employee should show a high level of collaboration with others.
- An employee should show both robust written and verbal communication skills since HR involves a lot with interaction.
- An employee should exhibit a higher ability to solve the problem and also addressing the specific and profoundly intricate concerns.
Lastly, the human resource department of Edward Jones has other selected strategies that ensure that clients’ needs are served to satisfaction. Some of these strategies include
- The aspect of inclusion and diversity ensures that every person is eligible to work as long as requirements are met
- Associate relations which are an aspect that ensures all people who are operating within various departments are relating well
- The Benefits and profit-sharing which is a concern to all employees within the organization.
- The organizational consulting which is an integral part towards achieving threshold performance of the organization
- The senor leadership development an aspect that ensures that all employees are supervised, and they are working by client satisfaction
Management of Change in Edward Jones Company
In Edward Jones Company, some strategies are put across to deal with the management change. One of the most strategies which are in the process of being embraced is diversity. Recently, the company of Edward Jones is defying the impact on aging and also the shrinking of the workforce. As per now, their senior advisor is about 45 years old, and the industry average age is about 51 years old. Bearing in mind the nature of the business of Edward Jones, it can be seen that experience is needed and also an energetic workforce. Having an average of 51 in a company can be said that the company rate of executing duties together with flexibility may be in want. Therefore, it is an aspect that is calling for diversity to be embraced in terms of age. The younger workforce is needed to improve the rate of doing the job and also for the needs of flexibility (Chakrabarty et al. 612 -615). The younger workforce tends to be changed according to situations while the older workforce may take time to adjust n the changes. Other times, the older workforce is reluctant to change an aspect which might make the organization to lag.
When talking about diversity, the company is trying to get a young workforce since it believes that it has the capability of improving its services. Compared with their competitors such as Merrill Lynch, LPL, Financial, and Wells Fargo, Edward Jones is still doing the best despite having an average age of 51 years. The company is planning to have both young employees and old employees, which means that there will be organizational change. The change might involve laying off some employees or even having a change in top management. However, if the change will lead to the company performing much better, it will be embraced (Jensen 2772-2776). The prospects of the company are that having a combination of the experienced and energetic workforce can be the best tool for ensuring maximum client’s satisfaction.
Culture of the Edward Jones Company
Edward Jones can be defined as a special place to work, whereby the associates agree consistently that is among the best firms of building a career. It is a fact that for 19th time, this company has been named as the best company according to FORTUNE magazine. Worldwide, the firm was ranked fifth, and these results were based on the attitude of employees about the credibility of management, the overall job satisfaction from the clients, among other factors (Halstead et al. 257). Furthermore, the organization was ranked number three as the best workplace for women. The company has fully acknowledged women in the management and also executive positions. On the aspect of training individuals and groups about financial services, the company was ranked number 2 (Krause 32). The company has been honored to be the best training company for 16 consecutive years since the year 2001. Another working culture is that Edward Jones company was ranked the best workplace for millennials, and it as ranked as number 10. It can be noted that Edward companies have been assuming top positions when it comes to the working culture of different groups. The company has been observing issues of ethics and also corporate social responsibility, a reason which has made it to gain favor and trust by a higher number of clients.
Conclusion
As the financial service company, Edward Jones is seen to perform well since it is among leading companies in that sector. It noted that there are Edward Jones investments has focussed on specified factors for it to achieve greater height. First of all, the company can incorporate those practices which are bonding its employees together when employees stick together; it becomes easy for them to work towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization. Besides, the company has focused on improving its human resource department. Having a useful human resource makes the company have the best results since services as expected. Another aspect which has contributed to the shining of this company is the appropriate methods of dealing with change management.
In most cases, change management leads to conflicts within the organization. However, in the case of Edward Jones, they have designed change in a way that is easily integrated for organizational improvement. Lastly, the organization has developed the culture of being the best by creating a conducive environment of work. It is an aspect which has made them gain a good reputation and competitive advantage.