Administration June 21, 2021

PSNC 2021: What to Expect From Provider Relationships

Industry experts discussed how to work with providers to ensure success for your plan.

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The first day of the 2021 virtual PLANSPONSOR National Conference (PSNC) featured experts who reviewed recordkeeper relationships with plan sponsors, plan advisers and third-party administrators (TPAs) and discussed how providers contribute to the overall success of the plan.

Starting off the panel, Rachelle Moody, total rewards manager of Fugro Holdings Inc. and a finalist for the 2021 PLANSPONSOR Plan Sponsor of the Year awards, discussed her experience collaborating with recordkeepers and advisers.

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“I prefer to work with both as a true partnership,” she said. “I lean on their ability and bounce ideas off of them and look to them to provide expert knowledge where I may not be looking.”

She said she thinks the most valuable thing a recordkeeper can offer is a combination of products and service knowledge, along with interpersonal skills. “I want to be able to have a conversation just back and forth, and, while I don’t get too involved in asking about families, I want to create that relationship with them,” she explained.

Other important qualities include being reliable, trustworthy, education-oriented and proactive. Understanding the Fugro product and services is key, because when a provider knows its client, it will also recognize its workers and the specific situations that could benefit them, Moody said.

“Not only do you know what type of business we are, but the employees that we hire,” she said. “When you know that, it gives you a better focus on what these employees do and what makes sense for them and their families.”

Stephen Popper, managing director at SageView Advisory Group, said valued recordkeepers will exhaust ideas and options with plan sponsors and other providers. Communicating effectively is another appreciated trait, including knowing if or when a particular staff member is out of the office or unavailable. “You would be surprised at how many recordkeepers don’t let us know when they’ll be out,” Popper said.

It’s also important for recordkeepers to match the right staff member with a client, added Jason Chepenik, senior vice president of retirement and wealth at OneDigital.

“It does not matter how many assets you have—you have to match up with the right person or immediately you will figure out that it doesn’t work,” he said. “That can impact the relationship.”

Chepenik said it’s important to take the time to find a provider that will fit with a plan sponsor, rather than rushing to hire one. 

Popper touched on the importance of owning up to mistakes, especially if there is an upset participant or employee. For example, in the case of a miscommunication, vendors are expected to be upfront about an error and work with the plan sponsor, adviser and any third-party group to avoid another occurrence, Popper said.

“What I value is when a leadership team can recognize that it made a mistake and is owning it,” he said. “I want to look at a vendor partner who owns that and tries to work through the mess to resolve it.”

Chepenik said he values vendors who go through multiple solution scenarios rather than just one. “My favorite ones are ones that brainstorm and work together to find four or five different solutions,” he added.

As a benefits manager, Moody warned that while mistakes are not a dealbreaker when it comes to working with a recordkeeper, it’s best to keep them to a minimum. “If it’s a recurring issue, that’s not going to be good. I haven’t had the experience where I’ve had the same mistake repeated over and over again, but if there comes a new mistake, those should be far and few between,” she said.

The panel discussed other hot topics and trends in the industry, including consolidation. If a recordkeeper has been acquired or is in the process of being acquired, Moody underscored the importance of speaking with the vendor and asking questions about how the merger could potentially impact the plan. She urged employers to ask: Why is there a need for consolidation? Does the acquiring firm offer a participant website? How will the new investment options be chosen? How will the new recordkeeper partner with our adviser? Does it generate revenue on its investment offerings? What does it do to prevent data breaches in cyberattacks?

The experts also touched on cybersecurity and the risk of cyberattacks , especially as most workforces switched to remote work environments in 2020 and with more litigation turning up on cybersecurity.

Similarly to the topic of consolidation, experts recommended that plan sponsors should ask questions.

“It’s up to us to know what’s happening,” said Chepenik. “It can no longer be ‘I’m assuming my vendor is doing this.’ You have to document that it’s happening.”

Benefits June 21, 2021

Plan Progress: Building an Effective Financial Wellness Program

The best programs include financial coaching, including one-on-one sessions, and are appealing to employees, experts say.

