Sponsoring a 401(k) plan offers your employees a valuable benefit: It’s a convenient way to save for the future. A good retirement plan also offers you, the plan sponsor, an effective way to attract and retain employees.
In addition to helping employees save for retirement, increasing plan participation can lead to:
Encourage more employees to participate in your plan with these suggestions. Your financial professional can help you implement them.
With automatic enrollment, employees must actively choose not to participate. Automatic enrollment can dramatically increase plan participation, even among lower earning employees. If certain rules are met, automatic enrollment can also reduce your plan’s testing obligations and limit your fiduciary liability. While automatic enrollment increases plan participation, it may also impact your costs due to increased matching contributions. A provision of SECURE 2.0 Act will require most new plans to automatically enroll participants beginning in 2025. Exemptions apply, including small businesses (10 or fewer employees), new businesses (less than 3 years old) and plans existing before December 30, 2022. For more information about automatic enrollment, refer to this article about plan features.
Providing matching contributions — or increasing your existing match — gives employees a strong incentive to participate in your plan.
Loans and hardship withdrawals allow your participants access to their money for important financial needs. Such features may attract younger workers to your plan.
Ask your plan’s financial professional to give presentations to your employees on saving for retirement. Encourage meeting attendance by providing lunch or snacks. Your financial professional can suggest a number of topics.
He or she can also provide valuable educational materials. Make it easy for participants to find the literature by displaying it in common areas (like the lunchroom) or by placing it in employee in-boxes.
Educational materials available in English and Spanish include:
- Reasons to consider increasing your contributions English Spanish
- Roth vs. pretax contributions English Spanish
- The value of saving over time English Spanish
- Understand market volatility English Spanish
- One fund. Many benefits. (Target date funds) English Spanish
It’s a good idea to remind employees that the participant website provides a wide variety of educational content, in addition to account access. Employees will find learning tools and interactive calculators that offer personalized results, such as estimating how much users need to save and whether their projected savings will get them to their goal.
Now that you’ve made enrollment easier and more attractive, show your participants the importance of setting realistic goals and how to act on them.
After logging in to the participant website, participants will be able to see how much they might need to save and whether their current plans are on track. Send our Managing your retirement plan account single sheet in a company-wide email to help participants get online. A Spanish version is also available.
Another approach is to ask your plan’s financial professional to order our financial checkup brochure. The brochure is designed to help participants evaluate whether they’re on track to reach their retirement savings goals.
Suggest that participants use some (or all) of a yearly raise to increase their monthly deferrals. Some plans even allow employees to designate annual deferral increases in advance.
Contribution limits have been steadily increasing over the past few years. In addition, participants age 50 or older can take advantage of even higher limits thanks to catch-up contributions. You’ll find current limits in this article, along with customizable letters you can send employees to keep them informed.
Listen to why some employees aren’t saving and then find ways to address their concerns. One idea: Talk to employees who are saving and find out what strategies they use to save more. Then share those ideas with the larger group.
Our digital participant engagement program is designed to help participants take control of their financial future with easy-to-understand action plans and targeted emails — at no additional cost to you.
To simplify the retirement planning process and add value to your plan, we’ve integrated ICanRetire — which can also be viewed in Spanish — into the participant website.
Access ICanRetire.com from anywhere to check it out for yourself.
Use plan reports and the Data Library to view participation statistics, balances and asset allocations. The information will enable you to evaluate participant behaviors in your plan and help employees improve their knowledge and practices.
To access your plan reports online, log in to the Plan Service Center and click on Reports to view the Data Library and plan reports.