Why Employee Engagement and Financial Wellness Are Key for Advisors

Why Employee Engagement and Financial Wellness Are Key for Advisors

Advisors are now expected to go beyond just focusing on fees, funds, and fiduciary duties.  To stand out, they must also prioritize employee engagement and financial wellness education.  When employees understand and feel connected to their retirement benefits, they’re more likely to participate and make informed decisions.  Advisors who provide clear communication and educational resources help plan sponsors achieve better results and improve retirement readiness.  Financial wellness is also becoming crucial, as employees face more financial stress. Advisors who offer financial education, like budgeting tips and retirement strategies, help employees make better financial choices.

Fred Barstein, CEO and founder of TPSU, TRAU, and 401kTV, spoke with Shir McGettigan from Hub Retirement Plan and Wealth.  Shir shared that their main focus is improving employee engagement.  While compliance and fiduciary duties are important, Shir emphasized that improving participant outcomes is the real goal.  More plan sponsors are now seeking advisors who offer not just traditional services, but also employee engagement and financial wellness education.  This shift gives firms like Shir’s a competitive edge, as they offer a more holistic approach to retirement planning that benefits both plan sponsors and employees.

Read the Full Transcript Here:

Fred Barstein:

Greetings. This is Fred Barstein, CEO and founder of TPSU, TRAU, and 401kTV. Just completed a program here at Nova Southeastern University. I’m here with our adjunct lecturer, Shir McGettigan from Hub Retirement Plan and Wealth in South Florida, Retirement Private Wealth, sorry, in South Florida. So welcome Shir.

Shir McGettigan:

Thanks for having me today. It was a great event.

Fred Barstein:

Okay if we ask you a few questions?

Shir McGettigan:

Yes.

Fred Barstein:

Very good. So just tell us a little bit about yourself and your organization.

Shir McGettigan:

Yeah, so our biggest passion is to focus on the employee engagement. We are investment fiduciaries and it’s really important to us to keep our plans and compliance and to monitor the plan and have our quarterly investment review meetings and make sure that we’re taking the meeting minutes and keeping our due diligence file. But what we care and what we’re most passionate about at the end of the day is improving participant outcomes.

Fred Barstein:

The outcome. So that’s one of the questions I want to ask you. We’re starting to see it. Are you starting to see it’s not just nice to have that plan, sponsors are now requiring that advisors beyond fees, funds and fiduciary. What are you seeing out in the market?

Shir McGettigan:

Yep. So really important that you’re focusing on the fees, funds, fiduciary, as you mentioned. But something that most plan sponsors are looking for now is very aligned with what we’re most passionate about, which is really the employee engagement and education. Financial wellness has become such an important part of the benefits package and employees are saying they need it and they want it, and employers are looking for the advisors that are offering that.

Fred Barstein:

Right, to do it. And do you think it gives you an advantage when you’re talking to a potential client on that?

Shir McGettigan:

Yeah, absolutely. We are retirement plan specialists, as we’ve discussed. I am a CKP, certified 401k professional, and we can help monitor the plan’s success. The plan can only really be successful if you can improve the outcome of the employees. And while we’re 401k specialists, we’re also financial advisors and planners. So we can marry both those parts of what a wealth manager and advisor does to really improve the participant engagement and have employees successfully retire. So that’s something that we found employers are looking for and is a competitive advantage for us as advisors that we’re offering both of those areas.

Fred Barstein:

So final question. Why should a plan sponsor attend a TPSU program? I know you’ve done a lot of them now.

Shir McGettigan:

Yes. There’s a lot of amazing specialists that you can get a lot of great information from and learn from. I think the best part about TPSU though is being able to speak to your peers, being in a room full of people that have some of the same problems that you might have within their organizations. So you can share ideas, talk about what’s working, what’s not working. I think the lunch breakout where we break out into smaller groups where people can just share how they can improve the outcome for themselves and their employees is just really great. Everyone leaves here always wanting to come back, sending someone else from the organization.

Fred Barstein:

Great. Well, thank you. Thanks for being an adjunct lecturer. And thanks for watching for 401kTV. Please stay tuned.

Shir McGettigan:

Thanks for having me.

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