Charles Schwab

Karen Shore, associate well-being benefits lead at Humana Inc., says that even though the company’s retirement plan has automatic enrollment, its management wanted to engage participants. “Given the dynamics of our workforce, Humana recognized that some associates may be hesitant to contact a professional services organization to discuss their personal finances or retirement savings strategy,” Shore says. “One of the key drives of Schwab Live! was to make associates feel more comfortable in reaching out to Schwab for financial guidance.”

Bobbye Gresh, director of communication consulting at Charles Schwab, says she came up with the idea for Schwab Live! and Schwab Coffee Talks because of Humana’s commitment to financial wellness.

“This gave us an opportunity to think differently about how their associates interact with us,” she says of Humana’s employees. “We started thinking about hosting a live panel to give the associates an opportunity to ask questions and be part of the conversation, giving a twist to how we deliver information about 401(k) plans. We worked with our internal folks—the phone center, the advice space, the professional consulting space—to come together. We used technology to ask questions upfront and throughout Schwab Live!, and we answered them on the fly, like a morning news show.” The inaugural event attracted 59% of Humana’s workforce.

Schwab then surveyed participants to find out what resonated with them, Gresh says. The recordkeeper used those surveys to develop Schwab Coffee Talks, 10-minute videos on such topics as Social Security and Roth 401(k)s. As Gresh puts it, “You can grab a cup of coffee, listen and learn something in a short period of time.”

Since developing the program for Humana, Schwab has rolled it out to other clients—and 1,200 plan sponsor clients have signed on.

As Gresh puts it, “The neat thing is that we continue to evolve our core offerings, and in doing so, we have re-energized it for all of our clients with these live panels.”

As to relationship manager Staci Probst’s role, Shore says she “has been a strategic partner with Humana related to merger and acquisition [M&A] activities. She has developed processes to keep our plans compliant, overcoming the obstacles of multiple payroll systems and multiple plan recordkeepers.”

—Lee Barney