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QOTW: Education

This week we asked members how often they provide retirement plan education to participants – is it a one and done at hire/eligibility, an annual education program, ad hoc, etc., and we also asked what their biggest challenge with plan education is. A plurality (40.0 percent) indicated they provide education throughout the year on an ad-hoc basis, and 35.7 percent stated they provide education in a planned comprehensive campaign. A frequently noted challenge is getting employees to participate in any type of planned education program. Comments on approaches and challenges follow.

  • As a manufacturing company, it is difficult to get in front of employees.  We do not want to take them away from production and many of them are not issued a work email address.
  • Attendance
  • By email, mail, postings in the office, webinars, and 401k day! It's working!
  • COVID really slowed the education but picking back up now.
  • Enhancing retirement plan provisions (DB-ifying the plan) so less education is needed.
  • Getting people to actually attend is like pulling teeth!
  • Getting the right people there.
  • Hard to get employees to participate.  Most never ask for this.
  • Mainly we offer the webinars through our plan admin. Sometimes we've done on-site in person short seminars.
  • Most plans we provide retirement plan education to employees at least twice a year.  If it is a small plan we go for once a year.
  • open to participation
  • Our demographics is mainly blue collar sometimes a challenge to get them engaged with the education.
  • Our plan advisor does this for all of their clients
  • Ours is a multi-employer plan (800+ employers), and each employer has its own retirement education approach. We publish newsletters and provide in-person as well as virtual workshops.
  • Provide education upon hire and again when they are enrolled in the plan.  Employees have access year around to education on the website and the company intranet.
  • Quarterly - vendor provides various educational topics/tools, and we as the administrator provide 1:1 opportunities, and market updates along with revisiting the plan details as there are new hires who may not be aware or there may be someone who is more confident in their decisions to actively participate in the plan
  • Quarterly education via our plan sponsor.
  • Quarterly targeted emails from our Recordkeeper, information upon hire, and employer developed annual presentation.
  • Ramping up to go virtual for all trainings was a challenge, but we have it down now.  The future will include more virtual training even if we get back to normal.
  • The participation rate was low and employees did not provide feedback.
  • We also answer questions as needed.
  • we are working toward having a comprehensive education plan next year focusing on retirement but more on financial wellness
  • We do not have a comprehensive retirement education program, but deliver education events on a sporadic basis (less than once a year).
  • We do retirement education on new hires and once a year during the fall.
  • We have planned education campaigns, quarterly newsletters, monthly webinars, periodic ad-hoc communications, and refreshed, detailed intranet pages on retirement and financial wellness programs
  • We have significantly increased our education in the past 5 years, but more needs to be done. As of now, our 3(21) investment advisors offer webinars monthly and one-on-one consultations with participants.
  • We provide it at eligibility, but they have access to it year round. We send notices twice a year to remind them of various 401k workshops available to them.
  • We provide meetings with TPA for employees to schedule appointments and send emails throughout the year.  Also put in our monthly newsletter throughout the year.  Planned campaigns throughout the year as well.
  • We try to do several education sessions each year.  We started our own 401k day that happens around the time that bonuses are paid and annual increases occur.  A challenge is getting participants to react to the sessions.  Sometimes they do and other times they do not.
  • With a decentralized workforce, we use multiple methods all throughout the year.  Intranet postings, targeted emails and mailers, and we include info in our Open Enrollment guide each year just to bring to the forefront as employees are thinking about ALL their benefits.