Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

When the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium switched to Principal Financial Group as its 403(b) plan recordkeeper in 2021, the desire to strengthen employee education played a big role.

“It was a large part of why we moved, because we didn’t have a lot of success with our previous vendor on educating our employees,” Krisha Loescher, the benefits manager at ANTHC, recalls.

Since then, 403(b) participation has risen to 87% from about 70% at the Anchorage, Alaska-based nonprofit, which aims to “meet the unique health needs of Alaska Native and American Indian people living in Alaska.”

ANTHC, which does work ranging from providing comprehensive medical services at its Alaska Native Medical Center to constructing rural water and sanitation systems around the state, has a very diverse workforce. “We have people who are entry-level employees and very early in their career, up to physicians and executives,” Loescher says. “We see high-income earners who are very involved in how to invest their retirement money, and we see other employees who have just started ‘adulting,’ and saving for their retirement is not even something they’re thinking about.”

Principal now offers ANTHC’s 403(b) participants multiple ways to get the information and education they need, including a mobile app, call center and in-person meetings. All employees can easily arrange one-on-one meetings with Principal, Loescher says, whereas the previous recordkeeper focused more on working with highly compensated employees. The mobile app for the participant site offers the same functionality as the desktop version. Group education meetings are recorded and available to watch on the participant site; previously, employees had to attend the session to get the information. “There is now extraordinary flexibility in how people can get educated, and that has really helped,” she adds.

ANTHC is taking a more targeted approach to employee education that has helped participation, Rachel Christman, its director of total rewards, says. “For younger employees, we’re giving them training on starting small with their retirement saving,” she says. “We show them how contributing just a little bit, starting now, will really help them in the long run.”

The 403(b) plan has a 100% match on 5% salary deferral, plus a 3% profit-sharing contribution, which has helped motivate participation. The plan’s advisory committee now has design changes in the works that it hopes to implement in January 2024, including increasing the default deferral rate from 3% to 5% so that new participants will default to receiving the full match.

“We’re framing our message to employees around, ‘We have a very rich match and a profit-sharing contribution, so don’t leave money on the table,’” Loescher says. “People understand that now, and we also now have a consistent way for them to reach out [to Principal] to get answers to their questions.”

ANTHC also communicates with employees about the employer contribution in the larger context of its total rewards package, Christman says. “We’re having the conversation with them that this is another form of payment,” she says. “I think it shows that we’re investing in our employees’ futures; that we’re helping them to be financially secure down the road, not just today.”

—Judy Ward