Helping you navigate the retirement plan maze
Red flags and warning signs
These are some red flags and warning signs that your retirement plan needs extra attention with your advisor.
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What does it mean if you have a low participation rate? What qualifies as "low" is a moving target and dependent on many factors. 70% might sound like a strong number. However, that's actually lower than the national average, but it's higher than some industry averages. You also want to take a look at which employees are opting out.
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High employee turnover rates can disrupt participation in the retirement plan, and can make it harder to maintain a healthy retirement plan. You will end up with balances in the plan that belong to people who are no longer there, making it difficult to track these former employees and their addresses to deliver notices. Small accounts can often mean higher costs to the plan, and you're now making decisions on behalf of people you no longer know. This can put a lot of strain on already overburdened HR departments.
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No HR office wants employees complaining about the retirement plan. But if you are experiencing this red flag, you might want to take a look at what your competitors are offering. Benchmarking studies can often highlight where you're falling short, or the types of things to communicate to your employees about your total compensation package.
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Are you still working through data issues from last year, trying to get numbers to tie back to each other? Your third-party administrator might have numbers that don't match the payroll system numbers or the recordkeeper's deposits. If so, this is a warning sign of underlying operations issues.
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Are you scaling up or scaling down? Both can create more plan administrative burden – unless you have someone looking out for this who can catch the warning signs in advance. Keep in mind that complex plan designs with lots of features can be cumbersome and expensive to administer, especially during high growth periods. Surprisingly, downsizing can result in greater administrative burden.
How we help
A Retirement Planologist® works with a company to help them build and manage their company's retirement plan for their employees.
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We consider available features and work with the plan's third party administrator to identify what might work better or be a better fit for the plan under a different design.
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We figure out how to help employees understand and appreciate the plan and then determine the course of action by conducting meetings onsite, group or 1:1, or through webinars or conference calls, and developing employee communication materials.
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We help you stay on task to meet required deadlines, educating you on your fiduciary responsibilities, making life easier when it comes to how the plan functions.
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We act as Investment Fiduciary (3(21)) to the Plan or Act as Discretionary Fiduciary (3(38)) to the Plan - sharing investment liability with decision makers.
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We help you manage vendors as your advocate and translator or help to replace them.
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We help coordinate and project manage the many moving parts for when a plan experiences a merger or acquisition, or moves to a new service provider.
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We help make sure you know what you’re paying for what services so you can determine if fees are reasonable, also helping educate you on what else is available in the marketplace.
Looking for more?
Courtenay Shipley, Chief Planologist, Retirement Planology®
“Without measured review and innovation, your retirement plan can suck up resources without adding value, and leadership can be blindsided. This is where we come in. We navigate the path forward.”