INEOS USA, LLC

TOTAL PLAN ASSETS/PARTICIPANTS: $619.9 million/3,263

PARTICIPATION RATE: 94.9%

AVERAGE DEFERRAL RATE: 11.1%

DEFAULT DEFERRAL RATE: 6%

EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION: 3% nonelective contribution, plus 100% match on 6%

With five generations of employees now at its company, INEOS has learned to approach them about saving for retirement in different ways.

The chemical company, headquartered in League City, Texas, recently hired its first members of Generation Z, the Americans born since 1995. The company’s current employee demographics break down like this: Generation Z/Centennials, 0.07%; Generation Y/Millennials, 27.35%; Generation X, 33%; Baby Boomers, 39.35%; and Silent Generation (born 1945 or earlier), 0.22%.

The Baby Boom generation likes to receive retirement communications via email and at their homes, says Carrie Stotts, director of benefits and payroll for INEOS. The employer utilizes the “Retire With Confidence” communications program of its recordkeeper, T. Rowe Price Group Inc., to send emails about age-relevant topics such as catch-up contributions, Medicare and Social Security. “We also offer full-day, pre-retirement seminars on retirement readiness and preparation, which both the employee and spouse may attend at no cost,” she says.

Generation X employees, like Baby Boomers, prefer communications sent via email and snail mail, Stotts says. “For the under-50 crowd, we also offer half-day pre-retirement seminars, with the main focus on retirement savings [rates], asset allocation and diversification,” she says. And, as part of the “Retire with Confidence” program, Gen X employees receive emails about age-relevant topics such as saving enough for retirement and choosing appropriate investments for their age. The communications also highlight tools available to participants through the T. Rowe Price website, such as an age-based asset allocation tool, to aid in their decisionmaking. 

Millennials also get targeted emails from T. Rowe Price, in this case covering topics such as the importance of saving for retirement, how to save enough to receive the full company match, and Roth contributions. “We also have found the younger generations feel much more at ease doing their own research using the INEOS benefits website, which is very different than [with] the Baby Boomers,” Stotts says. “We realize that the Millennials and Centennials may have different expectations insofar as communications. So we’re exploring other avenues for expanding our communications capabilities to include social media—texting, tweeting, chatting, etc.—and an electronic newsletter that would provide brief updates on a periodic basis.”   
  
In addition to the targeted education, some plan communications go out to all generations. Last November, INEOS—which is co-advised by The Ratay Group and The Mott Group, both at Morgan Stanley—sent a custom retirement-education brochure to all employees, and it highlights the plan provisions and importance of saving for retirement. “We did not customize the brochure to any one employee group, but we did insert a savings-rate table with varying salary amounts aimed to capture the attention of our employees,” says Erin West, INEOS retirement administrator lead. “We thought employees could relate to the materials better by showing an example of how to save for retirement based on their annual income level.”

Subsequently that month and in early December, the plan saw an uptick in employees increasing their deferral percentages and in signing up to make deferrals where they previously had never contributed to their account. —Judy Ward