Halma Holdings Inc.

Halma Holdings Inc., the U.S. division of Halma plc, consists of 34 operating companies in the safety, health and environmental technology industries. The companies vary in size—some have 50 to 100 people at one location; others have five to 10, spread through the U.S. The employees generally identify with their operating company, but Halma Holdings provides the 401(k) and other benefits.

“They’re mostly small to midsize companies, and what we can offer through the Halma plan is better than what they could do on their own,” says Brian Pennock, U.S. total rewards partner for Halma Holdings, which has its headquarters in Summit, New Jersey. “We use our operating expertise so they can grow their businesses and don’t have to worry about the day-to-day details.”

“When I joined in 2021, we started benchmarking to see what we could do with what we had and where we wanted to be,” says Pennock. Halma listened to concerns of the operating companies, which wanted a larger match and faster vesting in order to become more competitive for attracting new employees. It also heard from employees who wanted to participate in the plan sooner. At the time, they could enroll only at the beginning of the quarter after 90 days of service. “It was administratively difficult to do that more frequently,” says Pennock.

So the next year, Halma made major improvements: It reduced the waiting period for plan entry from quarterly to 30 days, increased the employer match from 3% to 5% and raised the automatic enrollment default rate to 5%. It also accelerated vesting to 50% after two years of service and 100% after three years, from a three-year cliff.

Engagement improved immediately. From last April to December, contributions to the plan increased by $14 million—e.g., 50% of participants actively upped their contribution to benefit from the increased match—and lifetime income scores for the overall plan increased by 6%. Participants are also making the most of extra services provided by the plan’s adviser—30% take advantage of retirement readiness reviews, and more than 30% use advisory services that offer account management.

Switching to Empower Retirement as the recordkeeper enabled Halma to make many of these changes. “Halma wanted to be competitive and had that vision that there’s so much more we can do,” says Janine Beal, senior relationship manager with Empower. “It happened in a very short time.”

Reducing the waiting period for enrollment to just 30 days made a big difference in employee engagement. “We wanted them to see the retirement savings plans as part of the employment value proposition and get them to join sooner and save sooner; they’re more involved in taking a look at the offerings when they first join,” Pennock notes.

Halma also increased its educational efforts and made information more accessible to employees who lacked daily access to a computer. It holds monthly video conferences with all human resources and payroll staff, and tailors communications so they best engage employees at each operating company.

In the past, Halma representatives made site visits every two years to talk about the plan and the importance of saving for retirement. Now, the company offers quarterly educational meetings, flyers, on-demand webinars, which can be found on the company’s payroll platform—often in English and Spanish—and targeted message campaigns based on milestones in participants’ lives. “We can send them personalized reminders and targeted communications according to age,” Beal says.

“We see much better results, from the broad spectrum of communication and education channels now,” Pennock says.

—Kimberly Lankford