PLANSPONSOR - April/May 2018 - 20

strong-aided, too, by the fact that the
company counts attendance as paid work
time. Of course, those who had complained
about the scarcity of education attend, but
even workers who were non-savers now
contact Mueller or Medina to request a
personalized meeting.
" We've even had people attend meetings
who were stubborn and didn't think
it was something for them-once they
saw the plan broken out, they realized they
really had to do this, " Mueller says.
To keep meeting content relevant
and interesting, the company periodically
surveys participants, asking what educational
topics would benefit them most,
and notes which sessions produce the best
results. This drives attendance and ultimately
improves employee savings rates,
Mueller says.
Currently, employees must work at
the company for one year to be eligible to
enroll. After their first anniversary, they
then must wait until one of the semiannual
enrollment dates-in January and
July-to join and become vested.
The company matches 100% on
the first 3% of employee contributions,
and 50% on the next 2%. " So, if you can
make even a minimal contribution to get
it matched, that's you helping you and the
company collaborating with you, trying to
give you a better path, " Mueller says.
Because PolyQuest was concerned
about how some participants would react
to the plan changes, the company decided
not to add automatic enrollment or automatic
escalation at the time. But once the
plan was executed and the response was
positive, it decided auto-features might
do well after all. In the upcoming years,
Mueller hopes to employ a small autoescalation-1%
to 2% to start-and then
monitor the response.
" The fear was they wouldn't be open
to it and they would un-enroll, " Mueller
says. " But it's looking like a better option
going forward. It gives them a starting
point, and they can build from there. "
Meanwhile, the sponsor provides
other tools to aid plan participants in the
20 PLANSPONSOR.com April-May 2018
building: MassMutual offers step-by-step
goal-planning functions to help them
better assess the level of risk with the plan's
investments choices.
Plan Benchmarking
To keep current about such offerings and
industry trends, a goal for the plan itself
is benchmarking, Mueller says. Unlike
when she was unaware of the diverse plan
features and services available, she anticipates
benchmarking PolyQuest's plan
against other industry offerings and plans
in her region.
" Now that we have a better handle on
everything, we want to make sure we're
in the know about what the trends are,
what other companies are offering that's
successful, so we can stay on top of things
and stay competitive, " she says.
Despite the striking changes-and
results-what impressed Medina the most
was Mueller. Her attention to the plan's
details, to compliance and to her company's
employees stands out from other clients
the adviser has worked with.
" I was surprised at how much involvement
she had versus other plan sponsors, "
Medina says. " She was the one
who knew what was going on in the first
place, was able to get information on what
was working well with the plan, what she
wanted to see change. It's what helped us
with the plan design and ultimately helped
Corporate <$10mm Finalist
Negwer Materials, Inc. St. Louis, Missouri
The challenge for Newger Materials, Inc., a family-operated building supply company,
is understanding the needs of its diverse employee population. But thanks to good plan
design and education, the 401(k)'s participation rate is 95.6% and average deferral rate
is 7.4%. The sponsor provides immediate 100% vesting for participants, re-enrolls them to
6% annually if they have deferred less than that, and automatically escalates their contribution
1% yearly until 10% is reached. The company provides retirement planning across
several platforms. The owner has established an open-door policy to enable one-on-one
meetings with team members, plus Principal Financial Group, the plan's recordkeeper,
offers a custom 401(k) website and 800-number call center, along with holding mandatory
participant educational meetings. Retirement plan education and promotion of the
401(k) are key parts of the company culture.
Read the full finalist profile on plansponsor.com/PSOY2018.
us pick MassMutual as the provider. "
Today, Mueller continues to make
participant engagement the top priority.
Ensuring that educational resources are
understandable and paying close attention
to which workers require better education,
then providing it, are just some of the
duties she fulfills, Medina says.
" She spends a lot of time on-site, at
all locations, and [employees] feel very
comfortable going to her first with any
questions, " Medina adds. To further aid
the workers, Mueller is helping her firm
look into launching annual report cards-
personalized snapshots demonstrating
each participant's retirement readiness.
Rather than grading the person's financial
retirement goals, the tool would show him
how close he is to his goal and the improvement
a slight modification could make. The
card would give a unique, tailored assessment
of the participant's saving progress
without the stress, or time commitment, of
a one-on-one meeting.
" It's another way of making it pretty
clear what their current situation is and
how they can have an impact on changing
that, " she says.
Thinking back, Mueller sees how far
the plan has come since " we felt like we
didn't know enough about it " and took
action. Employees' impression of the plan
has almost completely reversed, she says. "
-Amanda Umpierrez

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PLANSPONSOR - April/May 2018

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