“The advisory industry is increasingly shifting away from an individual producer mindset to that of a multi-advisor team,” said Kenton Shirk, associate director at Cerulli Associates.

“The industry’s largest practices and mega teams also typically serve affluent investors, which reinforces their propensity for teaming,” Shirk said. “The desired result is providing broader and deeper services to meet the more sophisticated needs of their high net worth clientele.”

He added: “Mega teams cite the ability to provide more services as the primary reason for teaming. By pooling resources, they are better equipped to specialize advisor and staff roles,” Shirk added. “Teaming offers an opportunity to develop specialized roles for both advisors and staff, which greatly enhances advisor growth opportunities and productivity levels.”

Besides boosting advisor productivity and growth, the topic of teaming also ties in with the issue of a perceived aging advisor workforce and industry concern over a potential talent shortage.

As Cerulli notes in its report, many firms have been testing training programs that offer more support to new advisors through mentoring, of which teaming is a key component.

In 2013, UBS scaled back its traditional advisor training program but rolled out a Wealth Planning Analyst program to build advisors “from the ground up” so they can engage with clients on any topic, as opposed to nurturing a specialist in one particular field.

“There’s clearly an increasing complexity in the things that clients have to deal with, so there’s a need for advisors to be able to consistently deliver more,” Nilesh Parikh, executive director, head of new financial advisors and wealth planning analysts at UBS, previously told Family Wealth Report.

Describing it as an apprenticeship model, Parikh said each individual adds value to multiple, existing advisors teams' books of business while learning how to be a wealth manager, and then transitioning onto a team as a financial advisor after the two years.

Cerulli anticipates that mergers of established advisors and the pairing of junior and senior advisors will accelerate in the coming years, particularly as gaining new clients and retaining them “requires specialized acumen.”

Crucially, clients too derive many benefits from the multi-advisor model, it added.

“Rookies, in particular, can establish a rapport with Millennial investors, approaching this cohort from a similar vantage point, and brandishing technology and social media,” Cerulli said. “Some advisor practices pair the rookie and senior advisor together in client meetings to convey the legitimacy of the rookie as a support advisor.”

The firm noted, however, that “knowledge transfer” is a crucial element in the pairing process and that veteran advisors sometimes fail to highlight the nuances of what made them successful. There are also “inherent risks,” such as the rookie expecting too much too soon, becoming impatient and then leaving.

“Emotional intelligence is an increasingly critical capability that young advisors need to learn, and established advisors cannot expect their protégés to 'just pick it up,'” Cerulli said.

Cerulli summarized that advisory teams can offer fertile training ground for next-generation talent - but that rookies "must be properly positioned for success." Practice management consulting is critical for advisors looking to build multi-advisor practices and pair younger advisors with those who are more experienced, it said.