I work in financial planning, my team is made up of 7 people, one person who over sees the team and has clients of his own, 3 “senior planners” myself and one other, a “junior planner” who has some clients of his own but not many and also helps the senior clients, one assistant and one degree apprentice who functions in the same way as the assistant more or less. Neither the assistant or the apprentice are qualified to give financial advice but the assistant is working towards her exams. She has been with us for 2.5 years, the apprentice has just entered her 2nd year.
Yesterday at work it was requested I start getting the apprentice more involved with clients. So far she has done more admin based activities such as arranging meetings, typing up meeting notes (basically minutes), preparing the correct documents and putting together pre-meeting packs, this is also a lot of what the assistant does. Her client interactions have so far been minimal, she answers calls and will answer simple questions like when is my meeting or I didn’t get the last email can you resend it. She’s sat in on meetings with bigger clients but only observing really and this has been when we have had a team of advisors.
It has now been requested that she accompany us on client lunches, they think this will be beneficial for her development. However the assistant has only been doing this for about 6 months, there is no real benefit to them being at the meeting but as she is now preparing for exams it felt like the right choice. I personally don’t want to take her to client meetings. I think this shows preference to her over the assistant who had to wait much longer and work much harder to get this privilege. She also already has a degree and other experience.
I personally think this is favouritism, the girl is dating a member of another team who happens to be close friends with the other 2 senior planners (he’s 6 years older than her and a senior to her at work so I think the relationship it’s self is off putting but that’s an opinion and not professionally relevant). I’m also aware that she comes from a very well off family and her family are actually now on our target client list. She is at least 3 years away from being in a position to have any clients of her own (2 more of apprenticeship then she will still have to sit an exam to be able to give financial advice), I’d say probably more than that as the handing over of clients tends to be very gradual.
I know the other senior planners will jump at taking her on meetings but I don’t want to, any time where I feel having an assistant present would be beneficial I’d rather take the assistant who is more qualified and more experienced.
WIBU on this basis to not take her to any client meetings/lunches/dinners?