PLANSPONSOR - November/December 2017 - 16

Upfront
Putting
Money in
Employees'
Purses
OVER the
last
several
years,
financial
wellness programs have become
an evolving best practice for employer
retirement plans. The ability to provide a
robust program is becoming increasingly
crucial, in plan sponsors' eyes, but many
aspects of these programs such as which
provider should deliver them and how
should the content be presented are still
in question.
Jania Stout, practice leader, cofounder,
of Fiduciary Plan Advisors, says
the results of a 2017 PwC employee financial
wellness survey identified financial
wellness as " freedom from financial stress
and debt, and being prepared for emergencies. "
Stout says, " It is definitions such as
this, combined with a conversation I had
with a plan sponsor about the importance
of an emergency fund, that indicate the
shift in thinking about financial wellness. "
Plan sponsors have typically stressed
saving in the retirement plan, overlooking
the importance of urging participants
to also save in an emergency fund and
to craft an overall financial plan, Stout
says. " Many plan sponsors use automatic
enrollment, and they feel they've put
guardrails in place for participants-but
the reality is that people are still struggling
with money, " she notes.
Nathan Voris, managing director,
strategy, at Charles Schwab & Co. Inc.,
says the recent emphasis on financial
wellness is just an extension of traditional
messaging. " Schwab has been
offering financial wellness for years, but
now it is more focused and the scope has
been expanded. We know that automatic
enrollment works, and QDIAs [qualified
default investment alternatives] work, but
Schwab now thinks of participant education
more holistically. We don't need
enrollment meetings. We can have wellness
meetings. "
According to Stout, " The scope of
financial wellness has gotten larger. How
the industry integrates wellness content
between different providers and where
the fiduciary advice fits into this new
scenario is still a question. "
Of course, there is no set answer
that will work for all, Voris says. " We
have clients that have a chief wellness
officer in the mega-market space. They
hire single-line strategists who create
custom wellness solutions. They may
pick the best IRA [individual retirement
account] provider and the best student
loan provider-that's hard to do, but they
have the resources to do it. On the other
side of the spectrum, " he observes, " plan
sponsors just adopt a package solution. "
It is also important for plan sponsors
to understand what their recordkeeper
can provide. Voris continues, " We've had
clients who [once] said, 'I only want you
to talk about recordkeeping, and that's it.'
Today, we're talking with them about data.
16 PLANSPONSOR.com November-December 2017
Art by Elisa Macellari
We know a ton about participants: all the
census data we receive from plan sponsors,
call center communications, which
educational videos participants click on,
and what time they watched them. Plan
sponsors want us to tee up the data and
sort out the next steps based on what we
find, " he says.
Barbara Delaney, founder and principal
of StoneStreet Advisor Group LLC,
uses an online assessment tool with
participants to determine what they know
at the very beginning of the financial
wellness program. From the assessment
report, the adviser learns the group's
vulnerabilities and then addresses those
with the programming.
" The workshops or media applications
are continuous, " she says. " 'One
and done' is not effective with these
topics, which may include budgeting,
student loan debt and cash flow. " She is
able to measure outcomes by assessing
what actions participants take after the
education module, and that reporting
is able to help plan sponsors assess how
the program is resulting in action-and,
hopefully, lower stress-for participants.
-Judy Faust Hartnett
http://www.PLANSPONSOR.com
PLANSPONSOR - November/December 2017

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