After attending a TPSU program last year held at Villanova University, a repeat attendee describes how what he learned at last year’s program helped him to convince his company to implement auto enrollment getting even the most elusive employees to join their 401k plan.
The administrator of the 250 employee company had been considering implementing auto-enrollment when he came to a TPSU program in 2015 conducted by Jania Stout of Fiduciary Plan Advisors at Hightower – the program reinforced everything he had been reading about so he decided to make a push for it at the next Executive Committee meeting. With the help of the rest of the HR staff and the plan advisor, they were able to convince the Committee – it certainly didn’t hurt that the EVP opened the meeting by saying he wanted every employee enrolled in the plan.
There were some objections because the company did not want to play big brother and did not want to seem like it was favoring high compensated employees but, overall, the Committee saw the benefits some of which were highlighted at the TPSU program. Though some employees remain elusive, most are participating in the company’s 401k plan now which also offers a stretch model and model risk based portfolios using ETFs with the “moderate” fund as the default.
Next on the agenda? Auto escalation.
Changing a company’s defined contribution (DC) plan like a 401k or 403b can take time. And having outside reinforcement not just from experts but also from peers can go a long way to making these changes. With so much happening in the DC world whether new regs or improvements like the Ideal Plan using automated features, the administrator attending his second TPSU program in two years plans to keep coming back. Look for a TPSU program coming near you with 70 scheduled for 2016 growing to almost 100 in 2017.
