Our Approach
For decades, traditional retirement plan advisers operated under one model: assume advisory control of a plan and checked in with management sporadically to maintain the relationship. Guidance to actual participants, if given, was at best limited to periodic changes in the investment fund line-up and encouraging employees to contribute to the plan.
Promoting a healthy retirement plan requires more. It needs more than just having an annual conversation on fees and performance. Advising with an education-based focus is where we excel, and we do this with a two-prong approach, first at the employer level to reduce fiduciary liability and next at the employee level to promote financial literacy and well-being.
Employer Level
Retirement is living, breathing, and filled with infinite possibilities. Why should your retirement plan not be the same?
We start by crafting a retirement plan that suits your company’s needs and adjusts to ensure it follows all aspects of governmental regulations. Reducing your risk as a fiduciary plan sponsor is of utmost concern and a guiding principle we strive to achieve.
As your company grows, so should your retirement plan. Throughout the way, we ensure the plan is changing in a healthy fashion using proactive measures towards reducing excessive fees, eliminating redundancies, and revising the funds to incorporate the best-in-class choices during market adjustments.
Employee Level
Most advisers interact only with employees through the plan enrollment meeting. The hour-long rigamarole on the importance of enrollment serves no further purpose to your employees beyond reminding them of financial tasks that are needed but daunting.
Quite frankly, we prefer not to have employee enrollment meetings. We find the process redundant and time-consuming which is why we created a virtual enrollment meeting for your employees. They can access the event at their own time and understand it at their own pace. More information →
Instead, we prefer to spend our time communicating to your employees on The Why and The How.
As the number of retirees dramatically grows, federal regulations and oversight become more commonplace. Plan sponsors hold a fiduciary responsibility, and we are starting to see the cracks created by poorly advised retirement plans.
The scrutiny over fiduciary responsibilities of plan sponsors has led to a surge of lawsuits over corporate retirement plans. From fees to the lack of education, and even poor investment selections the litigation consequences are much higher than before the 2008 Great Recession.
Our proactive approach is designed to modernize your retirement plan so that it is in line with today’s environment. Protecting our clients from retirement plan lawsuits means understanding the current landscape, identifying the risk areas, and applying the practices needed to mitigate those concerns.
The Why starts with a better understanding of the current retirement landscape. The plan participants need education on how retirement differs significantly from one generation to the next.
The How is a multi-faceted approach designed to take plan participants from unprepared to financially savvy. We replace the boring enrollment meetings with engaging and thought-provoking educational sessions designed to provide actionable advice.
Our subjects rotate on a quarterly basis but include areas such as but not limited to:
Budgeting and debt management.
Taking control of sky-high student loans.
Understanding Social Security and Medicare.
Age-based investment philosophies.
We do this because empowering our employees to lead a life with their finances well-managed and in check has shown to reduce stress and increase productivity.