Prioritizing Retirement Planning Important for Senior Management
As a business owner or senior executive, you have many responsibilities to consider when it comes to managing your company. However, one important area that should not be overlooked is retirement planning for your employees.
A company-sponsored retirement plan, such as a 401(k), can provide significant benefits to both your employees and your business. Two reasons why senior management should invest time and resources in a retirement plan for their company include:
- Attracting and retaining top talent: A competitive retirement plan can help attract and retain high-quality employees, particularly in today’s job market where job seekers have more options than ever before. Offering a retirement plan shows your commitment to your employees’ long-term financial well-being and can be a key factor in their decision to join or stay with your company.
- Employee engagement: Retirement plans can also help increase employee engagement and morale by showing that you value their contributions and are invested in their future. Studies have shown that employees who participate in retirement plans are more likely to feel satisfied with their jobs and less likely to leave for other opportunities.
At the conclusion of The Plan Sponsor University (TPSU) Fiduciary Education Program held at The College of New Jersey, Founder and CEO Fred Barstein spoke with Plan Sponsor Gail Ruopp, a Legal Management Consultant. Gail acknowledged that investing in a retirement plan has a dual effect of promoting both employee retention and engagement.
Read the Full Transcript Here:
Fred Barstein:
Greetings. This is Fred Barstein, founder and CEO of TPSU and 401K TV and TRAU. Here we’ve just completed a TPSU program at the College of New Jersey, and I am here with Gail. Welcome, Gail.
Gail:
Thank you. Thank you.
Fred Barstein:
Okay if we ask you a few questions?
Gail:
Of course.
Fred Barstein:
Okay. So before we do, tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your company.
Gail:
Well, I am a legal management consultant. I work with law firms and I help them run their business so that they can practice law. Lawyers are very good at practicing law, but they really don’t have a lot of business management acumen.
Fred Barstein:
Well, I’m a lawyer, so I take offense at that, but that’s okay.
Gail:
Oh, do you really? Oh, well, then you’re special.
Fred Barstein:
I actually agree with you totally on that.
Gail:
Well, yeah, and the thing is, you’ve got to know what you know and know what you don’t know.
Fred Barstein:
Absolutely. And so one of the things you talked about today was, sometimes it’s a struggle to get senior management to care about and invest time and resources. How are you doing that? How are you convincing your clients that they should be focused on their retirement?
Gail:
Well, when I’m working with a client, a lot what has to do with the bottom line. And I have to make sure that if I’m advising you to do X, it’s going to cost you Y, and what’s that going to mean to you in the long run? So I think it’s important that if I can help them increase their bottom line, one major thing would be employee retention. If they could keep their employees, with the great resignation today, employees are leaving like crazy. So it would be important to keep your good employees. And to replace a good employee in today’s world runs about three months of that employee salary. And that is not inexpensive, and that is not a line item that you see. It’s your time. It may be a recruiter’s time, it may be billable hours, it may be many things. It may be more than three months. So it’s very important to find ways to keep your employees engaged and happy and working.
Fred Barstein:
Right. Do you see your clients using it as a recruiting tool as well?
Gail:
Not yet.
Fred Barstein:
Not yet?
Gail:
Not yet. But you know what? If there’s a good match, then I think that it would be a good recruiting tool.
Fred Barstein:
Right. So you work with a lot of companies and plan sponsors. How do you think they would benefit? Would they benefit from a TPSU program?
Gail:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think more people who do what I do need to know this, and they need to know it in a level of, and it may be only at the 30,000 foot view, but they also need to know who knows it. Again, you don’t know what you don’t know, so the better thing to do is to make sure that you know the people who can help you make this better and trust them. And that can be a problem with investment advisors historically. But in this environment, you have definitely trustworthy people, ethical people. Like Warren Buffet says, I need people who are energetic and competent and ethical. And if you don’t have ethics, I don’t care how confident and energetic you are.
Fred Barstein:
Well, thank you for your time, Gail.
Gail:
Oh, thank you.
Fred Barstein:
Thank you for your energy. And thank you for watching 401K TV. Please stay tuned.
