At a TPSU program held in the Boston area at Stonehill College, an HR manager at a small bank relayed how she got a crash course in human behavior when she eliminated food at the company’s 401k enrollment meetings.
New to the company, the HR manager noticed that attendance at 401k enrollment meetings was very good so she decided to stop serving refreshments. Being logical, she figured that if people were serious about their retirement, they would come even without food. Not so much.
As part of TPSU’s interactive Session 4 where plan sponsors eat lunch and discuss what’s working and not working in their plans in smaller groups, the bank HR manager told her group that 401k enrollment meetings averaged 30-40 people with food plummeting to six with no food. And do you think it’s a coincidence that TPSU serves lunch over this part of the program where peer-to-peer networking is considered by attendees to be the most valuable session?
Lessons learned? Beyond making sure that food is served, companies have to make the 401k enrollment meetings entertaining and engaging. Telling workers that they should come to the meeting because they its good for them is like inviting 5-year-olds to a birthday party serving only broccoli.
And why not leverage the power of peer-to-peer? At another TPSU program, Adjunct Lecturer Joe DeNoyior told how a 20-year vet hijacked his enrollment meeting by getting on stage with his 401k account statement in hand telling his co-workers how he managed to save $500,000 on low wages by deferring early and often and was retiring at 59 years old. Is there anything Joe could have said that would have had a greater impact?
And why not have a peer-to-peer networking sessions as part of enrollment meetings where people get to find out what others are doing led by the plan advisory members? Might work better than trying to explain Monte Carlo simulations or stable value funds.
