For many employees, understanding a 401(k) starts with a basic question: How does this actually work?
It’s a question John Poole, Director of Participant Engagement at Prime Capital Retirement, hears often when talking directly with employees.
Following a recent TPSU program at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, Fred Barstein, founder and CEO of 401kTV and TPSU, spoke with Poole about what meaningful participant engagement looks like and why meeting employees where they are matters.
For Poole, that can mean a boardroom, a worksite, or education delivered in English or Spanish. The goal is the same: explain retirement benefits in terms employees can understand and act on.
Some participants are surprised to learn how an employer match works, while others may be unfamiliar with the 401(k) system altogether. But once employees understand the benefit, Poole says, “you see that proverbial light bulb go off in their head.”
Those conversations can also lead to bigger questions. When participants begin asking about beneficiaries or how their savings can support their families, retirement education starts to connect with broader financial planning.
Plan sponsor education plays a role, too. What sponsors learn can be brought back to the workplace, helping them better educate employees and engage senior management.
For Poole, meaningful participant engagement starts by meeting employees where they are and helping them better understand the benefits they already have.
Read the Full Transcript Here:
Fred Barstein: Greetings. This is Fred Barstein, CEO and founder of 401kTV and TPSU. We just completed a program here in San Marcos at Texas State, right in between San Antonio and Austin.
I’m here with one of the preeminent professionals at Prime Capital Retirement, John Poole. Welcome, John.
John Poole: Thank you, Fred. Pleasure to be here.
Fred Barstein: Okay if I ask you a few questions?
John Poole: Absolutely.
Fred Barstein: Okay. Before we do, tell us a little bit about Prime and your role there.
John Poole: Right. Well, Prime makes a real effort to engage people where they are. So, visiting plan sponsors, education meetings, enrollment meetings, one-on-ones, group meetings.
As Director of Participant Engagement, I can see that we really take this to heart. We want to meet the employees and the plan participants where they are, wherever they are, whether it’s in a boardroom or on an oil rig in the heat, like we have today in Texas, or whether it’s a more temperate climate.
Whatever that looks like to the participant, we want to be there for them, whether we’re doing it in English or in Spanish, actually.
Fred Barstein: Or German.
John Poole: Or German.
Fred Barstein: So, the first question I have is, what’s the most common question you get from participants when you’re meeting with them?
John Poole: You know, there’s two. And there’s one that I get more often than not: “Well, how does this actually work? Wait, there’s a match? How does this…?”
They’ll ask a question that’s kind of hovering around, “It’s almost too good to be true.”
And so, once we explain it to them briefly, “Hey, this is how the 401(k) works. This is a plan, part of your overall benefits package. It’s there for you, and the IRS sets the guidelines. So it’s a real program.”
Then you can talk about employer match, whatever, if you go from there.
Now, I said that there’s another one. So, when I’m doing the Spanish-speaking meetings, the 401(k) doesn’t exist in Latin America. There’s actually not even an insurance industry in Latin America. That’s another story.
But the 401(k) plan, the question I get when I’m doing my Spanish-speaking meetings invariably is, “Is this a legitimate program?”
Fred Barstein: Right. They think the employer’s going to steal their money.
John Poole: Right. It sounds too good to be true. And I’ll say, “No, no. There are laws and regulations. There are structures in place. This is an actual program.”
And they say, “Well, everybody does this, right?”
I say, “Everybody should do this.”
Fred Barstein: Right. Yeah, that’s good. So what’s the best question you ever got?
John Poole: I think the best question that I get is when people ask me about the 401(k) and how they can make it fit what they want to do, whether that’s, “Can I put my wife or my husband as my beneficiary? I have kids. Can I put them as a beneficiary?”
Because they want to take care of their families.
They view it as a tool to not just take care of them, not just their money, but they want to carry it on to another generation.
When I get questions of making it look like more of real financial planning, I think, “You know what? This is somebody who’s been waiting for an opportunity to not just save money for themselves and grow it, but really take care of that next generation.”
Makes me feel great.
Fred Barstein: Right. And most of these people don’t have an advisor outside of the plan.
John Poole: No, they don’t. And when we go see them and we explain this tool that they have, this benefit that they already have, in terms that they can understand and then take action on, you see that proverbial light bulb go off in their head. It’s interesting.
Fred Barstein: Final question. Why should a plan sponsor attend a TPSU? What’s the value for them?
John Poole: This is the easiest question I’ve been asked all day, all week, because if I’m the Director of Participant Engagement and I have a real value, the firm values education and how we can educate a plan sponsor.
When a plan sponsor representative comes here, they’re learning the tools to better educate not just themselves, but they can carry that to the participants and employees.
Then they can disseminate that information in their workforce, and they’re multiplying whatever they learn here at TPSU, and they can carry that to their workplace.
And how many people is it going to affect at that point?
It also engages senior management, why they should care. If their employees care about something, senior management should take that as a cue to really pay more attention to it and enhance it and to keep their fingers on the pulse of what’s happening with their plan.
Well, they learn those tools here.
Fred Barstein: Right. Great. Well, thanks for your time, John.
John Poole: My pleasure.
Fred Barstein: Thank you for all you do. I know it’s really work that you’re passionate about, and it’s really, really well needed.
And thank you for watching 401kTV. Please stay tuned.
