Improving Employees’ Financial Picture and Increasing Engagement

When looking to increase participant engagement with their company’s retirement plan, plan sponsors take varying approaches, as they have vastly different plan demographics and aim to “meet people where they are.”

Speakers at PLANSPONSOR’s series, “2024 Plan Sponsors in Conversation,” discussed the ways in which they help participants of different age cohorts through their financial wellness programs.

The plan sponsors who participated in the webinar were all Plan Sponsor of the Year finalists and winners.

‘Everything in One Place’

In the webinar “Improving Employees’ Financial Picture and Increasing Engagement,” Tamra Miller, benefits manager at Ingevity Corp., a chemical manufacturing company, said her employee base is primarily made up of older, male employees, the majority in their mid-40s. As a result, many of the benefits the company offers are tailored to that population.

Working with recordkeeper Empower, Miller said participants are able to access free financial planning services and an online wealth management tool. For the savvy investors, the plan also offers self-directed brokerage accounts and managed accounts.

Miller said while the participants in the plan are highly educated and include experts in niche fields, many of whom have earned a Ph.D., understanding the importance of investing and retirement savings is not everyone’s priority.

“We have some employees who have been with the company for 40 to 50 years,” Miller said. “ We find that people don’t start to pay attention to retirement until they’re in their 40s.”

She added that the plan relies on Empower for many services, as she is part of a small team and running her own programming or outsourcing with another service provider is both costly and a heavy administrative burden. Miller said the plan used to offer a debt management program with an outside provider, but it did not see significant engagement, and it was difficult to measure whether it was actually helping people with debt.

“There’s a … solution for everything,” Miller said. “Whether it be in retirement or health and welfare, there’s a vendor out there that will sell you something. You [run the risk of] overwhelming employees with too many benefit offerings, and they just freeze because it’s too much to choose from. Having everything in one place, easy to access and easy to manage is hugely important.”

Miller said the financial wellness program the company offers has a 20% participation rate, which she said is high for these programs. The company also offers annual retirement readiness webinars, which include information about Social Security and Medicare, as well as about the importance of paying down debt, which she said also has good participation.

Adding AI

Lindsay Madaras, senior manager of associate well-being at Bread Financial Holdings Inc., a financial services company, said out of the company’s 7,000 employees, 6,000 work in the U.S. and are spread out across various time zones, and 1,000 are based in India. She also said about half the company is made up of call center workers, which poses some unique challenges.

When she first joined Bread Financial, Madaras said the company only offered financial wellness workshops, called “Dollars and Sense,” which the company still offers, in which speakers from local credit unions or from the plan’s recordkeeper educate workers on various financial topics. She said about 2,000 associates participate in this program, which is offered on paid company time to make it easier to attend for call center workers.

“But even though we’re offering [the workshops], … we wanted to go step forward and offer a resource that can be really personalized and customized to them,” Madaras said. “The monthly topics we put out are great, but they may not meet people where they are in their specific financial journey.”

Bread Financial now works closely with BrightPlan, a financial wellness tool, and Madaras said anyone with a balance in the plan has access to the program. She said the tool is meant to be a holistic platform that allows participants to link different financial accounts to see their overall net worth, including any debt or savings.

Madaras said BrightPlan also recently launched an AI tool, a wellness coach, that allows participants to ask questions related to their finances. The tool will pull answers from information in its academy of educational tools. In addition, she said BrightPlan offers free, unlimited calls with a certified financial planner.

BrightPlan also expanded globally, so Madaras said the “icing on the cake” is that employees based in India now have access to the program as well.

Giving Employees a Say

Monica De Agostino, director of benefits, compensation and HRIS at MRIGlobal, a nonprofit science research institute, said her organization serves 400 employees, all with varying needs.

The organization hosted a financial education week in August, with about 150 employees participating, that covered three financial topics: asset protection, navigating life changes and estate planning. She said participants also showed an interest in learning more about medical insurance, so the company created a “Medical Insurance Crash Course” series.

De Agostino added that there is a “real power to pulse surveys” and to providing participants a say in their benefits. For example, in a recent survey, MRIGlobal provided several available benefits options and told employees the three that received the most votes would be offered.

“When people have a say, they’re more likely to show up and engage,” she said.

She said it is also important to ensure that educational content is accessible to all employees.

“When it comes to talking about money, there’s a psychological reaction that people will have, and a lot of it is anxiety,” De Agostino said. “In my population, we have a lot of smart [employees], but people can be hesitant to say, ‘I don’t know about this.’ As we’re putting content together, we have to keep in mind that no matter who we’re dealing with, it’s important to [use] language that is approachable, inclusive [and has a] conversational tone.”

A recording of the conversation is available.