Southwest Ohio ENT Specialists

Southwest Ohio ENT Specialists, board-certified ear, nose and throat physicians, which has its main offices in Dayton, Ohio, says it strives to offer an elite retirement plan that helps attract and retain employees. “The original attraction, before they are an employee, is that SOENTS provides a 3% safe harbor nonelective contribution, and each year a profit sharing contribution is reviewed, that usually provides an additional 2% to the participants,” says Dan Young, the organization’s outgoing CEO of 32 years.

After a new employee starts there, what SOENTS takes the most pride in, Young says, is what it provides through Jonathan Hlavac, a retirement plan consultant at Everhart Advisors. “From day one, employees have a partner—a financial planner that we offer to everybody, from the receptionist to medical assistants to audiologists to the whole gamut.” Each new employee is assigned a one-hour lunch-time meeting with Hlavac. “That’s their introduction to Jon before they’re even part of the plan—that he’s there for them,” Young says. “He’ll gives them his cell number and email address, and he’ll meet with their spouse. So it’s really a huge benefit.”

Young says that Hlavac does more than give employees information—he provides valuable context for it too, for example, showing how a competitor’s job offer may not be as good as it seems.

Occasionally, employees are courted by the biggest hospital in downtown Dayton, Hlavac says. “When employees are courted by that hospital, I’ll explain and translate for them that a dollar per hour raise to go over to that hospital is not even close to what they now receive in total compensation. That’s a big part of the job—getting people to understand that.”

Hlavac and his colleagues at Everhart are local to Dayton, and are made available for one-on-one sessions to employees at least quarterly, Young says.

When the 401(k) plan changed recordkeepers in 2019, Hlavac helped negotiate lower fees and enhance the qualified default investment alternative with the addition of a custom portfolio allocation service. “The PortfolioXpress has a dynamic asset allocation program—the default version is a moderate allocation that is age-based, but the employee [additionally has a choice of] conservative or aggressive, depending on how they want their assets to be allocated,” Hlavac says. This service automatically diversifies participants’ portfolios from the funds available in the plan, periodically rebalancing the allocation as the participant approaches retirement, he says.

Hlavac, as a 3(21) adviser, frequently reviews the menu of investment options that are available in the plan. “If there’s something in the model that needs to be removed and replaced, it’s being removed and replaced for every employee who utilizes that particular investment option, and that information is retained inside the dynamic asset allocation program,” he notes.

The plan sponsor also now offers a cash balance plan. While all employees are a part of it, the highly compensated employees are the ones who will benefit most, from maximum tax deferral contributions, Hlavac says. “However, this is a very nice benefit to all staff, above and beyond the 401(k).”

“I’ve always got the staff on my mind,” Young says, “and with any decision—not just a 401(k) decision, but with health benefits, regulatory things—our goal is to provide a lifestyle and a full-time job for 150 staff; we keep that in mind in every decision we make.”

—Judy Faust Hartnett