PLANSPONSOR - September/October 2024 - 18

CONFERENCE COVERAGE
team is addressing the systemic barriers
workers face to retirement saving. The
union's employees work, on average, 114 to
117 hours a month and are mostly people
of color, first-generation immigrants and
non-English-speaking caregivers. To get
them saving early, Naidoo said, the group's
plan automatically enrolls both full- and
part-timers and provides 100% immediate
vesting after six months of service.
SEIU
also
recently
in eight
introduced
in-service distribution options, allowing for
short-term spending needs, and provides
retirement materials
languages
and via five translated participant portals.
" We get only a certain amount of
from left: Lisa Drake, retirement plan consultant, SageView Advisory Group; Pam Hess, DCIIA
Retirement Research Center; Beth A. Pattillo, Leidos Inc.; and Sal Naidoo, SEIU 775 Benefits Group.
The DOL will educate sponsors and
participants on using the database, once
complete, she said, adding that the agency's
challenge, meantime, is having no
central data source to pull from. Since
plan sponsors and administrators already
report much of the missing participant
information to the government, Gomez
said, the DOL is working with the Treasury,
the IRS and the Social Security
Administration to find a way to share
some of that information. " That hasn't
gone as well as we had hoped, and things
take longer than sometimes you [had]
hoped. " The DOL additionally issued an
information collection request in April,
asking plan administrators to voluntarily
turn over the needed information.
Concerning the passage of the Retirement
Security Rule in April (as of press
time, stayed in court), which clarified for
sponsors and individuals how fiduciary
obligations under the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act apply to investment
professionals dealing with retirement-related
investments, a main takeaway
for sponsors, Gomez said, is that they
are considered " retirement investors. "
If a professional is giving investment
advice to a retirement investor, that advice
must be in the best interest of the investor,
not the provider, she said. -Remy Samuels
18 PLANSPONSOR.COM September - October 2024
Equity in
Retirement Plans
PLAN SPONSORS with a diverse workforce
have an opportunity to offer innovative
benefits that can address equity
issues-including the retirement wealth
gap and access to financial wellness solutions-across
race and gender through
their plans, said panelists for the " Equity
in Retirement Benefits " session. A key
element all mentioned was knowing your
participant pool and having the pertinent
information to address their varied needs.
Pam Hess, executive director of the
Defined Contribution Institutional Investment
Association Retirement Research
Center, cited a dataset it had recently
created with the Aspen Institute Financial
Security Program and Morningstar Retirement
that, controlling for salary and tenure,
revealed sizable savings gaps. " When you
look at a 55-year-old Black woman vs. a
white man [also 55], the Black woman has
[just] 36 cents of the dollar saved, " she said.
Sal Naidoo, deputy managing director
at SEIU 775 Benefits Group, which
provides retirement benefits to home care
workers in Washington state, said his
information from our recordkeeper, " he
said. SEIU is conducting a demographic
survey, asking participants to voluntarily
provide information such as whether they
are LGBTQ+ to better convey their needs.
Beth A. Pattillo, director, retirement
and financial wellness programs at Leidos
Inc.-a defense, aviation, information technology
and biomedical research company-
said her plan is on a " journey of data collection. "
Despite its highly educated and wellcompensated
staff, Pattillo said, Leidos
found, through a survey, that workers were
financially stressed and would be unable
to afford a $400 emergency. The data also
revealed that, while the overall employee
contribution rate was 11.2%, younger Black
and Hispanic workers deferred only 3% to
5%, on average.
The plan is considering offering
automatic enrollment and giving nonelective
contributions to those earning under
$90,000 a year. " Much of this is about
education and data ... how we can meet
people where they're at, " Pattillo said.
Other strategies, she said, include
improving the tone of plan communications.
Repeatedly telling workers they are
deferring too little to meet the match can
make them feel inadequate, she said; better
to also point out the breadth of the company's
benefits offerings, including the plan.
Additionally, Leidos has a modified
loan repayment offering,
student
leverages
an after-tax option for building emergency
savings and is exploring retirement
income solutions. -Remy Samuels

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