Benefits April 25, 2018

Certain Factors Critical to Wellness Program Engagement

Integrating and simplifying benefits programs and the human touch enhances engagement in employee wellness programs, according to a survey of large employers.

Reported by

Employers implement wellness programs, in part, to address health benefit costs and costs from lost productivity.

However, often there is a lack of engagement in wellness programs by employees. HealthAdvocate surveyed large employers to get a sense of best practices to drive and sustain employee engagement in health and well-being. Survey participants made it clear that fragmentation is a major challenge, creating administrative headaches for HR and confusion for employees. Further, integrating and simplifying benefits programs enhances both access and utilization. Finally, while technology plays an important and growing role in today’s benefits programs, the human touch is still critical for success.

Get more!  Sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters.

When asked what approaches benefits leaders currently used to optimize employee engagement in health and well-being benefits, about one-quarter mentioned a unified integrated benefits management platform, while another 25% specifically said mobile applications and social media were starting to play a larger role than in previous years. The majority cited more conventional approaches including regular communications via newsletters and blogs (78%); events/meetings (67%); contributions to flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs) or health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) (65%); and incentives (54%). Incentives most commonly used to encourage engagement included HSA contributions (49%), reduced insurance premiums (44%) and cash/gifts (39%).

Employers that use multiple providers for health and well-being benefits cited several challenges. At the top of the list at 44% was “disjointed, confusing for employees.” Next, at 43%, was fragmentation of vendor/partner/internally developed tools, with several numbers to call. Another problem, said 40%, was the lack of utilization, and 35% felt technology issues with integrating systems was a challenge. Some organizations mitigate this by having one expert or one number to call to help navigate the various benefits from a multitude of vendors. HeatlhAdvocate says this expert would have to be educated on all of an employee’s options in order to effectively help them get the right help when they need it.

“By reducing the amount of effort required on the part of the employee to access programs and information, the more likely the employee is to engage in their health and take advantage of the programs available to them,” the survey report says.

Eight out of ten survey respondents confirmed that having some level of high-touch human support increases employee engagement with their benefits. A majority (78%) offer employees access to live support to help with health goals and benefits navigation.

HealthAdvocate’s report, “Driving Benefits Engagement: Strategies to Optimize Employee Health and Well-Being Programs,” is here.
Products April 25, 2018

Vanguard Announces Enhancements to DC and NQ Plan Service Offerings

In addition to a new retirement readiness tool that offers an aggregate picture of retirement savings, Vanguard has partnered with TD Ameritrade for a new brokerage account option and has partnered with the Newport Group for non-qualified plan administration.

Reported by

Vanguard has enhanced certain service offerings for 401(k) and non-qualified plan sponsors and participants.

It has decided to partner with TD Ameritrade to offer a self-directed brokerage account. Martha King, Vanguard managing director and head of the Vanguard Institutional Investor Group, tells PLANSPONSOR that Vanguard has been offering brokerage windows in 401(k) plans for years. “The majority of plans don’t offer them, but even if they do only a small group of participants use them. Still, we don’t want to ignore their needs,” she says.

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan benefits news.

King notes that an important differentiator of the TD platform from Vanguard’s platform is that advisers will have access to participant accounts. “It is not uncommon for participants to have relationships with advisers,” she says.

This new service will give registered investment advisers access to the TD Ameritrade institutional account management and trading platform for RIAs—called Veo. Using this service, advisers who work with Vanguard 401(k) plan participants can view and manage client accounts individually or collectively. Participants will still need to verify their financial advisers’ access as part of the enrollment process.

The difference is that when using Vanguard Brokerage Services, participants could grant account access and management to their personal advisers; however, advisers are limited in that they have to manage each client account individually and cannot download/transfer information to their own proprietary software. Vanguard Brokerage Services was tailored to its primary user—the do-it-yourself retail investor.

New retirement readiness tool

As part of its participant website enhancements, Vanguard is offering the Retirement Readiness Tool to provide actionable advice about retirement savings. It can aggregate participants’ 401(k), pension, individual retirement account (IRA) and projected Social Security benefits to offer a full retirement savings picture. Participants may need to input information about outside assets.

In addition, the tool uses assumptions, such as future contributions and forecasts from the Vanguard Capital Markets Model, to project how savings will grow over time. Applying a customizable 4% withdrawal rule, the tool is then able to produce an estimate of future monthly retirement income. The information can also help plan sponsors calculate the projected income replacement ratios for their participants through Vanguard’s new Retirement Readiness Plan Assessment.

According to King, knowledge gleaned from the retirement readiness tool helps with Vanguard’s new Personalized Participant Journeys offering. “Plan sponsors can use the knowledge they’ve gained from analytical capabilities to utilize personalized messages/nudges so they can get participants engaged [in retirement planning],” she says.

More about this offering can be found here.

Non-qualified plan administration

Vanguard has also decided to partner with Newport Group, a provider of non-qualified (NQ) plan administration, which specializes in the complexities of NQ plans. King explains that Newport’s recordkeeping system will be used by Vanguard, but Vanguard will continue to be in front of relationships—participants will speak to Vanguard and so will plan sponsors. “We are leveraging significant investment in the technology Newport offers,” she says.

“In any of our businesses, we can never just stand still. We consistently evaluate offerings, systems and what we’re providing clients,” King says. “In the course of our review, we saw opportunities for better service experiences for clients. We can build some capabilities ourselves, and we can partner with others to bring things to market more quickly.”

More information about all of the changes can be viewed here.

«