PLANSPONSOR - June - July 2022 - 22

BEST PRACTICES | 2022 PLAN SPONSOR OF THE YEAR WINNERS
Corporate DC >$150mm-$250mm
Aunt Millie's Bakeries
Fort Wayne, Indiana
A
unt Millie's Bakeries has been baking
bread, buns and rolls for over 120
years. The family-owned company,
headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, operates
five bakeries across three Midwestern states. It
has both union employees, covered by 30 different
collective bargaining agreements, and nonunion
employees.
Eighty percent of employees are blue collar,
many working in the five production plants or
driving delivery trucks. The company has many
25-year and 30-year employees, says Judy BobilyaFeher,
the company's chief financial officer and
retirement committee chair-a 30-year employee
herself. Because people tend to stay so long, their
401(k) is often their largest retirement asset.
" Even though Aunt Millie's is family
owned, and we want to hold onto the family, and
caring, perspective that our mission statement
describes, we can't act like a small company, "
Bobilya-Feher says.
" Beginning in 2012, we attacked plan
says Brea Dantin,
design with gusto, "
bakery's
the
adviser, with ProCourse Fiduciary
Advisors. " Judy went to a provider conference
and came back so excited, thinking about what
the company could do for its employees. "
Bobilya-Feher shared the ideas with the
401(k) committee, which then debated how to
implement the changes. The group decided to
jump in by adding automatic enrollment to the
nonunion plan, at 3%, and see what happened.
" We saw minimal opt-out, " Bobilya-Feher says.
" We learned there are many tools that have been
put into employers' hands, and we're empowered
to take action to help our participants. "
The sponsor then auto-enrolled the union
plan at 3% and eventually raised both plans' rate
to 4%; it may boost it to 5% next year.
" Once the committee saw the nonunion
stats go through the roof, it was enthralled with
the good news and the feeling of truly affecting
the employees' lives, " Dantin says. " [The
company] now felt even more like family. The
22 PLANSPONSOR.COM June - July 2022
committee was putting employees on a path that
would make them more financially successful. "
The sponsor increased matching contributions
to the nonunion plan and negotiated with
the unions to provide both a weekly employer
contribution and an employer match to each
union group. " We want everybody to understand
we're working together on this, " says J.
Bohn Popp, executive vice president of quality
and brand strategy, and the fourth generation to
lead the business. " Our special ingredient is our
people. We want all our associates to have a good
nest egg. That personal component means a lot. "
Another change made was to lessen the
service requirement so part-timers could join
the plan. " Whether they're part-time or fulltime,
we need to embrace them; that's important
to us, regardless of their status, " Popp says.
Financial education has also been a top
priority, and the sponsor had to get creative to
reach employees in so many roles and locations.
Last year, it ran a campaign to urge participants
to review and update their beneficiary designations.
" Now that there are increasingly more
people in the plan, we needed to check that beneficiaries
were being identified, " Dantin says.
The sponsor produced floor stickers
for that purpose and distributed emails and
other notices. It gave out fortune cookies with
messages about protecting your beneficiary. " It
was buzzing around here and got a lot of attention, "
Bobilya-Feher recalls. Almost 28% more
beneficiary forms are now on file.
" It's more than building the plan design,
but also education in helping employees financially
prepare for retirement, " Bobilya-Feher
says. Before moving to limit the nonunion
plan's participants to one plan loan at a time,
the sponsor focused on financial education to
help employees build an emergency fund.
" Education is great, especially when you
see the light bulb turn on and you know you've
helped somebody on their financial path, "
Dantin says. -Kimberly Lankford
Finalists
ASM Research, an
Accenture Federal Services
Company
Fairfax, Virginia
Dawn Food Products
Jackson, Michigan
First Premier Bank and
Premier Bankcard
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Henderson Engineers, Inc.
Lenexa, Kansas
More on PLANSPONSOR.com/
awards/2022-plan-sponsor-year
Judy Bobilya-Feher,
Chief Financial Officer and
Retirement Committee Chair
" Our special
ingredient is
our people.
We want
all our associates
to
have a good
nest egg. "
http://www.PLANSPONSOR.com/awards/2022-plan-sponsor-year http://www.PLANSPONSOR.com/awards/2022-plan-sponsor-year http://www.PLANSPONSOR.COM
PLANSPONSOR - June - July 2022

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