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Aussie Home Loans has responded after industry leaders identified training and retention as a critical issue.
The country's biggest brokerage has launched a free mentoring program for new recruits and the group's existing brokers. The program has been accredited by the MFAA.
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Aussie's national head of retail, Vaughan Fowler, told an aggregation leadership roundtable that recruiting and retaining high-quality brokers is Aussie's biggest issue.
"We are inundated with applications to become brokers with Aussie. Of every 100 applications we probably put on five, because we're selective about who we put on," Mr Fowler said at the event, which was hosted by The Adviser and Genworth.
"The challenge then is to take them from being very inexperienced to being successful, and the people who do drop out along the way do so because they didn't earn the income they expected they would. The ones that stay are the ones that do earn well.
"Our turnover of brokers is now less than 20 per cent and the way we've done that is to have a very structured program in place that takes them from new-to-industry to be in a position to be a success."
Finsure managing director John Kolenda said the Finsure data shows that the tipping point for whether a broker succeeds is around the six- to nine-month mark.
"One thing we do know is that if they survive nine months then it dramatically increases their chance of remaining in the industry, and if they get past 12 months then it's nearly guaranteed they will stay," he said.
Mortgage Choice chief information officer Neill Rose-Innes said the industry needs to make clear to new recruits that they won't make much money for the first 12 to 18 months.
"It's all about what investment you make in these people – training, education, support, compliance," he said.
"There's plenty of things aggregators can do to get new recruits, that's not the problem, it's more about how we make these people go on to be a success in the industry."
Astute Financial director Brad Wood said an increasing number of Astute brokerages are paying salaries to new recruits.
"That gives them time to find their feet, and our licensees understand that they have to invest back into their businesses and that includes paying wages, training and mentoring people," he said.
"The one-man broker running his business from the back of the car? Those days are long gone. It's no longer get your piece of paper, put up your shingle and hope you survive; it's got to be more than that."
[Related: New blood is everyone's issue]
The aggregation leadership roundtable is covered in greater detail in The Adviser's January magazine, out now.
