PLANSPONSOR - February - March 2022 - 21

PARTICIPANTS SPECIAL ISSUE | COVER STORY
that saving for or paying off a child's education was reducing their
ability to save for retirement.
" Those are things it's important to bring up when talking
to individuals about why they're saving, " Workman says. " These
things might not be as relevant to other workers. "
MULTILINGUAL AND MULTIPLATFORM
Vaillancourt says another best practice is to focus on the continuity
of the experience. That might mean creating a full, separate
website or app in another language. Plan sponsors should ask
their recordkeeper and adviser about their multilingual offerings,
to see whether this is the approach they take.
Workman echoes that sentiment and says plan sponsors
should focus, in particular, on those moments of high engagement
with plan participants, such as onboarding or re-enrollment.
" Multilingual has to be multiplatform, " she says. Principal
recently launched a Spanish-language option for its mobile app to
complement its Hola Futura financial wellness platform and its
bilingual Principal RealStart onboarding platform.
Stan Milovancev, executive vice president at CBIZ Retirement
Plan Services in Cleveland, says employers can also capitalize on
the trend toward more asynchronous learning modules-and
away from static, live webinars-as they have individual modules,
translated into multiple languages. That is an easier lift, he says,
than providing real-time translation services for live events.
ADVANTAGES FOR EMPLOYERS
Offering workers access to their benefits in a language they understand
can also aid the broader organization-especially if it ultimately
lessens their financial stress, Hauptmann says. " Financially
secure employees miss work less and are less distracted and more
productive at work than employees who aren't financially secure. "
As plan sponsors expand their benefits into broader financial
wellness offerings, they also need to consider whether and how
such offerings might work for non-English-speaking participants.
Plan sponsors should try to coordinate with their recordkeeper,
adviser and consultants to make as many materials available
as possible in multiple languages, Hauptmann says.
" [Besides] transactional items, we offer translation support
for our financial wellness content and budgeting tools to provide
a larger opportunity for a broad segment of our client base to
receive the proper education and resources they need to help plan
for a secure financial future, " Vaillancourt says.
TCG regularly sends Spanish-speaking advisers to meet
with plan participants whose English is weak. But plan sponsors
ask for assistance with other languages, too, Hauptmann says.
" We have a school district in the Houston area with a high
Vietnamese [population], so we know we need to have people
available there who can speak that language[-for example, to
school staff and teachers], " he says. " We've also helped employers
communicate with participants in American Sign Language. "
In the latter case, TCG turned to video chats, even before the
pandemic made Zoom a household name, and tapped into the
ASL translators that their school district clients already employed.
" We'd coordinate with the districts to set up meetings at dates and
times when the translators were available, " Hauptmann says.
Of course, it is not logistically possible to translate every
plan document into every language or to have advisers who speak
every language that employees speak. Therefore, plan sponsors
must also consider how their providers would serve individuals
who rely on a less common language.
" It may not make sense to have a complete library or individual
resources in that language, " Workman says. " But they'd
want to make sure their recordkeeper can support them-
[maybe] through a contact center, or maybe they bring in a
partner to support those workers at certain times. "
Customer service representatives, acting as go-betweens,
can use their call center to access professional translators to
communicate with participants who need foreign-language help.
BUILDING AWARENESS
Whether employers are going all out with multilingual materials,
or simply providing access to interpreters via a call center-
or falling somewhere in between-a key to success is making
sure multilingual employees know such offerings exist and that
they feel comfortable using them.
Hauptmann notes that, often, in a large population of
workers who do not speak English well, there will be a handful
of individuals who serve as de facto leaders, keeping others
informed of benefits and serving as a liaison with management
or other employees. " We try to identify that go-to person and
engage them so they fully understand what we're offering and
can share that information with their co-workers, " he adds.
It is also important to make it as easy as possible for these
employees to access benefits or set up a time with an adviser.
Milovancev says some of his clients have had success using QR
codes-readable barcodes that would take employees directly to
multilingual offerings or to a calendar where they can make an
appointment with an interpreter.
" You don't have to read or speak English to understand how
that works, " he says. " That lets you skip ahead to get directly to
the content or to a calendar where you can book an appointment. "
Large employers may have internal resources already in place
to communicate with employee populations for whom English
is a second language. If the human resources department has
processes for multilingual communications, plan administrators
may be able to replicate those processes for retirement benefits.
" Many companies are already communicating with these
employees beyond the 401(k), " Milovancev says. " How are they
distributing information about health benefits or the company
holiday card to employees who don't speak English well? "
-Beth Braverman
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