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More plan sponsors have been implementing financial wellness programs to make sure their employees are financially, as well as physically and emotionally, healthy. These programs take a participant’s full financial picture into consideration—not just their retirement savings—which means plan sponsors looking to build such a strategy need to consider several elements.

During PLANSPONSOR’s latest Plan Progress webinar, “Building an Effective Financial Wellness Program,” Kelli Send, senior vice president of Francis Investment Counsel, said a program should include more than just budgeting, education and action items.

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“To really drive change, you need to provide a coaching atmosphere,” Send said, noting that she attained a master’s in adult education and has studied how adults learn, but has yet to find a group workshop that fully incorporates a coaching atmosphere and that drives a lot of change.

Sponsors need to realize that financial wellness programs should help their workers first figure out their financial priorities, Send said. “Even for young Millennials, money is personal,” she said.

Sponsors can solve for this gaping need in financial wellness programs by giving their workers the opportunity to have a “person-to-person relationship with a money coach,” Send said.

Francis Investment Counsel, for instance, has a staff of five financial planners that meet participants at their offices or workplaces to help guide them through the steps, Send said.

“The human touch is important,” she said. “The second piece of that is the human is going to need to be trusted.”

Sponsors need to ensure that the financial wellness provider or coach doesn’t try to sell participants products on the side, Send said. They also should try to include incentives and gamification—the application of game-playing elements such as scoring—in their programs, such as by give participants points to keep their momentum going, she said.

Bettencourt recalled how, 25 years ago, the convergence of health and wellness was starting to happen. She said she thinks that despite years of discussion, the needle hasn’t moved much on that. “It still feels like it is in its infancy,” she said.

Getting Workers’ Buy-In

Companies can raise awareness of their financial wellness programs by putting up posters, holding classes and hosting health fairs on financial wellness, said April Bettencourt, global employee benefits manager at VSP Global. “That is where VSP started,” she said, calling this “level one.”

“Level two” is hosting lifestyle events with gamification elements.

“Level three” is “building a culture around wellness,” Bettencourt said. This can be done by setting up a toll-free phone number employees can call for advice, scheduling classes on financial wellness, gamifying the whole program and then “building it into the culture,” Bettencourt said.

If this sounds overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be; there is no need for a company to start at level three or to fast-track any of this, Bettencourt said. But, “you want to start somewhere, which is better than nowhere,” she added.

When Francis Investment Counsel starts a financial wellness program for a client, it brings in financial coaches and offers one-on-ones with them to a company’s workforce, during company time and at no charge to the employee, Send said. “No matter their age, employees respond really well to one-on-ones,” she said.

How to Evaluate Providers

In terms of how to select a financial wellness provider, Bettencourt said companies should first determine if they have the talent and the resources on staff to build it themselves. But some firms may need to partner with another organization to build a program that fits their needs.

If a company decides to hire a financial wellness provider, or asks its retirement plan adviser or consultant to offer the program, it should consider the knowledge and credentials of the company, Bettencourt said, and plan sponsors should make sure their provider understands the company. She said, for example that “VSP is a HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] agency, and you have to be a HUD agency to provide some of the things we do.”

Financial wellness programs, in many instances, need to be provided in Spanish and consider workers who aren’t native English speakers, she continued. Even the marketing materials need to be in Spanish and simple English for a more successful rollout, Bettencourt said.

“All of those are considerations,” she said. “Building that internally is a big hill to climb.”

To overcome this, VSP partners with its vendors to keep its financial wellness program running and up-to-date, she said. “What I look for from vendors, is what can they bring to [help] my employees and whether or not they can offer one-on-ones,” she said.

Companies might be surprised to learn that they can also partner with local banks, even big banks, at the corporate level, she said.

Send said this is a good route for smaller companies to consider. “If you have zero budget [for a financial wellness program], use those local resources,” Send said. “At least you are starting,” even if it is just a class on budgeting.

Small employers with limited funds should aim to show to their workers that they are committed to the financial wellness program, she added. “That is a soft cost, but that is a cost.”

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