PLANSPONSOR - June/July 2021 - 13

2021 PLAN SPONSOR OF THE YEAR WINNERS | BEST PRACTICES
Corporate 401(k) >$1b
Sony Corporation of America
New York, New York
S
ony Corporation of America's 401(k) plan
has everything a good 401(k) should. So
notes Sony Benefits Manager Judy Leung, at the
company's headquarters in New York City. She
points to the multiple types of savings accounts,
the automatic features and the white label
funds, which simplify investing; participants
also receive continuing education about saving
for retirement and investment advice.
" We have all the bells and whistles and
make it easy to participate and save in the plan.
I think this is why we have good participation
and deferral rates[-93.4% and 9.6%, respectively], "
she says.
The plan matches 100% of the first 3%
deferred and 50% of the next 3%. Employees
are automatically defaulted in at 6% and are
automatically escalated.
Pre-2012, Sony U.S. divisions had separate
plans, but Sony then merged them. Some of the
division plans offered after-tax savings accounts,
a feature retained in the plan today.
The company assesses participant reactions
to each initiative it implements for its 401(k).
Citing last May's educational campaign about
investing, Leung says, " We measured engagement
with the communications-open rates
for emails, attendance at webinars. We also
surveyed participants about what they felt about
the content and presenters and what actions they
were planning to take. Then we measured the
actions they actually took. "
According to Virginia Holden, executive
relationship management vice president at T.
Rowe Price Group, Sony has a deep desire to
analyze its data for what it can learn, then use
this to spark ideas. " They pay close attention to
what's actually happening with participants, "
she says. " They do it with overall plan metrics,
but what is unique to Sony is there's a dedicated
meeting with a team that handles webinars and
written and online communications. They make
sure that, with every campaign executed, they've
analyzed results. "
She says she associates three " i " s with the
company. For one, Sony is inquiring-when the
T. Rowe Price representative provides it with
data-driven analytics, Sony is eager to review
those with him and make them actionable, she
says. Sony is also an innovator. " It doesn't just
want to communicate with participants; it wants
to come up with 'delighters,' " Holden says. " It
has had two award-winning campaigns since
we've worked with it. " She recalls her first interaction
with Sony, in 2019, over one of them.
The company was then moving over to T. Rowe
Price as recordkeeper and was creating a conversion
education microsite, which it called " The
Amazing Voyage, " to elucidate the transition.
The company also has an innate desire to
improve-its products and itself, Holden says.
" Those three 'i's'-inquire, innovate, improve-
drive everything we do with the Sony plan. "
T. Rowe Price took Sony on a " product
road-map tour " of the various features and
services the recordkeeper could offer it, Holden
continues. " And we tried to align some of those
with participants' needs-student loan help
and financial wellness help, for example. "
Sony now provides T. Rowe Price's Visualize
Retirement education. " We were one of their
first clients to offer it to participants, " Leung
says. " Much of retirement education focuses on
numbers, but this focuses on whether participants
are ready to retire, emotionally. It covers
what retirement will look like, where participants
will live, whom they'll spend time with
and the activities they'll want to pursue. These
are things they should also be thinking about
because these will determine how much money
they'll need. The education answers the question,
'What are you saving for?' "
This year, however, in the wake of the
pandemic, " We're looking at the terminated
participant population and what our strategy
should be for these people, such as products
for addressing the drawdown of assets in retirement, "
Leung says. -Rebecca Moore
Judy Leung,
Benefits Manager
" We have
all the bells
and whistles
and make
it easy to
participate
and save
in the plan.
I think this
is why we
have good
participation
and deferral
rates[-93.4%
and 9.6%,
respectively]. "
Finalist
Hawaiian Airlines, Inc.
Honolulu, Hawaii
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