Employee education requires more than one method because no single approach can effectively reach an entire workforce. Employees have different schedules, learning styles, comfort levels, and ways of absorbing information. While some respond well to online tools, others benefit more from in-person guidance, job-site visits, or quick reminders delivered through email or text. Using multiple methods ensures that education is accessible, easy to understand, and more likely to create lasting impact—helping employees stay engaged and make confident, informed decisions.
After a TPSU Fiduciary Education Program at the University of Denver, Fred Barstein interviewed Adjunct Lecturer Matt Waters, a partner at Prime Capital. Matt explained that Prime Capital, headquartered in Kansas City with about 65 offices nationwide, serves as investment managers and fiduciaries to retirement plans, with Denver operating as one of their largest retirement-focused offices.
Matt emphasized that effective education must be tailored to each organization’s culture. Their approach includes monthly webinars, lunch-and-learns, early-morning job-site visits, and ongoing digital communication. He also highlighted the importance of employer support: when leadership actively backs education efforts, participation increases, deferrals rise, Roth usage grows, and employees feel more confident seeking guidance.
Read the Full Transcript Here:
Fred:
Greetings. This is Fred Barstein, CEO, and founder of GPSU, and 401KTV… here on the beautiful campus of the University of Denver, where we just completed a TPSU program. I’m here with one of our adjunct lecturers, Matt Waters, welcome, Matt!
Matt:
Thank you, Fred.
Fred:
Okay if we ask you a few questions?
Matt:
Yeah, great.
Fred:
Before we do, tell us a little bit about yourself and your firm.
Matt:
Yeah, I’m a partner, an advisor with Prime Capital… We’re headquartered in Kansas City. We have probably 65 offices at this point. Denver being one of them. Denver’s probably the largest, one of the largest retirement plans specific offices of our firm, and we specialize in being investment managers and fiduciaries to retirement plans all around the country.
Fred:
So I know that Prime has a lot of emphasis on education. What are the—how do you approach employee education? What are the resources that you have?
Matt:
Yeah, it’s a multifaceted approach, for sure. There’s no one magic bullet that solves education, so, I think the first step is oftentimes looking at the culture of the organization, and trying to figure out, how can we meet those employees where they’re at?
So that comes in the form of tools, like you’re asking about, it could be webinars, so we do monthly webinars on everything from budgeting 101 to, you know, what is will and the estate planning look like to investments and retirement planning.
Face to face education. So that’s luncheon learns. That’s going out on job sites, that’s putting boots and jeans and a hard hat on and walking around and meeting people at six in the morning before they’re going out for their shifts.
And everything in between — text messaging, emails — just trying to, again, meet the people where they’re at, depending on the culture and the organization.
Fred:
And some plan sponsors are more supportive and lean in, others. What does it mean for a plan sponsor that’s really supportive? What do they do to help you?
Matt:
That’s a great question. I think the most successful plan sponsors when it comes to education, really have executive sponsorship when it comes to that.
So what that looks like is getting the sea level, the boardroom, behind us reaching out proactively, going to the job sites, because it does require a commitment and maybe there are people coming off productivity for 20 or 30 minutes.
It is if they have an internet, do they want us to put our content up on their internet? Is it letting us rebrand our materials with their company logos? So it looks like it comes from them, but it really starts at the top. And if we can get that executive sponsorship, then the employees see a lot more.
Fred:
And so when somebody does lean in — a company — what’s the effect for the employees?
Matt:
You see it, I mean, almost in the following quarter, if we could really get going.
I would say definitely year over year, you start to see trends in the data, you start to see participation rates that will tick up by a percent or two, maybe every quarter. And gosh, in a year or two years, you could go from a 75% participation to 85%. We’ve seen that with clients of ours here in Denver.
You could see it in the deferral percentages that people are putting away, the usage of Roth, if they’re offering that. And then even we see it on the outreach that we get from employees. So a lot of times, they don’t know who to call — maybe just go to the record keeper. If we’re doing our education in the right way, we get phone calls from folks because they know who to go to.
Fred:
And so final question — why should a plan sponsor attend a TPSU program? What do they get out of it?
Matt:
Oh, man, well, first of all, they get to hear from their peers. I think it’s a great kind of foundation for them to come meet other companies, other plan sponsors that are similar size, similar employee count, asset count, whatever it is, talk about what’s working well for them, not working well from them for them.
The other thing that we’ve heard is that it gives them an excuse to get out of the office to come to education, and it’s not like a weekend or they have to travel somewhere. They get to come spend six, seven hours to focus on this one aspect of their job that oftentimes is only a portion of what they’re actually doing anyways.
So I think it’s it’s been a really great method to get that focus for them.
Fred:
Great. Well, thanks for your support of TPSU and being an Adjunct Lecturer.
Matt:
Yeah.
Fred:
And thank you for watching 401k TV.
