Retirement Planning Tools Essential to Securing Financial Future
Retirement planning tools are essential resources for both individuals and employers, helping to navigate the complexities of preparing for financial security in retirement. These tools are designed to simplify the process, offering clear insights into savings goals, investment strategies, and potential outcomes. By utilizing retirement planning tools, individuals can gain a better understanding of their current financial situation, set realistic retirement goals, and make informed decisions on how to achieve them. For employers, providing these tools enhances the value of retirement benefits, boosting employee engagement and satisfaction.
Effective retirement planning tools include retirement calculators that estimate the savings needed to reach desired retirement income, 401(k) management platforms that offer insights into portfolio performance and suggest ways to optimize contributions, and financial wellness programs that provide personalized advice on budgeting, debt management, and investment strategies. These tools empower individuals to take control of their financial future, ensuring they are on the right path to a secure retirement.
At the conclusion of a TPSU program held at Rutgers University, Fred Barstein, CEO and founder of TPSU and 401KTV, interviewed Jason Gabrielli from HFM Investment Advisors. They discussed “Fiduciary RX,” a tool that quantifies the health of 401(k) plans by scoring them on various criteria, helping plan sponsors understand their current status and identify areas for improvement. Jason emphasized that Fiduciary RX offers a clear, numerical assessment of a plan’s health, making it easier to track progress and set goals.
Read the Full Transcript Here:
Fred Barstein:
Greetings. This is Fred Barstein, CEO and founder at TPSU and 401KTV. I am here at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey campus where we just completed a very successful TPSU program. I’m here with one of our lecturers, Jason Gabrielli?
Jason Gabrielli:
Jason Gabrielli.
Fred Barstein:
Got it. And okay if we ask you a few questions?
Jason Gabrielli:
Absolutely, Fred. That’s fine.
Fred Barstein:
Okay. So before we do, tell us a little bit about your firm and what your firm does.
Jason Gabrielli:
Sure. So HFM Investment Advisors, we’re a RIA trade fee only located a little bit south of here in New Jersey in Glassboro, right off of Roan University’s campus. And my role at HFM is two-fold. Like a lot of small advisory firms, I’m an advisor, so I work with clients, businesses, individuals, families, things like that. And then I also run a lot of the operations. So I manage our 401k team, our wealth management service teams, all that kind of stuff as well. Technology.
Fred Barstein:
So today you presented this, it’s called the Fiduciary RX.
Jason Gabrielli:
Fiduciary RX is cool.
Fred Barstein:
Can you tell our audience what it is and what’s the value to plan sponsors?
Jason Gabrielli:
So Fiduciary RX at its core is a way to quantify the health of your plan and track improvements, or I guess if you don’t make improvements, to track the other direction, mostly improvements, going the right direction and seeing how you’ve benefited the plan and improved your plan over time. And I think it’s important because we talk about plan health and we talk about do you have a “good plan” or “bad plan”? What does that really mean? How do you quantify that? And so what Fiduciary RX does-
Fred Barstein:
You answer questions?
Jason Gabrielli:
Yeah. So it basically starts with a questionnaire. We use it a lot with new clients. So somebody who’s new to us looking to get a second opinion or looking to just understand how’s our plan doing? We start with that questionnaire and it might be a couple dozen questions I think, ask you about kind where your plan sits. Yes, no answers. Do you have this, do that? How do you handle this? At the end of the day, we come up with a scorecard and it says, “Hey, this is where you stand.” And it’s usually out of 100, so it’d be 42, 46, 75, whatever it is. And from there it allows us to look under the hood and say, “Okay, well here’s some opportunities for improvement.” And that’s where we say, “Okay, with these couple improvements, we could go from a 42 to a 65.”
Fred Barstein:
Right.
Jason Gabrielli:
And then plan, “Well maybe we can’t do all that stuff this year, but we can go from a 42 to a 53 and then next year we’re going to do this, and the following year we’re going to do this.” Gives us a roadmap for improvement.
Fred Barstein:
Right. And so it’s just a way to quantify what a lot of advisors do, but it quantifies it.
Jason Gabrielli:
It quantifies. I’m a financial guy, Fred, so I like numbers.
Fred Barstein:
Right.
Jason Gabrielli:
I want a score. I like black and white. I want to understand exactly what kind of benefit are we making, rather than it be something that’s kind of, “I think we did a good job, we added some stuff.”
Fred Barstein:
Do you offer only clients or do you offer to outside of that, to plan sponsors?
Jason Gabrielli:
So two-fold. We use it for plan sponsors that are new that are looking to get that second opinion to see where their plan falls or where there’s some opportunities for improvement, and then we use it with existing clients to help track their progress and how we improved it.
Fred Barstein:
If somebody was interested in getting a scoring, how would they contact you?
Jason Gabrielli:
So there’s two ways. One, they can email us, [email protected], or of course they can go to our website, HFMadvisors.com and go to the retirement plans tab.
Fred Barstein:
It’s with advisors with an O not an E.
Jason Gabrielli:
Yeah, you noticed I was really sending that. Yes. ORS.
Fred Barstein:
So you’ve done a couple of TPSU as an adjunct lecturer. What’s the greatest value you think plan sponsors get from attending a TPSU program?
Jason Gabrielli:
Well, I know even for myself, when I go to a conference, any kind of conference, I get just as much from talking to the other people there that are in the same boat as me as I do from the lecturers and from the material. And I think here, it’s probably such a specific thing running a 401k plan, that meeting other people that do that and that are in that same boat that have it chopped on their desk or that all of a sudden it’s part of their role and being able to bounce ideas off of see what works, see what doesn’t work, get some new ideas, is pretty valuable. There’s some great information obviously in the material as well.
Fred Barstein:
Great. Well thanks for supporting TPSU, and thank you for watching 401KTV. Please stay tuned.
Jason Gabrielli:
Thanks, Fred.
