PLANSPONSOR - April/May 2019 - 38

Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc.
Corporate 401(k) >$100mm - $500mm
Plan at a Glance
TOTAL PLAN ASSETS/PARTICIPANTS: $124 million/960
PARTICIPATION RATE: 91%
AVERAGE DEFERRAL RATE: 8.9%
DEFAULT DEFERRAL RATE: 6%
DEFAULT INVESTMENT: Vanguard Target Retirement Fund Life
AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT/ESCALATION: Yes/No
EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION: 25% on 6%, plus 7.5% ESOP
contribution
participants at all stages of their careers are finally discussing
the inevitability of retirement, Fraser says. " Now, people probably
know their [retirement] score. "
The change started seven years ago when the company began
an educational campaign to promote the ESOP, a plan most of
the participants barely understood. SEH developed a retirement
calculator that could add up an employee's assets in that plan as
well as in the 401(k), allowing the individual to model various
time frames before retirement.
Fraser says the company wanted to accomplish more than
Chief Financial Officer James Fraser
S
hort Elliott Hendrickson Inc. (SEH) is a multi-disciplined,
single-source consulting services firm of engineers, architects,
planners and scientists, whose goal is to improve mobility, design
better places, engineer clean water and renew infrastructure.
The firm, which is 100% employee owned, also makes a
priority of providing great benefits-including its 401(k) plan and
employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The ESOP in particular
lets the firm engage its workers as owners, not just staff.
Saving for retirement was not always a company focus,
says James Fraser, chief financial officer (CFO), from company
headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. " Ten years ago, people
weren't talking about employee ownership; people weren't
talking about retirement. "
Today, 91% of employees participate in the retirement plan,
deferring an average 8.9% of earnings. More telling, perhaps,
38 PLANSPONSOR.com April - May 2019
Photo by James Rajotte
just investing its money in a plan; it wanted to change the
employees' mindset as to the control they had over their eventual
retirement. Soon, participants began to recognize the weight
they bore for the growth of their ESOP investment-a power they
lacked with their 401(k) assets.
" The advantage of contributions that go into the ESOP is
they are something participants can influence, " Fraser says. " It's
hard to influence a Vanguard Fund in your 401(k), but it's easier
for employees to influence the stock price of SEH. They feel a
little more connected with our ESOP. "
It was in 2012, during a benchmark review, that SEH
decided to add a fiduciary adviser to its plan. It chose intellicents,
the review's conductor, to supply it with investment advisory
services. Even though the plan was relying heavily on technology
to engage workers, who typically had technological backgrounds,
72% already were saving enough to replace 75% of their preretirement
income, intellicents found during mid-year reviews
in 2013 and 2014.
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