QOTW: Eligibility Changes

In the most recent annual survey report, we saw an increase in the number of employees eligible to participate in retirement plans with shorter service requirements, lower age requirements, and more employee groups eligible to participate. Last week we asked members if they have made changes to plan eligibility requirements, and if not, do they have plans to in the future. Sixteen percent said they did make changes in the last year. Of those that did not, many indicated they had made changes the previous year in response to the SECURE Act and/or they already have pretty liberal eligibility requirements. 

Comments include:

• All employees (including temporary) are already eligible to begin participating on first day of employment.
• All of our employees are eligible immediately upon hire, so no need to make changes due to SECURE, and we have no plans to make changes otherwise.
• no - only if the law requires us to.
• No changes made yet but currently under consideration is reducing the wait time for company match eligibility.
• No changes necessary. We have a liberal and broad eligibility. Everyone except leased employees can participate immediately.
• No changes planned. New hires are eligible to enter the plan and receive match after 30 days.  No part-time employees.
• No plans to change.  All employees are eligible except for temporary employees (i.e., interns and law clerks who typically work for a period of 6-9 months).
• No plans to change. Anyone over 18 can contribute immediately.
• No, we changed them a couple years ago and they're working well or our company needs.
• No, we do not have any plans to change eligibility requirements, nor has that come up for discussion.  We don't have service requirements, nor do we exclude employees based on full or part-time status, and the only age requirement we have is age 18 or older.
• No.  Our eligibility provisions are pretty liberal: age 18, 1 month of service, no hours requirement, immediate vesting.
• No.  We already have immediately eligibility and we allow part-timers in our plan.
• No. We have a profit sharing plan with two entry dates based on date of hire.  Must work 2 anniversary periods, 1000 hours in each, be employed on Dec 31 or last work day. Entry Jan - June --July entry and July thru Dec Jan entry.  Example:  Hired 02/05/2020 = entry date 07/01/2022 if hired 09/01/2020 entry date is 01/01/2023.
• Not at this time. If we looked at anything in our place of business it would be age requirements.
• Not eligibility but adding the auto enrollment features
• Our eligibility is open for all employees after completion of 3 months of service.
• We added a continuing eligibility with last day and 1000 hours requirements about two years ago.  I found the 1000 hours of service ambiguous as it did not include definition of types of hours to be included. I was found out that the definition should came from IRS and not to be elaborated in the plan.
• We already allow age 18+, new hires immediately eligible to participate because of safe harbor design.
• We already changed the requirements a few years ago.
• We already offer immediate eligibility with no age or hour requirements and have for years.
• We did have a scheduled hours requirement, but removed that provision as of 1/1/2020
• We had changed these previously.
• Yes. We will probably be changing the annual service requirement for the profit sharing contribution due to SECURE Act requirements.