Financial Guidance for Plan Participants
Most employees understand that they probably have not made adequate preparations for their retirement. Therefore plan sponsors should not hesitate to engage employees in the lack of “retirement readiness” they face. Providing simple benchmarks, like accumulated savings requirements at designated ages in order meet retirement income goals, will help employees assess their situation and identify possible planning adjustments.
In the “Intuitive Sustained Engagement” model, developed by the National Association of Retirement Plan Participants (NARPP), the goal is to present human-centric materials that both engages plan participants and informs them about how their financial decisions impact them now and in the future.
In order to best effect plan participant actions, plan sponsors should provide information in personally comprehensible components, such as:
- “Where am I now” assessments
- “Next-best-step” analysis
- “People-like-me” comparisons
After surveying plan participants to gauge the types and methods of retirement plan guidance that participants are most likely to respond to, OpenPlan™ designs a specific educational program for each retirement plan. We provide guidance on how plan participants can use plan resources such as website features and other resources to maximize their “retirement readiness.”
Various methods, such as easily understood written materials along with web presentations and short videos are aimed at appealing to the typical multi-generational makeup of plan participants. The objective is to provide actionable guidance in any number of ways:
▪ Heighten participant awareness of retirement planning issues for employees of all ages.
▪ Provide basic investment concepts education (i.e. fund “style box” position and use of benchmarks for performance comparison).
▪ Provide insights into investment fund details available to participants, and their meaning.
▪ Provide a clear understanding of the “risk – reward” relationship in the investment funds available.
▪ Promote an understanding of the fundamental value of “asset allocation” and the various ways it is available in the retirement plan.
Our guidance programs are organized around “real life” situations intended to engage plan participants across a broad spectrum circumstances. Such as:
▪ Spending, Saving and Inflation
▪ Income Replacement Needs
▪ Social Security and Working after Retirement
▪ Student Debt and Saving for Retirement
▪ Longevity and Lifespan Calculator
▪ Healthcare Cost and Calculator
▪ Long Term Care
▪ Investing During Retirement
